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It’s a quiet but quality indie weekend led by documentaries and a few features in limited release as Gladiator 2 and Wicked storm in, other independents hold over, and ahead of anticipated specialty debuts next week like Queer, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Maria.

Docs out today follow artists in Ukraine, women in Afghanistan, South African photographer Ernest Cole and Amichai Lau-Lavie, a gay Israeli descendant of rabbis who becomes one himself. Narrative features include Hong Sangoo’ A Traveler’s Needs, animated Flow and The Black Sea.

Porcelain War from Picturehouse, the Sundance Grand Jury/U.S. Documentary Award winner that just screened at Doc NYC, opens at NYC’s IFC Center. Filmmakers Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev and participant Anya Stasenko are on hand for Q&As with award-winning producer Paula DuPré Pesman.

Set amid the chaos and destruction of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the...

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When we say that Netflix has something for everyone it is true for fans of all genres but especially true for the horror genre fans. With an incredible creator like Mike Flanagan who made brilliant horror shows and movies, Netflix has abundant peak horror content. So, today we thought of listing what we thought were the best horror shows on Netflix.

Hellbound Credit – Netflix

Hellbound is a South Korean supernatural dark fantasy horror thriller series created by Yeon Sang-ho and Choi Gyu-seok. Based on the webtoon of the same name by Sang-ho and Gyu-seok, the Netflix series is set in a world where unearthly creatures appear and condemn people to hell prompting people to create their own religious factions. Hellbound stars Yoo Ah-in, Kim Hyun-joo, Park Jeong-min, Won Jin-ah, Yang Ik-june, and Kim Do-yoon.

Interview With the Vampire...

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Hellbound is a South Korean dark fantasy horror thriller series directed by Yeon Sang-ho from a screenplay by Choi Gyu-seok. Based on the webtoon of the same name by Sang-ho, the Netflix series is set in a world where unearthly creatures appear and condemn people to hell. Soon after their appearance, religious groups begin forming on the ideology of divine justice. Hellbound stars Yoo Ah-in, Kim Hyun-joo, Park Jeong-min, Won Jin-ah, and Yang Ik-june. So, if you loved the dark fantasy elements, intensely thrilling story, and compelling characters in Hellbound here are some similar shows you should check out next.

Sweet Home (Netflix) Credit – Netflix

Sweet Home is a South Korean apocalyptic action horror series written by Hong So-ri, Kim Hyung-min, and Park So-jung. Based on the Naver webtoon of the same name by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan,...

The fizzy, milky Korean rice wine makgeolli is as much a main character as Isabelle Huppert in Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo‘s third collaboration with the iconic French actress. In fact, her character in “A Traveler’s Needs” can’t make it through the day without having at least a few glasses.

“A Traveler’s Needs” stars César winner Huppert as a tourist drifting through Seoul who, with no money of her own and only a few jaunty sunhats and colorful cardigans, takes to teaching French to the locals to pay her room and board. But her unorthodox approach both alienates and entrances those around her in the latest delicate comedy from Hong, where characters booze and smoke their way through their ennui without ever succumbing to soul-crushing misanthropy. Watch the trailer for “A Traveler’s Needs,” an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “A comedy of improbable encounters and unlikely language lessons,...

They say there are only three certainties in life: death, taxes, and the release of at least one new Hong Sang-soo film each year. In a career marked by extreme prolificness—”By the Stream” is his ninth film to come out this decade, which, need I remind you, is less than halfway through completion—Hong’s directorial approach has equally been marked by its own set of developments coinciding with his personal journey; minor adjustments for anyone just popping in periodically on one of his many features, but for those accustomed to his propensity for self-reflection and jarring zooms, these changes may as well be signs of a whole new artist.

In particular, this new decade seems to have brought with it a more seasoned shade of that contemplative attitude—one that recognizes the internal faults Hong would begin to examine in the previous decade, but with a newfound understanding...

Acclaimed Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho has set mystery thriller The Ugly as his next feature, which Plus M Entertainment will introduce to buyers at the Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm) in Busan this week.

Yeon is known for directing Peninsula, which received a Cannes 2020 label and proved box office hit across Asia, taking $46.7m at the height of the pandemic; zombie thriller Train To Busan, which played at Cannes in 2016 and went on to take $140m at the global box office; and The King of Pigs, which became the first Korean animation to screen at Cannes when it was selected...

