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Netflix’s latest Korean romance-mystery drama, The Trunk, questions the basis of conjugal relationships in a time when increasingly fragmented lifestyles have created an existential crisis—pitting self-centered endeavors against the notion of companionship. The idea of marital relationships functioning solely on the basis of personal necessities, as a transactional affair, is an extension of issues like fear of commitment, emotional baggage, lack of self-reflection, and acceptance of personal drawbacks. Needless to say, exploring topics such as these will need the backing of strong performances by the cast, something which The Trunk doesn’t lack one bit. The complexities of the emotional intricacies of the narrative were expertly handled by the ensemble cast, allowing viewers to relate with the characters and even the supporting cast, a number of whom played the role of comic relief, proving their excellence with the roles they were given.

Han Jeong-won Played By Gong Yoo...

Few spy films delve into the murky waters of human psychology and institutional intrigue as masterfully as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Tomas Alfredson’s 2011 adaptation of John le Carré’s classic novel remains a towering achievement in the espionage genre, eschewing high-octane action for a meticulous, cerebral dissection of loyalty, betrayal, and the heavy toll of a life lived in shadows. This isn’t just a spy thriller—it’s a character-driven masterpiece that redefined the modern spy film.

The story begins with a chilling premise: there is a mole at the highest levels of British Intelligence, known as “The Circus.” When disgraced operative Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) stumbles upon evidence of the betrayal, retired agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is drawn out of forced retirement to root out the double agent. Smiley, a man of few words but piercing intellect, embarks on a methodical investigation that peels back layers...

Last week, it was announced that Theo James of The Gentlemen, the Divergent films, and the upcoming Osgood Perkins / Stephen King movie The Monkey is set to star in a film called The Hole, which is coming our way from South Korean director Kim Jee-woon. Now, the name of James’ first co-star has been revealed, and that co-star is Emmy-nominated Korean actress and model Hoyeon, who made her screen debut in the hit Netflix series Squid Game.

James is taking on the role of Owen, a successful professor living abroad in South Korea, who is bedridden after a devastating car accident that killed his wife, Sandy. He is left under the care of Yuna, his Korean mother-in-law — but when she starts to unravel the devastating truth behind Owen and Sandy’s marriage, and Owen himself, his road to recovery is threatened. Hoyeon will be playing Sandy.

Scripted by Christopher Chen,...

There’s a new film called The Hole coming our way from South Korean director Kim Jee-woon, and a press release has revealed that Theo James of The Gentlemen, the Divergent films, and the upcoming Osgood Perkins / Stephen King movie The Monkey is set to star in it. James will be taking on the role of Owen, a successful professor living abroad in South Korea, who is bedridden after a devastating car accident that killed his wife, Sandy. He is left under the care of Yuna, his Korean mother-in-law — but when she starts to unravel the devastating truth behind Owen and Sandy’s marriage, and Owen himself, his road to recovery is threatened.

Scripted by Christopher Chen, The Hole is based on the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award winning novel of the same name by Hye-young Pyun. This adaptation is being produced by Esmail Corp, K Period Media, and Anthology Studios. The...

Warner Bros. Discovery Strikes Film Deal With Former Staffer; ‘The Intern’ To Be Remade

Warner Bros. Discovery is getting into business with one of its longest-serving execs in Asia and will remake The Intern as part of the agreement. The entertainment powerhouse has struck a first-look film deal with Jack Nguyen and his Joat Films. Under terms of the deal, Nguyen will present Asia-focused films to the studio with an emphasis on local-language remakes of Wbd’s English-language films. First off of the line will be a Korean remake of 2015 comedy-drama The Intern, which starred Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway and Rene Russo. “Jack is an industry veteran with a second to none understanding of the film production business across Asia,” said Kurt Rieder, SVP, Head of Theatrical Distribution, Apac, Wbd. “There is a strong appetite for remakes of universally popular Hollywood stories across the region, and we look forward...

Warner, Vet Venure

Warner Bros. Discovery (Wbd) has revealed a first-look deal with industry veteran Jack Nguyen, with a Korean remake of the 2015 comedy-drama “The Intern” set as the inaugural project. The agreement, made through Nguyen’s Joat Films, focuses on Asia-centric film projects, particularly local-language remakes of Wbd’s English-language titles.

Nguyen will collaborate with local partners across the Asia-Pacific region, including Korea and India. Kurt Rieder, senior VP, head of theatrical distribution, Apac, Wbd, highlighted the strong appetite for Hollywood story remakes in the region.

A former 30-year Warner Bros. executive, Nguyen previously supervised local language activities in Asia and Latin America. His career includes overseeing productions such as “Letters from Iwo Jima,” the “Rurouni Kenshin” franchise and “The Age of Shadows.”

