Korean Film Biz Boosted by Cannes Picks

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Broker,” the unconventional family drama which appeared in competition at last month’s Cannes Film Festival, topped the box office in South Korea on Wednesday, its opening day.“Broker” grossed $1.10 million, enough to depose crime actioner “The Roundup” from the top spot that it had enjoyed for the past three weeks and which had made it the highest performing film this year.According to data from the Kobis tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council, “Broker” played on 1,590 screens and sold 145,000 tickets for Wednesday screenings. Its cumulative total of $1.15 million includes some $44,000 of previews earned on 14 screens.The feat by a local art-house film gives further support to the notion that cinema attendance is rebounding in Korea.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorNetflix’s “Squid Game” featured sets such as the M.C. Escher- like staircase and a tug-of-war area, as characters on a remote island compete in deadly versions of childhood games.Production designer Chae Kyoung-sun built killer sets on a large scale for the 456 contestants as they battle it out to be the last man standing, all for a cash prize.Its most iconic set is right at the beginning, as the contestants play Red Light, Green Light.“I wanted to fill the set for the first game with fantasy and fairy- tale-like images,” Chae says.

Eric Nam has opened up about his experience growing up Korean-American and how it has influenced his career.The 33-year-old singer-songwriter recently appeared in an episode of The Zach Sang Show, where he opened up about his Korean heritage. During the interview, Nam confessed that he previously thought of being a Korean-American as a “hindrance”.“I think for a long time, being a Korean-American, or being Asian-American in the States, it felt as if it was a hindrance, or it was like, something that was supposed to hold me back,” he shared.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Jurassic World: Dominion” scored the third highest opening weekend of the year in South Korea, but still managed only second place at the box office, a further sign of recovery in the country.For the third weekend in a row, proceedings were dominated by local crime action film “The Roundup.” It earned $10.4 million over the Friday to Sunday period, down 32% from its previous weekend, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). After nearly three weeks on release, the film has an accumulated total of $73.3 million.Its cumulative total is built on 8.87 million spectators.

Jang Nara is getting married, but she’s facing some difficulties regarding anonymity.

Dennis Harvey Film CriticOne of the most enjoyable South Korean action movies in recent years, 2017’s “The Outlaws” was a deft mix of brutal gang-warfare thrills and Keystone Cops comedics. It provided an ideal vehicle for Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee (“Train to Busan” and “Eternals”) as the police investigator whose hit-first-ask-permission-later methods regularly got the job done while infuriating his superiors.That burly protagonist and his sidekicks are back in “The Roundup,” which despite a different directorial (newbie Lee Sang-yong replacing the prior edition’s Kang Yoon-seong) and writing crew, maintains the original’s strengths.

Park Shin-hye and Choi Tae-joon are parents!

Broker and Decision to Leave have made history at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time two Korean works have won at the same ceremony.The upcoming Korean films Broker and Decision To Leave have both taken home one award each at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time two Korean films have won an award at the festival in the same year.South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who rose to international prominence in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite in 2019, took home the Best Actor award for his role in Broker, which was directed by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. This makes Song the second Korean, after Jeon Do-yeon for 2007’s Secret Sunshine to win the award, and the first Korean male actor to do so.During his acceptance speech, the 55-year-old actor thanked director Hirokazu Kore-eda, along with his Broker co-stars Gang Dong-won, IU, Lee Joo-young and Bae Doo-na.

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.

Broker, starring singer-actress IU, was given a 12-minute standing ovation at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.Broker, the first-ever Korean-language film by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, recently premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 27. Once the screening had concluded, the fil received a 12-minute-long standing ovation from those in-attendance, according to a report from Korean news outlet Edaily.The publication also claimed that the standing ovation began with Cannes Film Festival’s executive director, Thierry Frémaux.

“It’s rare when the thing that you’re working on so deeply reaches in your own life, your own history, your own family,” says director J.D. Dillard, whose forthcoming “Devotion” is as much a historical drama as it is an exploration of his own ancestry and childhood.

When the Cannes Film Festival lineup was announced on April 14, Twitter positively exploded with excitement over the news that Lee Ji-eun would make her Riviera debut with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker in Competition. The Korean actress, singer and songwriter—popularly known as IU—has a legion of fans, including 26 million followers on Instagram, and has been described as a national treasure at home. She may now be well poised for crossover success with her first commercial film.

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.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefLocally-produced action franchise movie “The Roundup” blasted its way into the record books and elevated Korean box office to levels not seen for more than two years.The film enjoyed record levels of pre-sales, significant teaser activity the previous weekend and opened officially on Wednesday.Over the weekend proper it rounded up $21.1 million from 2,500 screens nationwide, according to KOBIS, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).Its five-day cumulative (including the previews) is an astonishing $29.1 million, which makes it the second biggest film of the year, behind only “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and by far the highest grossing Korean film of the year to date. Those figures were earned from 2.5 million spectators between Friday and Sunday, and 3.5 million in five days.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSurprising as it may sound, the Korean film industry has had a rough time over the past couple of years. Get ready for a comeback.Just at a moment when Korean film producers might have expected to capitalize on the unprecedented multi-Oscar success of “Parasite” (and the previous year’s Korean-language “Minari,” COVID closed down Korean cinemas , stifled production and extinguished Korean audiences’ willingness to venture into cinemas.

Sony Pictures International Productions (SPIP) is set to remake Ariel Winograd’s Argentinian comedy Mama Se Fue De Viaje (Ten Days Without Mom) in Turkey and South Korea.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentThe Japanese film industry has long been notoriously insular, a tendency the pandemic only exacerbated. As the Hollywood pipeline shut down in 2020, local audiences flocked to local films.

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.

First, there was Parasite, shaking up the global film sector and snatching Oscar glory. Then, there was Squid Game.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefEpic Pictures Releasing has licensed North American rights to Korean action film “Hot Blooded,” from leading Seoul-based film sales agency Finecut. The deal is one of several struck by the agency ahead of Cannes, where it is also launching sales on Critics’ Week title “Next Sohee.”Starring Bae Doona and Kim Si-eun, “Next Sohee” is directed by Jung July, whose acclaimed “A Girl at My Door” played in Un Certain regard in 2014.