News

South Korea’s Plus M Entertainment arrives at the 2025 Berlin European Film Market (EFM) with a star-studded lineup led by “Squid Game 2” actor Kang Ha-neul in crime thriller “Yadang: The Snitch” and an international cast including Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, and “Squid Game” actor Hoyeon in Na Hong-jin’s “Hope.”

“Yadang: The Snitch,” from the producers behind record-breaking hit “12:12 The Day” and “Inside Men,” follows professional informants called “yadang” who provide covert information about the drug world to prosecutors and police. When a drug bust at a party attended by high-profile second-generation VIPs leads to a dangerous conspiracy, a seasoned yadang must fight to survive. The film pairs Kang with “Exhuma” star Yoo Hai-jin and “The World of the Married” actor Park Hae-joon.

“Train to Busan” director Yeon Sang-ho returns with “The Ugly,” a mystery thriller starring “Harbin” lead Park Jeong-min and “Parasyte: The Grey” actor Kwon Hae-hyo,...

Continuing the small trend of Korean action movies about stories of locals outside of Asia, as in “Escape from Mogadishu” and “The Point Men”, Kim Seong-je has come up with a story taking place in Bogota this time, with the film actually being shot there, at least until Covid forced the filmmakers to relocate in Korea. At the same time, however, the quality of these titles seems to deteriorate with each entry, and “City of the Lost”, unfortunately, is no exception.

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After his family is uprooted by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, 19-year-old Kook-hee (Song Joong-ki) arrives in Bogotá with his parents in hopes of a better life, only to be thrown into a brutal struggle for survival. Stripped of their savings and left to fend for himself, he takes a job under Sergeant Park, who has started as a...

Is Hyun Bin making a comeback with Harbin? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

The South Korean film industry has repeatedly delivered good historical fiction stories. The themes are often about patriotism, valor, freedom struggle, etc. These movies familiarise viewers with the country’s history and transport them to a time when things were starkly different from the present. Actors in the South Korean industry have been well-noted for their roles in period dramas.

Hyun Bin is one of the most celebrated actors in the South Korean film industry. He is known for roles in dramas and movies like Crash Landing on You, Secret Garden, The Negotiator, Confidential Assignment 1 & 2, and The Point Men. Now he is set to return to the screen after pausing Crash Landing on You. He will be seen as the lead in the upcoming historical fiction period drama Harbin. Woo Min Ho, known for movies like Inside Men and The Drug King,...

The London Korean Film Festival (Lkff) wrapped its 19th edition on Wednesday with a screening of E.oni’s bold coming-of-age drama Love in the Big City, which stars Kim Go-eun (Exhuma) and Noh Sang-hyun (Pachinko).

Run by the Korean Cultural Centre UK (Kccuk), this year’s festival drew over 3,300 attendees and also marked a historic collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI), with several screenings taking place at the BFI’s Southbank Theatre.

The Kccuk will also host a special preview and UK premiere of Squid Game Season 2 on December 16 at the BFI’s theater, ahead of the series’ worldwide premiere on December 26 on Netflix.

The BFI is also running a series until December 31 in collaboration with the Kccuk and Korean Film Archives called “Echoes in Time,” featuring 30 Korean films produced during the Golden Age of the 1960s and the New Korean Cinema era.

Eunji Lee, Kcc’s head of...

A strong December for local films helped make up for an otherwise miserable 2023 at the South Korean box office – previously the fifth largest cinema territory worldwide.

And while theatrical markets in other major territories have recovered to reach at or near pre-pandemic levels, Korea finished 44% below 2019.

Data from the Korean Film Council’s Kobis tracking service showed annual gross revenues of KRW1.261 trillion ($964 million at Jan 2024 rates of exchange) in 2023. That represented a gain of 9% on 2022, but it was far below the KRW1.91 trillion ($1.46 billion) recorded in 2019, the last pre-covid year.

The bleak trend was mirrored in terms of attendance or ticket sales, which remains the country’s preferred performance measure. Cinema attendance reached 125 million in 2023, an 11% increase compared with the 113 million recorded in 2022, but 45% below 2019’s 227 million.

Kobis’ monthly data describe a year of peaks and troughs. Powered by holdover title “Avatar: The Way of Water,” 2023 started brightly enough,...