Nguyen said: “It should come as no surprise that I have a great deal of respect and loyalty to Warner Bros. after spending the majority of my career there.

Warner Bros. Discovery has signed a first-look film deal in Asia with company veteran Jack Nguyen. The agreement, revealed Monday, was set up through Nguyen’s startup production banner Joat Films and will focus on Asia-focussed remakes of Warner Bros’ English-language library titles. The two partners said their first project under the pact will be a Korean remake of the 2015 comedy-drama The Intern.

Nguyen is a former 30-year veteran of Warner Bros., where he supervised local-language film efforts primarily in the Asia and Latin America regions, and led market entries into China, India, Japan, and Korea. During his tenure, he oversaw the business that produced the Japanese films Letters from Iwo Jima, the Rurouni Kenshin franchise, and Yurusarezaru Mono, the remake of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winner Unforgiven. In Korea, Warner Bros. produced and distributed the blockbuster The Age of Shadows, Korea’s 2017 submission for the Oscars’ best foreign language film category,...

Exclusive: Producers Esmail Corp (Mr. Robot) and K Period Media (Manchester By The Sea) are teaming up with Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon (The Age Of Shadows) on an English and Korean-language movie adaptation of novel The Hole.

Psychological thriller The Hole by Korean author Hye-Young Pyun charts the story of Ogi who wakes from a coma after causing a major car accident that took his wife’s life and left him paralyzed. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Ogi is neglected and left alone in his bed but soon notices his mother-in-law in their abandoned garden, uprooting what his wife had worked so hard to plant, and obsessively digging larger and larger holes. When asked, she answers only that she is finishing what her daughter started. As he tries to escape, Ogi discovers more about his wife and his own role in...

Blue Finch Film Releasing presents A Bittersweet Life, The Foul King and The Chaser on digital platforms from 8 April. These must-see modern Korean cult cinema classics from acclaimed filmmakers Kim Jee-woon and Na Hong-jin, are exploding back onto screens, with The Foul King available in the UK and Ireland for the very first time.

A Bittersweet Life

Gangster Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) has worked his way up the ranks in his organisation, earning the trust of his callous crime boss Mr. Kang, who assigns him to spy on his mistress fearing she may be having an affair. When Mr Kang's suspicions are found to be true, Sun-woo finds his life on the line when his choice to spare the mistress and her secret lover's lives starts an irreversible gang war.

This ultra-stylish neo noir is written and directed by renowned filmmaker Kim Jee-woon, and features a career-defining performance from international star Lee Byung-hun,...

There was a time when any great international actor tended to be reduced to their perceived Hollywood counterpart whenever they were discussed in the U.S. press. Under this outmoded prerogative, Korean screen icon Song Kang-ho easily could be described as his country’s simultaneous answer to both Marlon Brando and Tom Hanks, such is his seemingly contradictory blend of sardonic physicality, fearsome technique, lyrical humanism and overwhelming likability. Today, thankfully, it is sufficient to simply describe Song Kang-ho as Song Kang-ho: “One of the protean greats of world cinema — a master, end of,” as Tilda Swinton, a co-star with Song in Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer (2013), once summed him up in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

For global movie buffs, arguably one of the most exciting stories of the past 30 years has been the renaissance and growing global reach of Korean cinema — and no figure has been more...

For veteran Korean director Kim Ji-woon, his latest feature Cobweb was an exploration into the aesthetics and meaning of cinema. A satire about a film director who is convinced that a reshoot of his film’s ending could make it a masterpiece, the film delves into the beauty of cinema and the emotional journey of those who work behind the camera and in front of it.

“The pandemic got me thinking a lot about filmmaking,” Kim said at a special talk session held during the Busan International Film Festival on Saturday, where Cobweb‘s main actors, including Song Kang-ho (Parasite) and Im Soo-jeong (A Tale of Two Sisters) also participated. “Cobweb got me thinking a lot about the moments when I first fell in love with cinema and dreamt of filmmaking — which changed everything for me.”

The film, which originally premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May and was released locally last week,...

Cannes best actor winner and ‘Parasite’ star Song Kang-ho stars in the black comedy.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired US distribution rights to Kim Jee-woon’s black comedy Cobweb from South Korea’s Barunson E&a.

The film, which premiered out of competition at Cannes in May, will receive a US theatrical release in in early 2024.

Set in 1970s South Korea, when censors could dictate the plot of a film, Cobweb stars Song Kang-ho as an obsessive filmmaker who becomes hellbent on reshooting the ending of his latest film in two days in a bid to create a masterpiece.

Cobweb has...

Kim Jee-woon’s black comedy “Cobweb,” which debuted this year at Cannes, is set for a U.S. theatrical release in early 2024. Rights to the picture were licensed by distributor Samuel Goldwyn Films from Korea-based sales agent Barunson E&a.