Isabelle Huppert, Hong Sang-soo favourite stars in New York Film Festival highlight A Traveler’s Need Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (co-written with Mona Fastvold and Silver Lion Best Director winner at the Venice International Film Festival), starring Adrien Brody with Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Stacy Martin, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Emma Laird, Isaach De Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola; Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig with Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi, and Missagh Zareh; Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April (Special Jury Prize in Venice) with Ia Sukhitashvili, plus Hong Sang-soo’s By The Stream, starring Kwon Haehyo, Kim Minhee, and Cho Yunhee and his A Traveler’s Needs (winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival) starring Isabelle Huppert, round out the five early bird highlights in the Main Slate program...

Hong Sang-soo’s films have tricky narrative juxtapositions and symbols that often render potentially mundane moments transcendent. In Our Day, for instance, is composed of a handful of talky plot strands that are subtly connected by props and recurring references in the dialogue. Turn away at a pivotal juncture and you risk failing to grasp the film’s anatomy, as its essence resides in how carefully and fleetingly those and other strands coalesce.

In A Traveler’s Needs, though, Hong’s sleight of hand with narrative is less consistent than usual. For a long stretch of the film’s running time, Hong appears to have built the wrong concept around the wrong actor, giving Isabelle Huppert a conceptual role that leans hard on her brand of curt whimsicality. Kim Min-hee, a veteran of similar roles in Hong’s films, as well as his partner and a key collaborator behind the scenes,...

Writer-director Hong Sang-soo’s By the Stream opens on a pastoral autumn landscape of Seoul, with a stream running toward a bridge. Wide landscape shots are unusual for Hong, and this image introduces this stream as the first of several refrains that will run through the film as, well, currents. Amid a vast narrative, especially for Hong, one that’s rich in scandals and disappointments and broken promises, there’s the relief for the characters of the stream, the foliage, and the moon. As despairing as this film can be, it also has a glow that’s reminiscent of Hong’s In Front of Your Face, only more so. This is the glow of communal rapture, the reassuring bond of community that can also be a trap.

Sitting by the stream is Jeonim (Kim Min-hee), who’s writing in a notebook, seemingly lost in reverie. Hong and Kim express more...

Fall festival season picked up this last week with Venice and Telluride, and now Toronto is just around the corner, from 5-15 September 2024. This year, we’re seeing an exciting number of festival-favorite auteurs return, including Jia Zhang-ke (“Caught with the Wind”), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (“Cloud”), Mohammad Rassoulof (“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”), and Hong Sang-soo (“By the Stream”). For those who are in Toronto and are interested in the older classics, TIFF Classics offers some delectable 4k restorations of South Asian and Iranian selects this year, including Raj Kapoor‘s classic “Awara” (1951) and Sohrab Shahid Saless‘ “Time of Maturity” (1976).

In addition to these, genre films seem to make up a healthy number of Asian selections this year. Korean blockbuster star Hyun-bin returns in Woo Min-ho’s latest historical spy movie, “Harbin,” and Tumpbal Tampubolon‘s “Crocodile Tears” promises a “slow-burning suspense thriller.” Three of the infamously-campy Midnight Madness screenings...

‘Korean Cinema Today – Special Premiere’ is a section that selects and premieres the latest and most prominent contemporary Korean commercial films, known for their mass appeal and significance. This year, the section has unveiled five films, including four world premieres, which are set to captivate the audience’s attention.

A Normal Family A Girl with Closed Eyes

The film A Girl with Closed Eyes (2024) is a thriller that delves into the complex and tense relationship between a criminal and a detective, who are reunited after the murder case of a bestselling author. The film features performances by Kim Minha, who gained global recognition from Pachinko (2022), and Moon Choi from Anarchist from Colony (2017). Director Hur Jin-ho’s latest work, A Normal Family (2023), is a well-crafted suspense thriller that depicts the unraveling lives of four individuals, each steadfast in their own beliefs, after they witness a crime scene involving their children captured on CCTV.

Occasionally here in Asian Movie Pulse, we joke about Hong Sang-soo films, that maybe we should also have the same review written once, and just change it a bit every time a new movie of his comes out. The fact remains though, that his success in the festival circuit continues, with “By the Stream” winning an award in Locarno (as usual), this time for Kim Min-hee, as the Best Performance in the international competition.