The celebrated filmmaker received the Etoile du Cinema award.

Acclaimed Korean filmmaker Yim Soon-rye received the honorary Etoile du Cinema award at the Busan International Film Festival (Biff) on Saturday, October 7, at an event hosted in partnership with Screen International.

French writer/director Bertrand Bonello presented Yim with the award, which is bestowed on talent revered by Korean-French film fans.

The ceremony took place during ‘French Night’ at Biff at the Paradise Hotel in Busan, held by the French Embassy in Korea and Unifrance.

Lim is known for a string of features including Korean hostage crisis drama The Point Men,...

Kim Seong-hun and Ha Jung-woo, the director-actor combo who gave us Tunnel, reunite for the second time on the winning buddy action-comedy Ransomed, the latest in a series of high-profile films based on recent real-life stories featuring Korean characters gallivanting in third world countries. This very specific subgenre, which also includes Ryoo Seung-wan's Escape from Mogadishu, The Point Men and the Netflix series Narco-Saints, also with Ha, popped out of nowhere when all these projects were announced in late 2019. Later joining the cadre was the Choi Min-shik led Disney+ series Big Bet. Ha plays Korean diplomat Lee Min-jun in the 1980s, who volunteers to engage in a daring plot to retrieve a fellow Korean diplomat, kidnapped in Lebanon 18 months earlier but yet to...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

For many, Kim Seong-hun made one of the best non-serial killer South Korean thriller in “A Hard Day”. While he followed that up with the rather well-made but comparatively underwhelming “Tunnel”, he has since settled for creating a zombie-infested Joseon for Netflix's ultra-popular series “Kingdom”. For his much-awaited return to the big screen, he follows “Escape from Mogadishu” and “The Point Men” in adapting a real-life situation involving Korean diplomats finding themselves in a pickle overseas, for an action adventure feature presentation.

“Ransomed” is released by WellGo USA

Lebanon, 1986. A newly-deployed South Korean diplomat gets kidnapped and despite the government's best efforts, they are unable to find his whereabouts or even who his captives are. Without any ransom demands, the case hits a dead-end for more than a year, when suddenly one evening, Min-joon, a diplomat for the Iranian region in the Ministry of External Affairs, gets a phone...

The successful distribution of Korean media around the world has led to the celebration of brilliant filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. However, if you ask an American cinephile or film critic to name one Korean woman director they would likely not be able to come up with an answer.

With its ongoing series “A New Wave of K-Cinema: Korean Women Directors,” The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is hoping to change that. Across the month of June, the Los Angeles museum is showing 10 contemporary Korean films made by women that “explore the complexities of diverse conditions, including the trauma of domestic violence, investigations into gender and class politics, humanity’s relation to nature and the environment, and love and friendship.”

Hyesung ii, who organized “A New Wave of K-Cinema,” told TheWrap it is a series she has had in mind since she began working at the museum. “As...

Netflix’s first-ever “Bridgerton” spin-off, “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” exploded into the global viewing charts this week, while movies were led by Tom Hanks‘ “A Man Called Otto.” Read on for the Netflix Top 10 (Week of May 1) viewing chart analysis.

It probably was a no-brainer for Netflix to explore the past of a popular character from Shonda Rhimes‘ hit streaming series “Bridgerton,” with Golda Rosheuvel reprising her title role in “Queen Charlotte” with India Amarteifio playing her younger self. Corey Mylchreest and Arsema Thomas were also part of the cast, playing Young King George and Young Agatha Danbury in the series building on Shondaland’s “Bridgerton-verse.” In its very first week, “Charlotte” received 148.3 million viewing hours worldwide, as the #1 series in the U.S., Canada and dozens of other countries.

Having just been renewed for a third season, the second season of “Sweet Tooth” followed in second place with 60.5 million hours viewed,...

Japanese animation “Suzume” retained the top spot at the South Korean box office for a second weekend, far outstripping holdover titles and newcomers including “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

On its second weekend of release, “Suzume” earned $5.65 million, just a small fraction below its opening weekend score of $5.71 million. Underlining its dominance, the film increased its market share from 60% previously to 62%.

After 12 days of release, the film has accumulated $15.8 million, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

It places ahead of “The First Slam Dunk,” which topped the Korean chart more than a month ago, in early February. “Slam Dunk” earned $887,000 over the weekend for a running total of $32.8 million since its Jan. 4 debut. That is a record for a Japanese animation in Korea.