The 1970s-set film within a film stars Song Kong-ho, star of Oscar-winning “Parasite” and 2022 winner of the best actor award at Cannes for his role in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s “Broker.”

Song appears as obsessive film director Kim, who is seized by the desire to re-shoot the ending of his completed film “Cobweb” in two days to create a masterpiece. Chaos lurks around every corner, from his confused and uncooperative cast and crew to interference from the then all-powerful censorship authorities.

Following its premiere at Cannes in May, the Anthology Studios-produced “Cobweb” will play at fall festivals including the 19th Fantastic Fest, the BFI London Film Festival and the 56th Sitges Film Festival.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb, starring Song Kang-ho, which had its world premiere Out Of Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Barunson E&a is handling international sales on the film, which has also been sold to most of the rest of the world, including Japan (Happinet Phantom Studio), France, Germany & Italy (Plaion Pictures), Spain (La Aventura) and Australia & New Zealand (Umbrella Entertainment).

Set in 1970s Korea, when censors could dictate the plot of a film, Cobweb stars Song as an obsessive director who wants to re-shoot the ending of his completed film ‘Cobweb’ in two days to create a masterpiece. In the process he must contend with an uncooperative cast and crew, as well as interference from the censorship authorities.

Song starred in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and won...

by Bastian Meiresonne

“Cobweb”, Kim Jee-woon's tenth feature film, marks the director's return to comedy for the first time since the beginning of his career. This satire on the film industry is a true cinematic layer cake: one can dig into it with hearty bites for the sheer pleasure of the visual feast, or one can peel it apart, layer by layer, to unveil a fascinating portrayal of the dark period of Korean history in the 1970s and a profound introspection by the director on creativity and the filmmaking profession.

Kim Jee-woon began his career in the 1990s as an actor and a theater director before directing his debut feature film, “The Quiet Family”, in 1998. He is part of a new generation of filmmakers, along with Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, who no longer followed the traditional apprenticeship model of old studios, but are authentic cinephiles who came to cinema out of pure passion.

With Cobweb, South Korean genre stalwart Kim Jee-woon falls back on that old piece of received wisdom: “movie people, ain’t they crazy?” When in self-satirizing mode, it’s uncanny how often filmmakers will depict their industry and their working environment as a barely held-together farrago; if this were accurate, how many movies would actually be completed? But also premiering at Cannes this May was Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton’s The Sweet East, which reversed this trend slightly by portraying its two filmmaker characters, played by Jeremy O. Harris and Ayo Edebiri, as eerily perfect professionals not lacking for sharky opportunism.

Very much associated with the first wave of post-millennial South Korean cinema that made global inroads, Kim (known for twisty shockers like A Tale of Two Sisters and I Saw the Devil) intends Cobweb as both a film allowing him to take stock and memorialize his lucrative...

Director Kim Ki-yeol (Song Kang-ho) only needs two more days of reshoots to craft a new ending to his latest film, and it will no longer be the trashy potboiler everyone thought he was making. It will be, he declares frequently “A masterpiece!” Director Kim Jee-woon does not seem to harbor similar aspirations for his meta-movie “Cobweb” – his loosest, least substantial and most slapdash film in quite some time – though safe to say that the gulf between it and masterpiece status is a little wider than a two-day reshoot could possibly bridge. A film containing another film; a filmmaker referring to the trials of a filmmaker: it’s a movie of many layers, all of them garish and goofy, none of them great.

That’s an assessment that would no doubt cut Ki-yeol to the quick, because, as played with typically raffish charm by “Parasite”‘s Song Kang-ho, he certainly dreams of greatness,...

Kumar Mangat Pathak’s Mumbai-based Panorama Studios is teaming with South Korea’s Anthology Studios, co-founded by former Warner Bros exec Jay Choi, Cobweb director Kim Jee-woon and Parasite star Song Kang-ho, on a Korean-language remake of India’s Drishyam franchise.

The two studios will jointly produce the remake, marking the first collaboration between an Indian and a Korean studio, and the first time a Hindi film is being officially remade in the Korean language. Anthology plans to remake all three films in the Drishyam franchise, with production on the first installment expected to start next year.

US-based producer Jack Nguyen, also a former Warner Bros exec who has previously worked with both the Anthology team and Pathak, is on board as Executive Producer.

Panorama produced the Hindi versions of Drishyam (2015) and its sequel Drishyam 2 (2022), which both starred Ajay Devgn and were big hits in India. Originally a Malayalam-language film,...

Korea’s Anthology Studios and India’s Panorama Studios have partnered for the remake of the Drishyam franchise in Korea.

