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….
Category: Film
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…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): “The World Before” Review
I have always said to myself that not every film needs an extraordinary story. Korean independent cinema has repeatedly shown how much can be found in everyday lives, familiar places and experiences that might, at first, seem too small for the big screen. And, in all honesty, these films do not always have an easy…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman” Review
“Only when we face death do we understand the value of life.” This line comes towards the end of Halkawt Mustafa’s No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman, and it stayed in my mind. Perhaps because most of us rarely think about life in those terms; we rush from one thing to another,…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “One Minute to Midnight” Review
After I finished watching Nicolas Pariser’s One Minute to Midnight, one question popped into my head: what happens when a man reaches middle age and begins looking back at how he has treated women, loved them, misunderstood them, and perhaps taken certain things for granted? It is a subject worth exploring, especially at a time…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “What Belongs to Others” Review
Polish cinema has had a strong relationship with the Venice International Film Festival for decades, but its presence on the Lido has been noticeable in recent years. In 2022, Damian Kocur’s Bread and Salt (Chleb i sól) competed in Orizzonti and won the Special Jury Prize, with Kocur turning an ordinary summer in a small…
83rd Venice Film Festival: “Children of the Monkey” Review
Becoming a parent changes your life, but becoming the parent of a child with a disability can change it in ways nobody can fully prepare you for. There are appointments, routines, worries about the future and, depending on the child’s needs, a level of physical and emotional care that can continue for a long time….
83rd Venice Film Festival: “Diane in the Loop” Review
A mother wants to leave the past behind but her daughter wants to dig it back up. That difficult starting point is the premise of Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s Diane in the Loop. Diane (Ninon Borsei) learns that her mother (Sandrine Blancke) was raped three years before she was born. For Diane, discovering what…
Asian Cinema at the 70th BFI London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the programme for its 70th edition, and Asian cinema will once again form an essential part of the celebration. From long-awaited works by some of the continent’s most respected filmmakers to daring debuts, intimate documentaries and large-scale genre spectacles, this year’s selection reflects the extraordinary breadth of filmmaking…
“Kung Fu Soccer” (2026) Review: Stephen Chow’s Ambitious Return Doesn’t Quite Score
Surprisingly announced just one month before its release, Kung Fu Soccer (2026) grossed over 260 million RMB (38 million USD) on its opening day, surging past 2.1 billion RMB (310 million USD) within three weeks. The film quickly secured its place as China’s second-highest-grossing release of the year. The craze was driven by none other…
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…
ZELO Explores Latin Pop on New Single “ELA”
B.A.P member ZELO has returned with his new digital single, “ELA”, a vibrant Latin pop-inspired song that combines dance beats with a surprisingly emotional story. With tropical percussion, electric guitar and a catchy hook, “ELA” is the kind of song made for summer. It draws on the global pop hits of the 2010s, but ZELO adds his own…
“Perhaps Love” (2005) & Peter Chan’s Path on Climbing Mountains, Walking on Thin Ice
In the last section of Close Encounters with Master Filmmakers – Movie Talks: Peter Ho-sun Chan hosted at the Hong Kong Film Archive, it is revealed that Chan had just wrapped up the latest film he worked on and caught a morning plane from Chengdu to Hong Kong to attend the talk on the same…
