Betrayal is difficult enough to forgive, but when it comes from someone who has known you since childhood, the damage goes far beyond lost trust, especially when years of friendship have concealed a growing resentment neither person wanted to acknowledge. In Choi Kook-hee’s Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub, two childhood friends who once dreamed of…
Category: Korean Cinema
London Korean Film Festival 2026: Korean Cinema in the Spotlight
The London Korean Film Festival returns this November for its 21st edition, bringing together established directors, emerging filmmakers and some of Korean cinema’s most recognisable actors for two weeks of screenings, premieres and conversations. For more than two decades, the London Korean Film Festival (LKFF) has introduced British audiences to the remarkable variety of stories…
70th BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Mokya Shin, Director of “Easter”
A photograph of a young woman posing in a swimsuit with her friends at Dadaepo beach in the 1980s might not seem important, but for South Korean filmmaker Mokya Shin, it changed the direction of Easter, his first feature documentary. The woman in the photograph was Saekja, now 68, who had spent much of her…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Easter” Review
Sometimes, a photograph is all that remains of someone’s life, especially when their story was never considered important enough to be written down or remembered by others. Early in Mokya Shin’s Easter, Saekja sits with an old photo album, looking back at a younger version of herself and the women who once occupied that world…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): In Conversation with Kim Eo-jin of “The World Before”
For a young actor still at the beginning of his career, Kim Eo-jin already seems to understand what great acting is all about. After appearing in the 2021 web drama The Sweet Blood and later taking a leading role in Fragile in 2024, the model makes his feature-film debut in Yoon Dan-bi’s The World Before….
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): In Conversation with Sim Su-bin of “The World Before”
Sim Su-bin is still at the beginning of her acting career. So far, she has appeared in supporting roles in Korean dramas, alongside her film work, but Yoon Dan-bi’s The World Before gives her the space to show much more of what she can do. As seventeen-year-old Jin, a girl who has never left the…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): In Conversation with Yoon Dan-bi, Director of “The World Before”
There is nothing overstated about Yoon Dan-bi’s films; her stories take shape through families sharing a home, young people spending time together, conversations that seem ordinary and feelings that are not always easy to explain. Her feature debut, Moving On (2019), follows teenage Okju and her younger brother as they move with their father into…
Trapped Inside the Hive Mind: “Colony” Review
Yeon Sang-ho, the director of Train to Busan (2016) and Peninsula (2020), once again ventures into the zombie film genre he is well-versed in. In Colony, the zombie outbreak takes place in an enclosed high-rise in Seoul. The visceral horror of the film is enhanced by its choreography, sound design, as well as its claustrophobic…
28th Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Chung Ji-young, Director of “My Name”
Centered on the painful and long-silenced history of the Jeju April 3rd Incident, My Name becomes a way of looking back at what has been forgotten. In our interview with director Chung Ji-young, he talks about the emotional responsibility of dealing with a history that was suppressed for decades, and how he chose to approach…
28th Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Tae-yong (Director) and Jang Hye-jin (Actress) of “Number One”
Kim Tae-yong has previously directed intense, serious films, driven by youth, energy, and a desire to change the world. Now in his 30s, his perspective has softened. His latest film, Number One, screened in competition at the 28th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, reflects that shift with a much warmer tone. This fantasy…
28th Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Chang Hang-jun (Director) and Yoo Hae-jin (Actor) of “The King’s Warden”
South Korea’s connection with its own historical roots is deeply embedded in popular culture. Period movies and costume melodramas have always held their own space, even during the nation’s gloomy times. From The King and the Clown (2005) and Masquerade (2012) to The Night Owl (2022), and back to the numerous retellings of the popular…
28th Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Do-young, director of “Once We Were Us”
After her film Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 (2019) sparked loud controversy in South Korea for its social and political criticism, the actress and director Kim Do-young has returned with her second feature, Once We Were Us, part of the competition at the 28th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. This emotional drama is a…
28th Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Yoo Yeon-seok
Yoo Yeon-seok smiles often when he speaks, and sitting with him during the interview at the Far East Film Festival, there is so much calmness emanating from him. He made his acting debut in 2003 with a small role in Oldboy before returning to the screen in 2008 to fully resume his acting career. Since…
28th Far East Film Festival: In Conversation With Yoon Ga-eun (Director) and Jang Hye-jin (Actress) of “The World of Love”
From Guest (2011) and Sprout (2013) to The World of Us and The House of Us, Yoon Ga-eun’s films have consistently returned to childhood as a space of emotional intensity rather than innocence. With The World of Love, her third feature, she continues this exploration, but in a more unsettling form. Explaining the origins of…
