Korean films win big at Cannes 2022, bagging Best Actor and Best Director

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefWith a mission to bring Japanese independent cinema to a world audience, todoiF launched Friday as a new specialist streaming platform.The service is privately backed and operated by Kawano Koichi, a San Francisco State University alumnus who worked as a talent agent in Japan for two decades, before becoming involved between 2019-21 in the start-up of another Japanese specialty streamer Cinema Discoveries.The new venture will start very small, possibly as few as eight carefully-curated titles, and make them available on a transactional-VOD only basis. New titles will be uploaded monthly and will typically be available for a year before rotating off the service.

The worldwide fascination with all things Korean has been proven by Best Picture Oscar-winner Parasite, Netflix smash Squid Game, and the record-setting popularity of music group BTS,to name just three exports that have made a powerful impact.

South Korean supergroup BTS  is to go on “temporary hiatus” so its members can pursue solo careers. The news came as the seven-man group hosted their annual FESTA dinner, which celebrates their founding.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAction-drama film, “Emergency Declaration” pulled together several of Korea’s top stars – Song Kang-ho (“Parasite”), Lee Byung Hun (“G.I. Joe”) and Jeon Do-yeon (“The Housemaid,” “Secret Sunshine”) – and it first took to the air as a Midnight Screening at the Cannes Film Festival, back in July 2021.Directed by Han Jae-rim, the story involves a veteran police detective who receives a tip-off about an unspecified terrorist threat against a plane. Puzzlingly, he discovers that the chief suspect has got on the flight too.

Squid Game breakout star Jung Hoyeon and Killing Eve actress Sandra Oh recently came together to discuss what it’s like being at the forefront of Korean-American representation.In a new instalment of Variety’s Actors on Actors conversation series, the two the actresses sat down to chat about the growing amount of Korean-American and Asian-American representation in the media during the past few years.“I think that we both feel like being here together, having this conversation and being shot together is very special – and I’m curious about your point of view,” said Oh, who was born to Korean immigrants in Canada. “This is a real change for us as Korean-Americans, and I’ve been always interested in the native Korean perspective.”The South Korean model-turned-actress the shared her view on what it’s like being a native Korean in media, specially following the success of Squid Game.

WATCH THE FULL ELVIS INTERVIEW BELOWThe King admits he would still dearly love to be offered a script that didn't involve singing. In March 1974 Elvis was famously be offered the script for the iconic A Star Is Born by Barbra Streisand. Although it involved playing a faded music legend, it would have been the role of a lifetime and The King deary wanted to do it.

Broker lead actor Song Kang-ho has shared his thoughts on his recent Best Actor win at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.In a recent interview with South Korean outlet Korea JoongAng Daily, the South Korean actor, who plays Sang-hyun in the film, shared his sentiments on “finally” taking home an award at the Cannes Film Festival after previously starring in six films that have all debuted at the festival prior.Song is the second Korean to win Best Actor, after Jeon Do-yeon for 2007’s Secret Sunshine. “Of course, winning an award from such a prestigious festival as Cannes is a great and happy moment, an unforgettable turning point of my life,” Song said, before adding that awards are not as significant as they might seem.“I don’t think the action [of receiving an award] itself holds much significance,” he explained.

Big Bang member T.O.P was spotted reportedly filming a music video in Manhattan, New York recently, sparking speculations of a solo comeback.Earlier this week, South Korean news outlet The Fact shared several photos of the South Korean musician in various locations around Manhattan accompanied by a filming crew, reporting that the photos of T.O.P were taken sometime in mid-May.The outlet also claimed that the filming had taken place with strict security measures in place, but quoted local staff as saying that the filming was for an “experimental piece of work that harmonises film, music and art”.In the same report, The Fact quoted a separate unnamed inside source, who claimed that the filming was done for a “large-scale comeback project”, as translated by South Korean news publication SBS News. “It’s hard to disclose specific details, but we are preparing this content as part of a large-scale comeback project that T.O.P has been preparing with his global partners,” the insider said. “The content will depict T.O.P with his many identities ― including a singer, an actor and as a human being.”While neither T.O.P nor his representatives have yet to respond to the reports, the purported “comeback project” may mark the rapper’s first since he left longtime label YG Entertainment in February.

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.

the 12-minute standing ovation the Broker cast received at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.The actress recently appeared on an episode of SBS Power FM’s Cine Town segment, where she spoke about what it was like to be part of the Broker cast at the annual film festival. “It felt so unreal,” Lee, who plays Detective Lee in the film, said of the experience, per SBS News.“I had a feeling that Song Kang-ho [who plays the character Sang-hyeon in Broker] would be named ‘Best Actor’ for his performance, so I kind of looked forward to that,” she added.

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.

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!

Spanish Filmin Buys Lars Von Trier’s ‘The Kingdom’ Trilogy

Tom Cruise earned the biggest movie launch of his career with "Top Gun: Maverick," bringing in a projected $151 million at the box office during Memorial Day weekend. The Paramount film, which was delayed multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic, now holds the record for the second-best Memorial Day opening of all time behind Johnny Depp’s "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End," which earned $153 million when it was released in 2007.

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.

In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters,” a group of small-time thieves forms their own makeshift family, living every day not only through pure survival instinct but a genuine love for each other. For his first film set in Korea, the Japanese filmmaker reflects on similar themes in “Broker,” a road trip odyssey reflecting on the family we choose and the family we tearfully let go of.