Third place over the latest weekend went to new release title, Korean-produced drama film “Soulmate.” It earned $565,000 over...

Markets

Berlin’s just concluded European Film Market (EFM), which had a physical edition this year after two online editions in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic, has reported “record results” according to the organizers. There were 230 stands and 612 companies from 78 countries and more than 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. Some 773 films were shown in 1,533 screenings, including 647 online screenings and 599 market premieres. The total number of buyers also rose to 1,302. 629 film projects were presented on the new Producers & Project Pages.

“After the past two irregular years, we’re pleased to return to the physical in full force, and with a vibrant, bustling and strong market. The exhibition areas at Gropius Bau and the Marriott Hotel were sold out, and the exhibitors reported strong sales and good business. The decision to group all the market happenings together with the Berlinale Series Market and the market screenings at Potsdamer Platz, and to provide the industry with an efficient infrastructure,...

2022 was finally the year that the Korean box office, after the pandemic, was defibrillated back to life. Producers and distributors were finally confident that the time was right for big budget, blockbuster projects, that had long been queueing up for a release, to start making their way to the theatres. After having to resort to Ott streaming and generally smaller scale films, the audience too was hungry to see high-value productions, entertainment and their favorite stars on the big screen and thronged to the theatres, lapping up these releases. So much so that 2022 saw four new films make their way into the 100 highest grossing Korean films of all tie at the domestic box-office, with Ma Dong-seok’s “The Roundup” even rolling comfortably into the top 10.

2023 too began strongly, with the long-in-production “The Point Men” starring Hwang Jung-min and Hyun Bin and the Sol Kyung-gu led ensemble spy thriller “Phantom” opening the year strong.

The re-released “Titanic” made a strong showing at the Korean box office over the latest weekend. But it was kept in second place by the remarkable performance of “The First Slam Dunk.”

The Japanese animation took top spot for the second successive weekend – its sixth weekend on release, after being held behind another James Cameron movie “Avatar: The Way of Water” for the first four weeks of its career – with a Friday to Sunday score of 2.67 million.

Just as unusual, the film’s weekend gross and its market share continued to grow. A week earlier, it shot 2.3 million. Since release on Jan. 4, the basketball-themed picture has accumulated a gross of 23.2 million.

“Titanic” earned 1.83 million over the weekend proper (i.e. between Friday and Sunday) and 695,000 on Wednesday and Thursday, for a rerelease total of 2.52 million.

“Avatar 2” continued in third place with a weekend score of 837,000. Its cumulative now stands at 107 million since release.

Japanese animation film “The First Slam Dunk” was the undisputed champion at the South Korean box office over the weekend. Not only did depose “Abatar: The Way of Water” from first place it also grew its week-on-week performance by 10 – in its fifth weekend on release.

A week earlier the two top titles were much closer. Korean box office charts which rank performance by the number of tickets sold placed “The First Slam Dunk” on top. But in terms of gross receipts, “Avatar 2” had been the top seller.

Over the latest weekend “The First Slam Dunk” earned 2.89 million from 276,000 tickets sold., making it a clear winner over “Avatar 2” which pulled in 1.35 million from 114,000 tickets.

“The First Slam Dunk” has been a leggy hit performer in its native Japan and in other Asian markets. In Korea, it has performed unusually steadily, earning between 2 million and 3 million for five consecutive weekends.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” enjoyed the highest box office takings in Korea over the weekend and reclaimed the top spot after falling to second place a week earlier. But Japanese animation film “The First Slam Dunk,” now in its fourth weekend on release, was the most watched film of the frame and outscored the Hollywood fantasy in terms of ticket sales.

“Avatar 2” earned 2.20 million in its eighth weekend of release. That gives it a cumulative score of 107 million, earned from 10.4 million admissions. Over the latest weekend it sold 187,000 tickets.

Local media in Korea rank films by admissions, rather than revenues, and show “Avatar 2” in third place behind both “The First Slam Dunk” and “The Point Men.”

“Avatar 2” is the winner in revenue terms due to its significantly higher ticket prices, an effect boosted by its dominance of Imax and premium format venues.

“The First Slam Dunk,...