Hommage (Korea) Opened May 26 Drama Directed by Shin Su-won Director Ji-wan (Lee Jung-eun) is in a slump. She aims to entice 200,000 patrons to her new film but finds it difficult to reach her goal. Her family provides little support. One day Ji-wan gets a part-time job restoring an old film about the country‘s first female judge created by first-generation female director Hong Eun-won. Through this process, her passion for filmmaking is renewed. The Red Herring (Korea) Opened May

Feedback from Korean audiences for his new thriller-romance film “Decision to Leave” is more important than winning a trophy at Cannes Film Festival, director Park Chan-wook said during a press conference held at JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square Seoul on Thursday. Park won the best director award for his new film on May 28 at the 75th Cannes Film Festival in southern France. “This film, in particular, is different from my previous work in that it has many elements that only Ko

Actor Song Kang-ho recalled what it was like to receive the best actor award at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, a first for a Korean male, during a press conference for the film held Tuesday, just a day after returning from France. “Very few get to receive awards at Cannes. Only seven out of 21 movies (in competition) get awards. Before midnight, those seven films get a notice that they will receive awards. So I was really nervous before midnight,” Song said during the press confere

Song Kang-ho recalled what it was like to receive the country’s first best actor award at the 75th Cannes Film Festival during the first press conference for the film held after he returned from France on Tuesday. “Very few get to receive awards at Cannes. Only seven out of 21 movies (in competition) get awards. Before midnight those seven films get a notice that they will receive awards. So I was really nervous before midnight,” Song said during the press conference held at

CJ ENM is likely to hit the box office jackpot as an investment distributor of two films -- “Decision to Leave” and “Broker” -- which won major titles at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, film critics said. Park Chan-wook won best director for “Decision to Leave” and Song Kang-ho won best actor for “Broker” at Cannes on Saturday. Some local film critics predicted that CJ ENM could sell as many tickets as it did pre-pandemic in 2019 with the two fi

Even though K-drama star Seo Hyun-jin has appeared in numerous hit soap operas including “The Beauty Inside,” “Another Miss Oh,” and “Temperature of Love,” she found working on the upcoming feature film “Cassiopeia” nerve-racking. “This is my first proper leading role in a movie, so I am nervous and am very curious about the audience’s reaction,” Seo said during an interview with local reporters via videoconference on Thursday.

Good Morning (Korea) Opened May 25 Drama Directed by Cha Bong-joo Soo-mi (Kim Hwan-hee) wants to die due to the difficult situation she had to face as an orphan. Seo-jin (Yoo Sun), a volunteer hospice worker who lost her daughter five years ago, saves Soo-mi as she is about to jump off a bridge. Seo-jin tells Soo-mi that she can learn how to die at the hospice center and suggests she join the volunteers. There, Soo-mi starts teaching In-soo (Lee Soon-jae) how to read and write Korean befor

For “The Roundup” director Lee Sang-yong, filming a movie amid the COVID-19 pandemic was an experience he will not until the day he dies. “We visited Vietnam for the first time in September 2019. We searched for locations to shoot the film and also finished casting Vietnamese actors. We planned to start shooting there at the end of February 2020. So a week before that, part of our team went to Vietnam. Actor So Suk-ku was also there, but we soon heard from the consulate that

“The Roundup,” the sequel to the hit crime film “The Outlaws” (2017), sold more than 3.55 million tickets in the first week of its release, according to the Korean Film Council. It surpassed Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (2022), which sold 3,497,393 tickets during the first seven days of the film’s release. The sequel to the 2017 hit Korean comedy topped the local box office over the weekend -- from Friday to Sunday --

Director Cha Bong-joo said he created his debut feature “Good Morning” after he watched a documentary about patients at a hospice center. “As I was working on the script, I watched a documentary about a hospice center and there was one person who grabbed my attention,” Cha said at a press conference at CGV Yongsan on Thursday. “I found out that he did not have much time left, but he looked so bright and it made me shed tears. I wanted my character Soo-mi to feel