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This time, there is more of a script here, a more concrete basis where all the eating, drinking and talking revolves around. Jeon-im is a lecturer at a Seoul’s women’s college and a textiles artist, who, as the movie begins, has invited her uncle, former actor and director Si-eon, in order to devise a theatrical skit for the remaining members of a troupe from...

The death of the author is the birth of the reader, as we know from post-structuralist thought; then again, there are Hong Sangsoo’s public remarks. A charming video I often revisit shows the South Korean filmmaker outlining his working method: script dialogue completed the day of (also common on big Hollywood productions), followed by a light-speed editing assembly. But at a public Q&a in Locarno following the premiere of his latest, By the Stream, he revealed a shift; a day now separates his writing and location-shooting. Turning over his new film and this year’s other premiere, A Traveler’s Needs, the extra hours of composition and finessing are evident.

So how about Spot the Difference––which we cynically might call being on Hong world-premiere-reviewing duty. Yet By the Stream’s departures, and relatedly its virtues, are a bit more pronounced. Its running time almost grazes two hours––more...

“By the Stream,” the 32nd feature by Hong Sangsoo, opens as many of the previous 31 have, with a polite meeting between two softly acquainted people — neither strangers nor as familiar to each other as they might once have been. Tentative pleasantries are exchanged, before one says to the other, “You haven’t changed at all.” It’s a premature observation, of course: The ensuing action, such as it is, shows either how much has changed between the two, or how much they’ve forgotten along the way. Distinguished from other Hongs like it by its light autumnal chill and accompanying russet palette, this subtle comedy of actors, academics and dreams set to one side welcomes the director’s steadfast fans like a gentle but hesitant embrace.

Premiering in competition at the Locarno Film Festival, the prolific South Korean’s second feature of 2024 — following the Isabelle Huppert-starring Berlinale prizewinner “A Traveler’s Needs...

“By the Stream” (aka “Suyoocheon”), the latest work by prolific South Korean minimalist director Hong Sang-soo, is set to release in North American theaters next year.

Rights were acquired by Brooklyn-based distributor Cinema Guild from sales agent, Seoul, Korea-based Finecut. Both companies have handled many of the director’s previous works.

The picture will have its world premiere in competition this month at the Locarno Film Festival. It will subsequently play at the New York Film Festival and other festival berths are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Hong is known for his micro-budget, minimalist drama films that are long on conversation, chance encounters and female protagonists. He also likes to work with a tight-knit circle of actors.

The new film is Hong’s 32nd as director. It takes him back to the campus setting of films like “Oki’s Movie” from 2010 and “Our Sunhi” from 2013. A press...

Taking place August 7-17, the official selection for the 77th Locarno Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring a stellar-looking slate of highly anticipated films. Highlights include Hong Sangsoo’s second feature of the year, By the Stream, starring Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee; Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, Wang Bing’s second part of his Youth trilogy, Youth (Hard Times), as well as new films by Radu Jude, Bertrand Mandico, Courtney Stephens, Ben Rivers, Gürcan Keltek, Denis Côté, Kevin Jerome Everson, Fabrice Du Welz (featuring Abel Ferrara!), and many more. Also of particular note is the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored cut of The Fall, which features a slightly different edit as he recently noted.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival said, “We are very excited and happy with our selection for Locarno’s 77th edition, which we believe...

The Locarno Film Festival (August 7-17) has revealed the line-up for its 77th edition, with directors including Hong Sangsoo, Wang Bing and Ben Rivers world premiering their latest films in its international competition.

Playing out of competition at Locarno are world premieres from directors including Radu Jude, Fabrice du Welz, Aislinn Clarke, Bertrand Mandico, and Marco Tullio Giordana. Locarno’s famed Piazza Grande screenings include world premieres from Paz Vega, César Díaz and Gianluca Jodice.

Locarno’s international competition comprises 17 films, all of them world premieres, which will vie for the coveted Golden Leopard awards.

Scroll down for full line-up...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 world premieres, including new works by Hong Sang-soo and Wang Bing, as part of its 2024 competition program. This year’s event runs from August 7 – 17.

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.

The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights to Hong Sangsoo’s Berlin Silver Bear winner A Traveler’s Needs starring Isabelle Huppert.

‘A Traveler’s Needs’: Berlin Review

Cinema Guild will release the comedy theatrically following its North American festival premiere later this year.

A Traveler’s Needs marks the third collaboration between Hong and Huppert following 2012’s In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.