Panorama Studios is backed by producer Kumar Mangat Pathak, while Anthology Studios is founded by former Warner Bros. local Korean production head, Choi Jae-won (aka Jay Choi), “Parasite” actor Song Kang-ho and acclaimed director Kim Jee-woon. The trio previously worked together on 2016 film “The Age of Shadows.” Anthology’s “Cobweb,” directed by Kim, produced by Choi and starring Song, is premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 25.

The two studios will join hands for the Korean remake of the Drishyam franchise. The announcement was made at the India Pavilion in Cannes on Sunday by the two studios with Pathak and Choi present.

Written and directed by Jeetu Joseph, the Malayalam-language “Drishyam” (2013) was headlined by superstar Mohanlal. It followed a cable TV operator whose simple world splinters...

South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s much anticipated period comedy drama Cobweb has kicked off the Cannes market with a slew of international sales. Set to premiere in Cannes in an out-of-competition slot on May 25, Cobweb stars Song Kang-ho (Parasite) as a filmmaker frantically trying to finish the movie he believes will be his masterpiece.

International sales for the film, distributed and sold by Seoul-based Barunson E&a, so far include Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Taiwan (MovieCloud), Hong Kong/Macau (Edko Films), Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand – Clover Films), France and French-speaking territories (The Jokers Films, handled by Finecut), German-speaking territories and Italy (Plaion Pictures), Spain (La Aventura), Cis (Arna Media), Middle East (Phars Film), India (Impact Films), ex-Yugoslavia (Cinemania), Worldwide Inflight (Anuvu/Emphasis). The film is produced by Sll’s Anthology Studios.

Set in South Korea during the politically repressive 1970s, Cobweb centers on a director named Kim (Song...

South Korean director, writer and producer Kim Jee-woon has signed with CAA for representation.

Kim’s latest film, “Cobweb,” will premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, his third film to do so following “A Bittersweet Life” in 2005 and “The Good, the Bad, the Weird” in 2008, which also debuted out of competition.

“Cobweb” is the first project from Kim’s production company, Anthology Studios, which he co-founded in 2021 with producer Jay Choi (who was previously local production head for Warner Bros. Korea) and actor Song Kang-Ho. When the project was announced in 2021, Kim described the film as “experimental” and said that it will be shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative.

Song stars in the film, playing an obsessive director on a mission to reshoot the end of his latest film, also titled “Cobweb,” in two days to create a masterpiece. His attempts are constantly...

by Eleo Billet

After “Believer,” Lee Hae-young returns with a patriotic historical film about Korea's liberation movement in the 1930s. A spin-off of some sort to “The Age of Shadows”, the director mixes his inspirations between film noir, action flick, and “The Handmaiden” through its combative lesbian heroines.

Korea, 1933. The country has been under Japanese rule for more than twenty years. However, organized groups of Koreans are resisting colonization and risking their lives for the independence of their homeland. Park Cha-kyung, an employee in the communication department, is one of their members. She is a Phantom. The spy, with her unit, prepare the assassination of the new Japanese resident-general on his arrival in Seoul for his taking office. Unfortunately, the activist Yoon Nan-young, in charge of assassinating the high-ranking official, misses her target and is hunted down. She dies of several bullets, in the arms of Cha-kyung. Covered in blood,...

by Eleo Billet

After “Believer,” Lee Hae-young returns with a patriotic historical film about Korea's liberation movement in the 1930s. A spin-off of some sort to “The Age of Shadows”, the director mixes his inspirations between film noir, action flick, and “The Handmaiden” through its combative lesbian heroines.

Korea, 1933. The country has been under Japanese rule for more than twenty years. However, organized groups of Koreans are resisting colonization and risking their lives for the independence of their homeland. Park Cha-kyung, an employee in the communication department, is one of their members. She is a Phantom. The spy, with her unit, prepare the assassination of the new Japanese resident-general on his arrival in Seoul for his taking office. Unfortunately, the activist Yoon Nan-young, in charge of assassinating the high-ranking official, misses her target and is hunted down. She dies of several bullets, in the arms of Cha-kyung. Covered in blood,...

Finecut will handle French-speaking territories.

South Korea’s Barunson E&a is set to launch sales on director Kim Jee-woon’s much-anticipated drama and black comedy Cobweb, starring Cannes best actor awardee Song Kang-ho of Broker, at the European Film Market (EFM).

The recently launched sales unit of the production company behind Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite will handle the film’s international sales excluding French-speaking territories, which will be handled by leading independent Korean sales agent Finecut.

The film is produced by Anthology Studios, Barunson Studio (an affiliate of Barunson E&a), and Luz y Sonidos.

Cobweb has been...

Korea’s Barunson E&a, the production company behind Oscar-winning drama Parasite, is launching international sales on Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb, starring Song Kang-Ho, at the upcoming European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin.

