Korean Multi-Hyphenate Lee Ji-eun Gets First Trip Down Cannes’ Red Carpet With ‘Broker’ — Deadline Disruptors

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.

“Pachinko,” Apple TV’s sprawling historical epic adapted from Min Jin Lee’s acclaimed novel, has just wrapped up its first eight-episode season. An ambitious drama that spans four generations of a single family, the series examines the lives of the ethnic Koreans of Japan through the throes of heartache and perseverance.

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.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Broker,” the art house drama film that appeared in competition in Cannes last month had a bright start in Korean cinemas, picking up over $6 million in its opening foray. Its score, however, was not enough to unseat mainstream crime actioner “The Roundup” from the weekend’s top spot.“Broker” earned $4.13 million over the Friday to Sunday weekend, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That put it second behind “The Roundup” with a weekend score of $6.69 million.

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.

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.

Jon Burlingame editorClassical composer Nico Muhly rarely writes for TV (the BBC “Howard’s End” was the last one, five years ago), making his score for Apple TV+’s eight-hour “Pachinko” something of an event. The century-spanning epic follows a poor Korean woman and her descendants as their lives intertwine, often unhappily, with those of their Japanese neighbors. Variety talked to Muhly about his sensitive music for the miniseries.Why did you want to tackle this project?I’d read the book, like the majority of Americans.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CANNES, France -- Lee Jung-jae, the award-winning star of Netflix's “Squid Game,” spent years developing the 1980s-set Korean spy thriller “Hunt” before electing to direct himself. He did it a little reluctantly, without big plans to continue filmmaking. But Lee did have a vision for what it could be — and where it could premiere.“Before deciding to direct, I thought I just wanted to make a very fun film,” Lee says.

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.