Huppert plays Iris, a woman who finds herself adrift in Seoul and, without any means to make ends meet, turns to teaching French through a peculiar method. Through a series of encounters the mysteries of her circumstances deepen.

Hong Sansoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert, has sold North American distribution rights to New York’s Cinema Guild.

The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, winning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.

A Traveler’s Needs will premiere in North America later in 2024, after which Cinema Guild will release in theaters. The pic is a comedy with a strong Korean connection, with Huppert playing Iris, a woman struggling in Seoul who turns to teaching French to make ends meet. Regular collaborators Lee Hyeyoung and Kwon Haehyo also feature as Huppert’s student and flirty husband respectively.

Sangsoo and Huppert have collaborated twice before, on 2012 comedy-drama In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.

“A Traveler’s Needs hits like a meteorite from another galaxy,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly. “Huppert delivers a beguiling and hilarious performance. Her Iris is a character that only Hong and Huppert,...

This article contains spoilers for Parasyte: The Grey.

One of the latest Netflix original series to come out of South Korea is the science fiction thriller Parasyte: The Grey. Blending body horror and conspiracy-tinged action, Parasyte debuted to strong streaming numbers worldwide after premiering in April. Across the first season’s six episodes, there were plenty of harrowing and heartbreaking twists and turns along the way as a small group of specialists move to stop an all-out extraterrestrial invasion of Earth.

Here is what you need to know about Parasyte: The Grey, what happens in its pulse-pounding finale, and how the episode connects directly with its literary source material to set up a potential second season.

What is Parasyte: The Grey About?

Parasyte: The Grey is based on the manga series Parasyte, created by Hitoshi Iwaaki. The story follows worm-like aliens that fall to Earth and forcibly enter humans’ heads through their ears,...

Take a look at more footage from “Parasyte: The Grey”, a new live-action TV series directed by Yeon Sang-ho, adapting the sci-fi horror manga comics series, created by Hitoshi Iwaaki, streaming April 5, 2024 on Netflix:

“…as unidentified parasitic life-forms that live off human hosts strive to grow their power and start to disrupt society…

‘…, a group of humans wage war against the rising evil…”

Cast includes Koo Kyo-hwan, Lee Jung-hyun, Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim In-kwon.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Take a look at more footage from “Parasyte: The Grey”, a new live-action TV series directed by Yeon Sang-ho, adapting the sci-fi horror manga comics series, created by Hitoshi Iwaaki, streaming April 5, 2024 on Netflix:

“…as unidentified parasitic life-forms that live off human hosts strive to grow their power and start to disrupt society, a group of humans wage war against the rising evil…”

Cast includes Koo Kyo-hwan, Lee Jung-hyun, Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim In-kwon.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Netflix has released a brand new full trailer for their Korean sci-fi horror series “Parasyte: The Grey,” based on the Japanese manga Parasyte (Kiseijuu) by Hitsoshi Iwaaki.

When unidentified parasites violently take over human hosts and gain power, humanity must rise to combat the growing threat in “Parasyte: The Grey.” From Train to Busan and Hellbound director Yeon Sang-ho, it’s coming to Netflix on April 5.

Watch a bonkers new trailer below, loaded with body horror madness!

Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix: “They arrive in silence and darkness. They descend from the skies. They have a hunger for human flesh. They are everywhere.

“They are parasites, alien creatures who must invade-and take control of-a human host to survive. And once they have infected their victims, they can assume any deadly form they choose: monsters with giant teeth, winged demons, creatures with blades for hands. But most have chosen...

When unidentified parasites violently take over human hosts and gain power, humanity must rise to combat the growing threat in Netflix horror series “Parasyte: The Grey.”

From Train to Busan and Hellbound director Yeon Sang-ho, the Korean sci-fi horror series is based on the legendary Japanese manga Parasyte (Kiseijuu) by Hitsoshi Iwaaki.

It’s coming to Netflix on April 5. Watch the Insane official teaser trailer below!

Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix: “They arrive in silence and darkness. They descend from the skies. They have a hunger for human flesh. They are everywhere.

“They are parasites, alien creatures who must invade-and take control of-a human host to survive. And once they have infected their victims, they can assume any deadly form they choose: monsters with giant teeth, winged demons, creatures with blades for hands. But most have chosen to conceal their lethal purpose behind ordinary human faces. So no...