The star-studded black comedy drama is the fifth on-screen collaboration between Song and director Kim, whose credits include gritty noir A Bittersweet Life (2005), revenge thriller I Saw The Devil (2010), ‘Kimchi’ western The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008), period spy action The Age Of Shadows (2016), and recent AppleTV+ series Dr. Brain (2021).

Set in the 1970s, an era in which censors dictated the shape of a film’s plot, Cobweb stars Song as an obsessive director on a mission to reshoot the end of his latest film, Cobweb, in two days to create a masterpiece. His attempts are constantly thwarted by the censors and his confused and uncooperative cast and crew.

In addition to Song, the star-studded ensemble cast includes Im Soo-jung,...

Nobody does convoluted like Park Chan-wook. Far beyond the point that Theseus himself would have given up and turned to a pile of desiccated bones in some dead-end nook, the Korean master behind “Oldboy” and “The Handmaiden” will be coolly sauntering through another of his immaculately intricate labyrinths, pausing very occasionally — with perhaps the slightest trace of irritation — to make sure the laggards in the back can keep up. The process should be maddening, but instead, as his new Cannes competition title proves, it’s almost magical how his trail of elegant, glinting clues leads us out, blinking, into the light again. After the world-conquering success of Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” and the small-screen domination of “Squid Game,” your new, sublimely accomplished Korean thriller obsession is here, and it is Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave.”

Hae-joon is an ace police detective. The youngest officer ever to make Inspector in bustling Busan,...

I often felt like crying “U.N.C.L.E.” (as in The Man From) while watching The Ipcress File, a stylized 1960s-era spy caper. The Manchurian Candidate (seen on a movie marquee) is another touchstone for this keen, kitschy six-part romp based on Len Deighton’s bestseller. You may also be reminded of shows like Secret Agent and the original Mission: Impossible as the twisty series spins its exotic web. (Credit: Ben Blackall/Mikola Preovic / ©AMC+ /Courtesy Everett Collection) In the role that helped make Michael Caine a star in a 1965 film, Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole has insolent charm to spare as bad-boy agent Harry Palmer. “I am uncomfortable discussing my emotions,” he insists, but unlike his contemporary James Bond, who also has a license to kill, Harry lacks the will, showing remorse after a harrowing shootout. Plucked from prison by a rogue bureau (led by a sly Tom...

Cinema Retro has received the following announcement:

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Of all the countless action adventure TV shows that filled our screens in the 1960s, perhaps none of them have fascinated audiences quite as much as The Prisoner. In 1967, Patrick McGoohan stepped away from the colossal Itc hit show Secret Agent (or Danger Man in the UK) and used his commercial clout to create a series that has thrilled and baffled in equal measure for over fifty years.

He played a nameless secret agent who is kidnapped during the titles sequence of the first episode, and wakes up in a bizarre, pastel-hued location where everyone is known only by their number, and where escape is made impossible by a malevolent bouncing ball.

In ‘The Village’, the authorities are determined to discover why this new arrival resigned. However, No. 6 as he is now known, is equally determined...

Exclusive: DGene, an emerging content creation company, has set an agreement with post-production specialist Mti Film to develop and use an advanced set of film restoration tools. The goal of the collaboration is to revive a number of classic films and TV series.

The companies are not yet identifying specific titles, but Mti has restored more than 100 classics, including Lawrence Of Arabia, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Godfather II and many more. It has worked on titles from Sony Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. MoMA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

With the streaming boom placing a premium on film and TV libraries, all displayed on better and better TV sets, the demand for restoration has been on the rise.

DGene’s technology employs artificial intelligence to create tools to revive old or damaged films so they can be uploaded onto streaming platforms.

One of South Korea’s biggest stars, Song Kang-ho worked with Hong Sang-soo, Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong, Kim Jee-woon, and Bong Joon-ho before he catapulted into even greater fame with the lattermost director’s Best Picture winner Parasite. Now, for a new feature, he’ll be reuniting with the aforementioned Kim Jee-woon.

Variety reports that the project is titled Cobweb, described by the director as an “experimental” work that will be shot entirely on sound stages and features a film-within-a-film narrative. Written by Shin Yeon-shick, who was originally set to direct, the film will reportedly feature black-and-white and color photography in the same frames, but no plot details are known at this stage.

Song and Kim previously collaborated on The Quiet Family, The Foul King, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, and The Age of Shadows. Their fifth collaboration, Cobweb, will mark the first film made by Song and Kim’s production company Anthology Studios.

“Parasite” star Song Kang-ho will reteam for the fifth time with leading Korean director Kim Jee-woon on their upcoming feature film “Cobweb.”

Kim describes the project as “experimental” and said that it will be shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative.

The film will be the first project to emerge from Anthology Studios, a production house co-founded earlier this year by Kim, Song and Jay Choi, an executive who was previously local production head for Warner Bros Korea. The company had barely been launched before it was acquired for KRW20 billion (approximately $18 million) by Jtbc Studios, a subsidiary of Korean pay-tv network Jtbc.

