‘Decision to Leave’ Review: A Masterful, Dazzling Love Story Wrapped in a Mischievous Murder Mystery

Having already won a long list of awards during its festival run, including the Visions du Réel Audience Award, The International Wildlife Film Festival’s Best Feature Award, The Independent Film Festival Boston’s Documentary Grand Jury Prize, SIFF’s Special Jury Prize, and numerous others, the scorching documentary “Fire Of Love” looks poised to be one of the documentary frontrunners of 2022 that could be chasing down Oscar gold later this year. READ MORE: ‘Fire of Love’ Review: Volcanologists Doc Tells Story Of A Singular Romance Blazing With Jaw-Dropping Imagery [Sundance] From National Geographic Documentary Films and NEON, “Fire Of Love” tells the extraordinary love story of intrepid French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft, whose passion for volcanoes was as passionate as their love for each other.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefComing only three years after the Palme d’Or for “Parasite,” the two Cannes prizes for Park Chan-wook as best director and for Song Kang-ho as best actor are further proof of the strength of Korean cinema’s originality, its elevated skills and its resilience.Korean movies have been temporarily overshadowed by K-pop and Korean TV dramas – think BTS and “Squid Game” – both of which flourished during the COVID era, while Korean film was struck down by the pandemic.Closed cinemas and disrupted release schedules meant that the film sector was not fully able to capitalize on the 2019 Cannes and multiple Oscar successes of “Parasite” and “Minari.” Korean film producers’ revenues crumbled between 2020 and early 2022. Talent from in front of and behind the camera shifted across to the more vibrant streaming sector.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKore-eda Hirokazu, director of the well-received Cannes competition film “Broker” says his diverse and lonely characters constitute a family of choice.“This film tells the story of a family which came together by choice. Each character had been rejected. They set off on a car journey, as if by accident.

Caitlin Quinlan “I don’t think you ever have to be fearful when you’re writing a film,” says Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani ahead of the premiere of her second feature “The Blue Caftan” in Un Certain Regard.Following the relationship between husband and wife Halim and Mina who have kept Halim’s homosexuality a secret for many years, the film takes an important stand against the homophobia of Morocco and its anti-LGTBQ laws. “In Morocco, homosexuality is illegal and I don’t have words to describe how it makes me feel.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticWhile Americans’ attention is consumed with the issue of abortion, halfway across the world, director Kore-eda Hirokazu (“Shoplifters”) focuses on the alternative for mothers who carry their pregnancies to term, but can’t raise the children on their own. A warm and unexpectedly nonjudgmental look at the Korean gray market for adoption, “Broker” was inspired by the idea of “baby hatches” — essentially, a donation station for unwanted infants — and follows the director’s natural curiosity through to its most humanistic conclusion, as audiences unexpectedly come to empathize with practically everyone involved in the buying and selling of a little bundle of joy.What is Kore-eda, who is Japanese, doing making a film in South Korea, you might ask? It’s not his first time working abroad.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBerlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed further deals for Jan Gassmann’s “99 Moons” in Italy (Teodora Film), France (La Vingt-Cinquième Heure) and Japan (AT Entertainment), following the film’s world premiere in the Cannes’ ACID sidebar.“99 Moons” follows the passionate and turbulent relationship of Bigna and Frank, two people from different worlds who become entwined in an erotic love story. With raw and intimate cinematography (Yunus Roy Imer, “Systemcrasher”), the film takes an unflinching look at the magnetism and power games of sexual attraction.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTang Wei, the Chinese star of Korean film “Decision to Leave,” says she told director Park Chan-wook that he’d made her life complete after seeing the finished version of the film at its Cannes Film Festival gala premiere.The film played in competition this week in Cannes. She revealed her confession on Tuesday at a press event, accompanied by Park, cast member Park Hae-il and scriptwriter Chung Soo-kyung.Switching between Chinese and English, Tang Wei said: “This in not the first time I’ve worked with a Korean director.

While Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden dealt with a lot of sex and kink in its story of a handmaiden who gets into the good graces of her Japanese heiress, only to defraud her, the Korean filmmaker in his latest Decision to Leave, dotes on a detective Hae-Joon (Park Hae-il) who is head over heels with a very possible murder suspect, Seo-rae (Tang Wei).

Based on a true story, Firebird is a meticulously researched and produced film about two young men on a military base in Soviet-occupied Estonia in the late 1970s.Sergey (Tom Prior) is a private just weeks away from discharge; Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii) is an officer and pilot, newly assigned to the base. Their attraction is almost immediate, unfolding with a tender intimacy which is beautifully, painfully naïve to the realities of their society – both military and civilian.Tom Prior and Oleg Zagorodnii in ‘Firebird’Firebird feels like a film for the ages, but also of the times.

South Korea may have made big inroads on American TV recently with “Squid Game” and “Pachinko,” and the country’s intriguing film and television industry also has a stronger-than-usual presence at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae’s political thriller “Hunt” premiered as a midnight screening early in the festival; Davy Chou’s “Return to Seoul” landed a pre-Cannes deal with Sony Pictures Classics and is one of the hits of the Un Certain Regard sidebar; and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is in the main competition with “Broker,” his first film shot in South Korea in the Korean language.

Park Chan-wook made a big impact in Cannes in 2004 with his lurid revenge drama Oldboy, which took the Grand Prix from Quentin Tarantino’s jury, made a cult star of Choi Min-sik, and alerted audiences everywhere to the perils of eating live sushi. Since then, the director has been a semi-regular fixture at the festival, returning in 2009 with his literary vampire horror Thirst and again in 2016 with The Handmaiden, a delirious, taboo-busting erotic thriller set in 1930s Korea. Director Park’s trademark is not just his fluidity when dealing with genre but his mastery in bending it to his will—and Decision to Leave promises to be yet another stylish, category-defying composition.

An adoptee explores her Korean roots in Return To Seoul, Davy Chou’s engaging drama premiering at Cannes in Un Certain Regard. Newcomer Park Ji-Min plays the magnificently complex Freddie, who was raised in France and has impetuously decided to spend a couple of weeks in the country of her birth.

Wilson Chapman editorSeven years after the critically acclaimed “Mad Max: Fury Road,” George Miller is back in the director’s chair for the epic romance film “Three Thousand Years of Longing.”Based on the 1994 short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by English writer A. S. Byatt, “Three Thousand Years of Longing” stars Tilda Swinton as Alithea, a brilliant scholar who encounters a Djinn (Idris Elba) imprisoned in an urn.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticOn Oct. 26, 1979, South Korean president Park Chung-hee was assassinated by the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency — a coup that ended the autocrat’s 16-year grip on a country that has wrestled with corruption and scandal ever since.

Although a star for nearly 30 years in South Korean films, Lee Jung-Jae recently rocketed to international fame on a whole other level as the star of the television phenomenon, The Squid Game. All of that spotlight will add to interest in Hunt, which he not only stars, produces, co-wrote (with Jo Seung-Hee), but makes his feature film directorial debut, one that just had its World Premiere in the Midnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae has opened up about his life since the Netflix series’ viral success and what the show might mean for the future of Korean media.In a recent interview with Deadline, Lee spoke about how, despite the massive international popularity of Squid Game – including critical success at the Critics Choice Awards and the SAG Awards – life has largely stayed the same for him.“I still don’t feel like my life has changed dramatically,” he explained, although, it’s been a different story for his career. The actor noted that the K-drama’s success has opened up “more opportunities to work with great people on more projects”.On the topic of opportunities, Lee touched on how he has “already [been] getting a lot of support” from renowed talent agency Creative Artists Agency, which he signed with earlier this year.

Not endgame! Kate Pearson and Toby Damon may not have made it as a married couple on This Is Us, but even a brutal divorce couldn’t keep them from finding their way back to being family.

Bridgerton season 3 as series creator Chris Van Dusen moves on to other projects, just revealed the thinking behind the surprise announcement that would focus on Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton's romance, rather than following the book series order and centering Benedict. Yep, . And it's going to be so cute.“I really feel like it’s Colin and Penelope’s time," Brownell told .