“Parasyte: The Grey” is a new live-action TV series directed by Yeon Sang-ho, adapting the the sci-fi horror manga and anime series, created by Hitoshi Iwaaki, streaming April 5, 2024 on Netflix:

“…as unidentified parasitic life-forms that live off human hosts strive to grow their power and start to disrupt society, a group of humans wage war against the rising evil…”

Cast includes Koo Kyo-hwan, Lee Jung-hyun, Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim In-kwon.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Like makgeolli — Korea’s unique fizzy, fermented, cloudy-white rice wine — the films of director Hong Sang-soo are an acquired taste. Fortunately for him, many film programmers at repertory houses and festivals beyond South Korea love the peculiar handmade, improvisational flavor of his work, with its complicated emotional entanglements and near primitive levels of craftsmanship. The last feature of his to premiere at the Berlinale, In Water, wasn’t even in focus, although Hong insists that was deliberate, to reflect the fuzziness of its creatively blocked film director protagonist.

Thankfully, his latest, A Traveler’s Needs, a competitor for the Golden Bear this year, is not only in focus, it’s also rather watchable, even for diehard Hong-skeptics. Partly that’s thanks to the presence of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role (her third collaboration with Hong, after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera), playing Iris, a mysterious Frenchwoman with eccentric habits.

Two things can be true at once. The old debate over whether Hong Sangsoo’s cinema is overly earnest or self-aware was always a bit reductive––when the most light-hearted of the director’s films transcend, it is usually a result of both. Regardless, those arguments fade further into the rearview mirror with A Traveler’s Needs, his first collaboration with Isabelle Huppert since Claire’s Camera (2017) and Hong’s funniest film in years. In one gloriously stilted scene at around the halfway point, a lawyer played by Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo attempts to flirt with Huppert’s character, Iris, who responds with a kind of unhinged wink-and-giggle movement––she then, insanely, repeats the trick. Wise to the cringing discomfort of the moment, Hong quickly cuts to a zoom reminiscent of the fan-favorite in The Woman Who Ran. Don’t say he isn’t in on the joke.

A Traveler’s Need...

“This might sound very irresponsible, but I don’t know what I’m doing,” South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo told a Berlinale presser this afternoon when quizzed on his unique directing style.

The prolific filmmaker is back at Berlin with A Traveler’s Needs, his seventh film in three years. The film stars French screen veteran Isabelle Huppert and Sangsoo has six credits on the film, including director, screenplay, cinematography, editing, and music and he is also listed as the film’s producer.

“I start with some objectives and then I have a recognized working method that I have developed. And I believe in a certain happening between people,” he continued.

A Traveler’s Needs is Huppert’s third collaboration with Sangsoo, and she told the Berlinale presser that the Korean filmmaker provides a creative environment like no other filmmaker she has worked with. She said this is largely thanks to his...

Currently revelling in the success of recently-uploaded Don Lee-starring film “Badland Hunters” and already teasing the second season of “Squid Game,” Netflix has unveiled a major slate of Korean films and series for 2024.

In August last year, Netflix publicly committed to investing $2.5 billion on Korean content over the next four years. That reflected both Netflix’s position as the country’s leading streamer, with an estimated 6.5 million subscribers, and its adopted role as one of the biggest exporters of Korean film and TV content.

“We were able to make this [investment] decision because we have great confidence that the Korean creative industry will continue to tell great stories,” said the streamer’s co-chief Ted Sarandos at the time of the spending commitment.

The Tuesday reveal is a mix of: first-look images and updates for previously announced projects (including the retitled Park Chan-wook-produced film “Uprising” and the second season...

Netflix has unveiled a bumper slate of Korean films and series for the year ahead including a historical feature from Park Chan-wook and the return of the streamer’s biggest ever series, Squid Game.

Fresh details on more than 30 titles were revealed as part of Netflix’s ongoing showcase of what is to come in 2024, which has included upcoming slates from the US and Southeast Asia among others over the past week.

Leading the shows from South Korea is season two of Squid Game, the highly-anticipated follow up to the 2021 series that remains the platform’s most popular series of...

Flex X Cop is Sbs TV’s latest romantic crime series directed by Kim Jae-hong, from a screenplay by Kim Ba-da. The Korean drama is airing on Disney+ and it revolves around Jin Yi-soo, an immature third-generation chaebol who starts working as a detective with a veteran violent crime department detective Lee Kang-hyun. Initially, Kang-hyun thinks that Yi-soo is nothing but trouble and wants nothing to do with him but soon they begin to trust each other, and a romance blossoms.