Anthology aims to produce films and work with talented rookie directors who Kim will mentor. The trio were all previously involved with stylish caper comedy “The Good, The Bad, The Weird,” which debuted in Cannes in 2008, and “The Age of Shadows,” which debuted...

Zhang Yimou’s first foray into the spy genre is a blockbuster in Hollywood style, which also reminds much of the Korean “The Age of Shadows”, particularly in the way it has been set.

“Cliff Walkers” is screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

Based on a script by Quan Yongxian, the previously known as “Impasse” film focuses on four communist party special agents, Zhang, Lan, Yu and Chiuliang, who arrive in Manchukuo in 1931, after training in Russia, in order to carry out a secret mission codenamed “Utrenya”. The operation is to take place in Harbin, where a witness to a Japanese massacre is hiding. The four of them decide to split, although Lan and her husband are rather reluctant to separate. Before they do, however, they promise each other that, whoever survives, should find their children, who have been left behind before their training begun.

As they are crossing the snowy mountains,...

"I think the director's thoughts, feelings, colors, and smells exist in every scene." There's a new "Director's Vision" featurette out for their sci-fi thriller series Dr. Brain, which is already playing now on Apple TV+. It spends time with acclaimed Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon discussing working on this. Dr. Brain is an emotional journey following a brain scientist who's obsessive about figuring out new technologies to access the consciousness and memories of the brain. His life goes sideways when his family falls victim to a mysterious accident, and he uses his skills to access memories from his wife's brain to piece together the mystery of what actually happened to his family and why. The series stars Lee Sun-kyun, Lee You-young, Park Hee-soon, Seo Ji-hye, & Lee Jae-won. I'm already a big fan of ...

Exclusive: DGene, an emerging content creation company involved in virtual production and immersive entertainment, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round led by Alibaba.

The Chinese tech giant had also invested in the company in a prior phase before the Series A. DGene, which was founded in Shanghai, has staffed up in the U.S. and ramped up Hollywood activity of late, including opening a volumetric capture stage in Baton Rouge, LA. The 900-square-foot facility uses artificial intelligence to create holograms of humans and objects for use in Ar, VR, holographic displays, mixed-reality glasses and framed video. Applications for volumetric video span entertainment, gaming, advertising, training, education and other sectors.

The influx of capital will fund studio operations as well as DGene’s suite of restoration tools that the company says can help revive film libraries in a cost-effective manner. The library effort is aimed at optimizing catalog film...

Remake of the homonymous 1945 Shanghai spy thriller, “The Best Secret Agent” is a taiyupian spy thriller, which takes, though, an approach that lingers somewhere between the family drama and the romantic comedy.

The Best Secret Agent is Screening at Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh

As the film starts, Tsui-ying, a young beautiful girl, is roaming the country with her father during the Sino-Japanese war, performing on the street to earn a living. In one instance where her father becomes violent towards her for messing up her routine, she is saved by Ling-yun, a spectator. A bit later, her father dies during a bombing, and the girl ends up in a relationship with her previous saviour. However, as her hate for the Japanese boils, she becomes a member of the Resistance, and agrees to leave Ling-yun, and marry Chao-chun, a rich minister who is one of the main associates of the Japanese in the country,...

"His memories went straight inside you?" Whoa this looks trippy. Apple has unveiled an official trailer for a sci-fi thriller series titled Dr. Brain, which is debuting in just a few weeks (Nov 4th) on Apple TV+. A surprise series?! Yes, please! Directed by the visionary filmmaker Kim Jee-woon, starring Lee Sun-kyun. "Get ready for a mind-bending journey with a genius neuroscientist who navigates through other people's memories in search of the truth." The series is an emotional journey that follows a brain scientist who is obsessive about figuring out new technologies to access the consciousness and memories of the brain. His life goes sideways when his family falls victim to a mysterious accident, and he uses his skills to access memories from his wife's brain to piece together the mystery of what actually happened to his ...

Mark Wahlberg strides into theaters this weekend with Joe Bell as the Reinaldo Marcus Green film debuts on 1,093 screens supported by robust advertising and a star-driven social media campaign.

Roadside Attractions is distributing, having snapped up the film from Solstice Studios which acquired it off of a 2020 Toronto Film Festival premiere but was particularly hard hit by the pandemic and let it go. The drama scripted by the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain team of Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana is the true story of a rough-edged dad who walks across America to speak to heartland adults and students about the evils of bullying as experienced firsthand by his gay teenage son.

Wahlberg and co-stars Connie Britton and Reid Miller (who plays son Jadin Bell) have all supported it with a robust PR schedule backed by cable and online advertising., “We are seeing gradual improvement with...