The Roundup (Korea) Opened May 18 Crime Directed by Lee Sang-yong Cop Ma Seok-do heads to Vietnam to extradite a suspect. But soon after his arrival, he discovers murder cases and finds out that the vicious Korean killer (Son Sook-ku) has been committing crimes against Korean tourists for several years. Ma Seok-do decides to chase after the killer but it is not easy as Korean cops do not have investigative power in Vietnam.  Operation Mincemeat (US) Opened May 11 Drama Directed

Although “Cassiopeia” might seem like a woeful movie about a young lawyer in her 30s suffering from Alzheimer’s, the film’s director Shin Youn-shick said he focused more on portraying the father and daughter dynamic. “When I was working on the script. I watched the movie ‘The Intern’ to cool my head. That was also when I had a desire to work with (the actor) Ahn Sung-ki again,” the director said during a press conference held at Megabox theaters

Famous Korean stars Song Kang-ho, Kang Dong-won, IU and Lee Joo-young entered the theater to take part in a press event held at Yongsan CGV on May 10. Just like every other press event with Korean reporters, the stars introduced their roles in the new film, shared their experiences from the set and posed for photos. However, there was one difference. Director Hirokazu Koreeda joined the event via video conference from Japan. There was also an interpreter for the director. The situation was s

“The Red Herring,” a documentary directed by Yi Seung-jun about the embattled ex-Justice Minister Cho Kuk, has raised a total of over 2.6 billion won ($2 million) from over 51,000 people on the crowdfunding platform Tumblbug as of Sunday, far exceeding its original goal of 50 million won. “I was very surprised by the Tumblbug funding result. I am moved by the support. Thank you,” Cho said in a video clip released on Tumblbug Monday. “I want to have a talk with t

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (US) Opened May 4 Action Directed by Sam Raim Set a few months after the events of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021), Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a powerful sorcerer who must protect the earth from mystical menaces. He battles these unexpected enemies with a teenager America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) with the power to travel across the alternate universe. In the process of doing this, he travels into the multiverse. I

Korean American actor Don Lee, better known as Ma Dong-seok in Korea, is returning as a beast-like cop called Ma Seok-do in “The Roundup,” a sequel to the hit crime film “The Outlaws” (2017). “What differentiates the film (from the first movie) is that it has a different villain. Also, the scale of the crime differs, as well as the process of how the cops catch them. The jokes and action in the film were also upgraded,” Lee said during a global press confer

Ex-Justice Minister Cho Kuk made a surprise appearance via video to ask conservative Korean moviegoers to watch “The Red Herring” during a press conference held at CGV Yongsan on President Yoon Suk-yeol’s inauguration day, Tuesday. “What I want the people to know is that there are different perspectives on the situation and that there are different experiences and different testimonies,” Cho said in the video. “I hope this documentary will be watched by man

Even for veteran director Hirokazu Koreeda, who won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 for “Shoplifters,” directing a movie in a foreign country was a challenge. During a press conference at CGV Yongsan in Seoul on Tuesday, the Japanese director said he got a lot of help from “Parasite” star Song Kang-ho while filming his movie, “Broker.” “Before shooting the film, I had a meeting with director Bong Joon-ho. We talked over a mea

Kang Soo-youn, the iconic Korean movie star who brought home the nation’s first acting award from the Venice film festival, died on Saturday at the age of 55. The tragic news came two days after she was taken to hospital on Thursday for a cardiac arrest. Kang died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 3 p.m. at a hospital in southern Seoul, her family said. Kang’s funeral committee is led by Kim Dong-ho, founder of the Busan International Film Festival and the current Gangneung Internatio

I Want to See Your Parent’s Face (Korea) Opened April 27 Drama Directed by Kim Ji-hoon An eighth grade boy, who attends a prestigious middle school, dies by suicide and leaves a note with the names of the four students who bullied him. The parents of the four students are summoned to the school. In the process of finding out what happened to the boy who died, the parents of the alleged offenders team up and try to prevent the truth from being revealed.  Toxic (Korea) Opened Ap