MOVIE

I am obsessed with subculture. I look into anything that handles fresh stories, themes, or characters—not only films but webtoons, games, manga, and animation. Having entered fandom through comics, I’ve grown into the kind of adult who reads manga as e-books and webtoons on a smartphone while still...

I'm drawn to film music. Sometimes music communicates a character's intimate emotions that images and dialogue alone cannot convey. It can become a window onto a creator's hidden intent. For me, understanding film music has been one way into a movie.

〈Hana Korea〉 tells one of Korean cinema’s most familiar stories in one of its most unfamiliar forms: a film by a Danish director, set in Seoul, about a North Korean defector. At times it unfolds like a Scandinavian film, yet its setting and faces are unmistakably Seoul, with Kim Min‑ha at the...

※ 〈Shadow Child〉 director Yu Eun-jeong interview continues from Part 1. 〈Shadow Child〉 recalls your earlier film 〈The Night's Door Opens〉. Both films depict death as a dark realm, yet each also takes a fundamentally affirmative view of existence — I saw similar imagery running through both.

What if you met someone who looked exactly like a loved one you had lost? That familiar premise has been reshaped into an original film with a fairytale-like setting: 〈Shadow Child〉, which opened on July 1. 〈Shadow Child〉 follows Geum-ok (Im Soo-jung) after her eldest daughter, Su-ryeon — who was...

“Gibeu aen teikeu, ssinyeonbara!”Lines such as “My child’s father is extremely angry,” “School Rights Protection Bureau inspector! I’m Im Han-lim—!” and the stammering “Ju-, ju-, ju-, a juvenile offender” spawned countless memes from 〈Teach You a Lesson〉, but there’s one moment that should have...

[First Reactions to Cinema]After raking in a box-office run-rate topping 22 million dollars in the first weekend of its release in North America, the buzzy film 〈King of Kings〉-crossover spectacle 〈David〉 opens in South Korea on Friday, July 10.

〈Marty Supreme〉 is a table tennis movie. For Korean film fans, the Sharpdy brothers are well known for 〈Heaven Knows What〉(2014), 〈Good Time〉(2017), and 〈Uncut Gems〉(2019), but 〈Marty Supreme〉 is a feature film that older brother Josh Safdie directed on his own for the first time in nearly 10 years.

[OTT Ratings]Choi Min-sik and Choi Hyun-wook's suspense drama 〈Notes from the Last Row〉 is now streaming on Netflix. The series follows Heo Mun-o, a failed writer and Korean literature professor, as he discovers the genius of Lee Kang, a student in the back row, and grows obsessed with the boy's...

[First Reactions]The South Korea–Denmark co-production 〈HANA KOREA〉 opens July 8. Inspired by a true story, the artbuster follows Hye-seon , a North Korean defector trying to push forward in an unfamiliar life. Cineplay reporter Kim Ji Yeon shares her review from the press screening.