Tradition is just an empty word in the world of gangsters, and the same could be said also for the world of film distribution. One might expect that a genre fare with an elite festival premiere should end up on the regular repertoire in movie theatres, regionally if not worldwide, but Park Hoon-jung’s “Night in Paradise” landed on Netflix instead earlier this year. We might blame it on the pandemic, but the fact is that the streaming services are expanding regardless of it.

As a screenwriter, Park is best known for his work with Kim Jee-won on the iconic serial killer flick “I Saw the Devil” (2010), but as a director, his most breakthrough work would be his second feature, “New World” (2013). The latter was a crime drama with a dash of action and gangster epic, so it is somewhat expected for the filmmaker to go back to the familiar...

ABC Signature has enlisted Cj Enm’s Jiwon Park as its VP Drama Development.

At Cj Enm America/Studio Dragon International, Park served as VP Series Development and managed the TV and film slate for its U.S. office, which included Parasite, Snowpiercer and the hit Korean drama Crash Landing on You. She served as a producer of Snowpiercer for TNT/Netflix and oversaw development of projects from Cj’s partnership with Skydance.

She previously managed The Age of Shadows and I Saw the Devil director Jee-woon Kim for English-language projects.

Her international background will serve to identify and develop global and diverse content for ABC Signature across streamers, cable and network.

When the urgent desire to make something beautiful overrides the desire to tell a particular story — and when you are Zhang Yimou, rebounding from a run-in with the Chinese authorities over your last picture, “One Second” — you might end up with a film like “Cliff Walkers.” A gorgeously snowbound period spy movie insulated beneath layers of contorted plotting just as its cast is swaddled in snow-speckled winter furs and fedoras, the film is a muddle of a plot wrapped around a bland, committee-approved message, but mounted with such magnificence it’s possible not to really mind.

The first switcheroo in its three-card-monte construction happens before we’ve even properly seen our heroes’ faces. Like in a Bond movie prologue, four agents parachute into a snowy forest at night. Unlike in a Bond prologue, the blue moonlight filtering coldly through the trees is of as much interest to Zhao Xiaoding’s...

Zhang Yimou’s first foray into the spy genre is a blockbuster in Hollywood style, which also reminds much of the Korean “The Age of Shadows”, particularly in the way it has been set.

Cmc Pictures will release “Cliff Walkers” to theaters across North America and internationally on April 30, 2021

Based on a script by Quan Yongxian, the previously known as “Impasse” film focuses on four communist party special agents, Zhang, Lan, Yu and Chiuliang, who arrive in Manchukuo in 1931, after training in Russia, in order to carry out a secret mission codenamed “Utrenya”. The operation is to take place in Harbin, where a witness to a Japanese massacre is hiding. The four of them decide to split, although Lan and her husband are rather reluctant to separate. Before they do, however, they promise each other that, whoever survives, should find their children, who have been left behind before their training begun.

A muscular and unflinching Korean filmmaker with a flair for operatic ultra-violence, Park Hoon-jung does at least one thing better than anyone else on the planet: Shoot legions of suit-wearing gangsters beating the absolute shit out of each other. After scripting 2010’s “I Saw the Devil” and pioneering his particular brand of Musou-inspired mayhem as the director of “The Showdown” the next year, Park came into his own with 2013’s “New World,” a bruising and brilliant mob epic that spends much of its 134-minute run time stuffing Armani-slick henchmen into confined spaces with the chaotic energy of a child pouring a gallon of milk into a teacup. It’s as if someone took the infamous hallway fight from “Oldboy” and stretched it into a crime saga worthy of comparison to “Goodfellas.”

“Night in Paradise” doesn’t play against Park’s strengths — this is, at heart, — but it doesn’t want to rely on them either.

Power trio’s new outfit will produce or co-produce all of Kim Jee-woon’s upcoming films.

Former Warner Bros Korea Local Production head Jay Choi has formed a production company with director Kim Jee-woon and Parasite star Song Kang-ho, Anthology Studios, which has immediately been snapped up by cable broadcaster Jtbc Studios.

Speaking to Screendaily, Choi said: “The Jtbc Studios deal happened before we were even properly set up to announce the new company.

“We will be a part of the Jtbc family now, but fundamentally, Anthology Studios is co-founded by director Kim Jee-woon, who will be doing all his...

A well-respected film critic, Kim is also a professor at Myongji University and former programmer at Jeonju film festival.

The Korean Film Council (Kofic) has named Kim Young-jin its new chairperson. A well-respected film critic, Kim is also a professor of film at Myongji University and former executive programmer at the Jeonju International Film Festival.

“We will seek practical support measures to overcome these difficult times in the aftermath of Covid-19 [and other matters] and will focus our capabilities to present a blueprint that actively responds to the rapidly reorganised film industry,” said Kim.