Flex X Cop – Episode Guide (When Will the New Episodes Air?) Credit – Sbs TV

Flex X Cop consists of sixteen episodes in total. The Sbs TV drama premiered on Disney+ with its first episode on January 26, with the next episode coming out the next day. The rest of the episodes will be airing every Friday and Saturday. Check out the full episode for the Korean drama below:

Episode 1 – January...

South Korean sales agency Finecut has secured international sales rights to Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, which stars Isabelle Huppert and is set to premiere in Competition at the Berlinale.

It marks the third collaboration between French actress Huppert and Korean filmmaker Hong after In Another Country, which played in Competition at Cannes 2012, and Claire’s Camera, which was shown in the Special Screenings section of Cannes in 2017.

Announcing its selection for the Berlinale today, artistic director Carlo Chatrian described the film as a “light but piercing take on human relationships”.

It follows a woman, played by Huppert,...

Leading Korean rights sales firm Finecut is to handle the international distribution of “A Traveler’s Needs,” which on Monday was confirmed as debuting in the main competition section of next month’s Berlinale. Remarkably, it is director Hong Sang-soo’s sixth selection for Berlin since 2020.

The picture is also the third time that French acting icon Isabelle Huppert stars in a film by the Korean veteran director, following their previous joint efforts “Claire’s Camera” and “In Another Country.”

A synopsis provided reads: “She came from France. She was playing a child’s recorder in a park. With no means of supporting herself she was advised to teach French. She became a teacher to two women. She likes to lie down on rocks and rely on makkeolli [Korean rice wine] for comfort.” Dialog is a mix of Korean, English and French.

Hong is known for his micro-budget, minimalist drama films that are long on conversation,...

Walk Up.“Surprising”: that’s how a character in Hong Sang-soo’s Walk Up describes the decision to hold a film festival in 2022. Filmmaker Byung-soo (Hae-hyo Kwan) has just been invited to attend a complete retrospective of his work overseas, but he and his partner are discussing what this would actually entail: the couple would need to pay her way since the cinematheque can only cover one plane ticket, and Byung-soo would need to quarantine upon returning home to South Korea. The trip would be expensive, “complicated.” They hash it out over greens in a sparsely decorated apartment, boxed into a deeply unglamorous, black-and-white medium shot. Initially, Walk Up left a very light impression on me, but it was on my mind more than most films as I departed TIFF. Byung-soo is a proxy for Hong, and the plainness of his—and Walk Up’s—fatigue with filmmaking is wryly bourgeois,...

If one thing of late really sets Hong Sang-soo apart, it’s his unglamorous depiction of the film director. Appropriate to the small-scale of his corpus, these artists live far from the fantasy of 8½, but instead in the mundanity between projects. Hong’s avatar in Walk Up is Byungsoo (Hae-hyo Kwon), who’s visiting an apartment building owned by Ms. Kim (Lee Hyeyoung) with the company of his estranged daughter Jeong-su (Park Mi-so).

In making their way through the different parts of the building and not forgetting to down one bottle of white wine after another (instead of soju as usual) with his female partners, the vulnerability that comes out when buzzed—a central Hong theme—is very apparent. And so lots and lots of talking ensues to varying degrees of interest, a particular highlight being when Byungsoo notes a dream where God told him to move to Jeju and make films.

Stars: Dong-Won Gang, Jung-hyun Lee, Re Lee, Hae-hyo Kwon, Min-Jae Kim, Gyo-hwan Koo, Do-Yoon Kim, Ye-Won Lee | Written by Sang-ho Yeon, Ryu Yong-jae | Directed by Sang-ho Yeon

When Train to Busan arrived on the movie scene it was just what the zombie sub genre needed. A focus on a father protecting his daughter from an onslaught of zombies on a train brought heart and was instantly loved by many horror fans. With Peninsula, can lightening strike twice? The answer is… it depends on what you are wanting from the movie!

Four years after the zombie outbreak, a small group of Koreans return to their homeland to track down a truck containing 20 million US dollars. When things inevitably go wrong, Jung Seok (Dong-Won Gang) finds a chance to right a wrong from his past.

If you go into Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula expecting more of the same from the previous film,...