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“Riff Raff” will be available in theaters on February 28, 2025, and is currently not available for streaming.

Is killing your default solution for solving problems? I Want To Turn Around Not Be Turned Upside Down

The main character in “Riff Raff“ is Riff Raff (played by Pete Davidson). He’s a former criminal, meaning he wants to turn his life around. Instead, his life gets turned upside down when he reunites with certain family members.

Pete Davidson is a comedian, actor, and writer. Most people know him because he was a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL), from 2014 to 2022. His Comedy Specials include: “Pete Davidson: Smd” (2016), “Pete Davidson: Alive from New York” (2020), and “Pete Davidson: Turbo Fonzarelli” (2024). Additionally, his movies include: “The King of Staten Island” (2020), and “The Suicide Squad” (2021). His career in the entertainment industry continues to flourish. Bill Murray also began his career in entertainment as a cast...

“Drive” is a 2024 Korean film, categorized as Action, Crime, Thriller and Suspense, and streaming on Viki. Summary: Is it a real kidnapping or a fake kidnapping being used to earn money? ♦ This is Real!! Call the Police!! Help!! Han Yoo-Na started as a struggling vlogger. The first video she uploaded had zero viewers. But she didn’t become discouraged and give up. She kept on keeping on until finally, she hit upon a “success recipe”. Lying! She shouldn’t have but she did. Not all of it was a lie. Just the part about her father committing suicide. He did die though. That part was true. Telling the story about her father’s suicide and how she struggled to continue made viewers sympathize with her. Many not only sympathized but empathized. The result was that her viewers increased to 700,000 followers and she was earning money! She did […]

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The greatest thing about the body-swap movies is that nobody expects anything else from them than being entertaining. Unless they aspire to bring some big message across (bad idea), they are designed to make the audience either laugh or shudder. That said, not everyone has Carl Rainer's ability to make a screwball comedy like “All of Me” (1984), blessed with hilarious dialogues and unforgettable performances by Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin, nor the creepy vision of a body swap penned by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary for John Woo's “Face Off”, with John Travolta in his scariest role so far. It is clear that all of them, be it good or bad use the proved recipes with the same basic ingredients, because what else can you do in a body swap movie, then swapping people in each other's bodies? The opposites always qualify for the plot, and fine seasoning is needed to make it work,...

The high skies have often been a setting for cinematic stories, playing with the high altitude setting for laughs, thrills and even action. For his latest film “Ok! Madam”, director Lee Cheol-ha uses the same setting for a mix of all three, in a final product that doesn't quite manage to succeed at either successfully.

“Ok! Madam” is available from Echelon Studios

Married couple Mi-yeong, a local market baker, and Seok-hwan, a computer repair expert, both slog out day in, day out to make just enough of a living to get by with their daughter Na-ri. Their dream is to go on a vacation for the first time since their wedding. So when Mi-yeong wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, the happy family gladly boards the flight to take them to their dream holiday. However, it is on the same flight that a purported North Korean defector is supposed to be flying,...

Leading South Korean film sales firm Finecut has boarded “Toxic,” a fact-based drama-thriller about a mysterious outbreak that killed thousands. The firm, which is also representing Hong Sang-soo’s Berlin competition title “Introduction,” will unveil the new title to buyers at next month’s European Film Market.

The film is the dramatization of events between 1994 and 2011 in which at least 1,600, and possibly as many as 14,000, people in Korea died. Consumer goods companies including the U.K.’s Reckitt-Benckiser sold tens of millions of humidifier-disinfectants for everyday use. Some included medicinal claims such as the suggestion that they would be good for people suffering from the common cold. Instead, with possible government complicity, the products skipped proper testing and were later found to contain chemicals that caused irreversible lung damage.

The film centers on an ER doctor whose wife may have lost her life because of the product. Along with other victims,...

Actress Uhm Jung-hwa returns to the big screen five years after “Wonderful Nightmare” with director Lee Cheol-ha’s new film “Okay! Madam”.

Synopsis

Mi-young runs a shop at a traditional market, where she makes and sells twisted bread sticks. Her husband Seok-hwan works as a computer repairman. One day, Seok-hwan wins a free trip to Hawaii. Mi-young and Seok-hwan will go on their first international trip together. When Mi-young and Seok-hwan get on the airplane to Hawaii, things don’t go as expected. Terrorists, including Cheol-seung, who are chasing after a secret agent, get on the same airplane. The passengers soon become hostages. Suddenly, Mi-young and Seok-hwan begin to rescue the passengers.

Joining Uhm Jung-hwa on the action comedy is Park Sung-woong, who last had a leading role in another action comedy, the enjoyable “The Dude in Me“, who plays Seok-hwan. Lee Sang-yoon, who was also in Lee Cheol-ha’s previous film “Insane”, plays Cheol-seung,...

The titles are Yu Ha’s heist film Pipeline (working title), Shin Jung-won’s comedy thriller Night Of The Undead and mystery thriller The Anchor.

South Korea’s Finecut has picked up international sales rights for a trio of upcoming genre films - A Dirty Carnival director Yu Ha’s heist film Pipeline (working title), Chaw director Shin Jung-won’s comedy thriller Night Of The Undead and mystery thriller The Anchor, starring Chun Woo-hee (The Wailing).

Pipeline is about an underworld prodigy who is hired to illegally and dangerously drill into a pipeline known as “the artery” of the country to siphon oil.

The South Korean film is sold by Finecut.

South Korean thriller Idol, which screened in the Berlinale Panorama, has been acquired for Japan and Taiwan by New Select and Apex Success Global (Long Shong) respectively. Finecut is handling international sales.

Directed by Lee Su-jin, Idol is about two fathers pitted against each other when their sons are involved in a bloody hit-and-run case. Han Seok-kyu, Sul Kyung-gu and Chun Woo-hee star.

The film has clocked up more than 164,700 admissions and $1.2m to date at home in Korea, following its release on March 20, according to the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

In...

This month’s FilMart rights market in Hong Kong was a busy one for South Korean indie sales house Finecut. It completed multiple license deals.

Berlinale Panorama title “Idol” was acquired by New Select for Japan and Apex Success Global for Taiwan. Directed by indie sensation Lee Su-jin the neo-noir thriller sees the story of a politician who faces the worst crisis of his career due to his son’s car accident. The film stars some of the best-known actors in the country: Han Seok-kyu (“The Berlin File”); Sul Kyung-gu (“The Merciless”) and Chun Woo-hee (“The Wailing”). Locally distributed by Cgv Arthouse, “Idol” opened in Korea on Mar. 20.

Action thriller “No Mercy” scored deals with Busch Media for German-speaking Europe, Borsalino for Latin America, Culture Entertainment for Japan and Av-Jet for Taiwan. Directed by Lim Kyung-tack and starring Lee Si-young, “No Mercy” revolves around a woman searching for her missing sister,...

Korean distributors are having to fight ever harder for their share of Korea’s theatrical market share. Threats on the horizon include a slide in the performance of local movies, consolidation, the arrival of new players and the challenge from streaming services.

South Korea’s theatrical box office is now bigger than that of France or Germany despite a smaller population. But it has largely stopped growing and may be at a turning point. Admissions have plateaued since 2013, and gross revenues have increased largely due to ticket price increases.

The country’s powerhouse exhibition companies Cj-cgv and Lotte have responded by expanding abroad. But for distributors, it means a fight on many fronts.

The clearest evidence that the old order was under threat came last year when Lotte Cultureworks (formerly Lotte Entertainment), dethroned Cj Entertainment as the country’s top distributor for the first time in 15 years. Success came from...