Kim was also previously a journalist at leading local...

It may feel slightly strange that a director credited with blockbuster hits such as “A Bittersweet Life“, “I Saw The Devil” and “The Age of Shadows” would find himself directing a short revolving around the lost love of a young adult, but that is exactly where Kim Jee-woon finds himself. Far more tempered and restrained than his previous works, it is a welcome change of pace from Kim’s other directorial efforts, in turn excelling through its punchy pacing and accessible, vulnerable storytelling.

Predominantly, the narrative revolves around the recipient of the abrupt ending of a youthful relationship, Su-ji (Bae Suzy), as she navigates her way through life in the early stages of being dumped. Heartbroken, shocked, bitter, yet also optimistic, the post-adolescent seeks to reclaim an earned independence through the ten-minute feature, taking back her belongings from her ex-beau with a defined gravitas. However, as is the way with heartbreak,...

South Korea’s Cj Entertainment, the studio behind multiple Oscar-winner “Parasite,” confirmed that it is leading its AFM sales slate with “Decision to Leave,” the newly announced title by another master director, “Oldboy” helmer Park Chan-wook.

The studio is pitching the film as a crime-romancer with dialogue in Korean and Chinese. The story involves a detective, to be played by Park Hae-il (“Memories of Murder”), who develops romantic feelings for a woman, played by China’s Tang Wei, who should be the prime suspect in a murder case he is investigating.

The studio provides no other updated information on delivery, production budget or supplementary casting. When Cj announced the film last month, it said that it would be investor and local Korean distributor of the film, but told Variety at the time that it had not settled on the international sales agency role.

In many recent instances, Cj has held...

While the global box office may be crippled right now, one movie that brought a dose of hope to South Korean theaters this past weekend was Yeon Sang-ho’s “Peninsula.” The sequel to 2016’s cult favorite “Train to Busan,” the post-apocalyptic thriller earned $13 million at the South Korean box office, according to Deadline’s figures. In Taiwan, a reported figure of at least $5 million was earned for “Peninsula,” with receipts in Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. “Peninsula” also delivered IMAX a win this weekend, bringing global totals to $1 million for the first time since mid-March, which was the last time many moviegoers went to a theater. $750,000 of the IMAX totals came from “Peninsula.” Stateside, “Peninsula” is currently dated to open from Well Go USA on August 7.

The original “Train to Busan” netted $92 million at the global box office back in 2016, but continues to have a life on Netflix. The horror action...

Yeon Sang-ho’s standout K-horror entry “Train to Busan” from 2016 balances unexpected, bloody bursts of comedy with a nail-shredding “Snowpiercer”-esque train ride through a zombie apocalypse. Now, the South Korean auteur is set to scare up audiences again with his next project, a supernatural horror show for Netflix titled “Hellbound.”

As reported by Screen Daily, Yeon will direct the series, based on the Korean K-horror web cartoon “Hell.” Yeon will work on the script with illustrator Choi Gyu-seok, an artist known for the webtoon “Songgot” in Korea, which was adapted into a TV drama in 2015. Produced by Lezhin Studio, “Hellbound” will tell a similarly chaotic horror story akin to “Train to Busan.” The Netflix series will be set in a society under chaos after a pack of supernatural beings show up to start condemning people to hell. Up rises a new religious group that believes these being are sent from god.

This is the second Korean movie produced and distributed by Warner Bros after “The Age of Shadows” and it’s mainly filmed in Sydney, Australia.

In “A Single Rider”, Kang Jae-hoon (played by Lee Byung-hun) is a fund broker living in Korea by himself. He sent his wife Soo-jin (Kong Hyo-jin) and son Jin-woo (Yeong Yoo-jin) to live in Sydney, Australia to learn English and prepare for a better future. Due to some bad investment management and stock fraud, his company has gone under, resulting in his clients losing most of their life savings, a series of events that turned him into a disgraced broker.

With his company out of business, he decides to take a trip to Sydney to meet up with his family. This is where the rest of the movie takes place, in sunny, relaxing, green suburbia Sydney. However, after he arrives at the house,...

The Oscar for Best International Feature Film going to Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” marks a history-making moment for the Academy Awards. “Parasite’s” victory is the first time South Korea has won the International Feature Film category in the history of the Oscars. The category was formerly called Best Foreign Language Film. Bong’s social thriller was the frontrunner to win the International Feature Film Oscar after nabbing six total Oscar nominations this year, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Original Screenplay. “Parasite” was the first South Korean movie to be nominated in any of these categories, making the film a history-making before the awards ceremony even began.

“Parasite” ending its awards season journey with a history-making victory at the 92nd Academy Awards is a full circle moment as the movie started its run at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it world premiered...