11 stories

K-Movie

Korean cinema, from Cannes to the multiplex

A Japanese Cartoon About Small Cute Creatures Opened at Number One in Korea. Tom Cruise's New Film Is Seventh on the Booking Board, With Cruise in Seoul to Sell It

《극장판 치이카와》 took 122,291 admissions on its opening day, the biggest start for any animated film released in Korea this year, and by the next morning held 39 per cent of every advance ticket in the country. 《디거》, Alejandro G. Iñárritu's black comedy with Tom Cruise as an oil baron, opens on 3 October with 2.6 per cent — behind a Venice prize-winner in its second week — while Cruise makes his thirteenth visit to Korea, more than any other Hollywood actor. Iñárritu was meant to come too. He cancelled the night before.

11 min read

K-Movie

The Opposition Leader, the Park Chung-hee Foundation and a Police Complaint Want Chuseok's Number-One Film Off the Screens. The Director Says the Line They Object To Isn't In It

《암살자(들)》 passed 1.6 million admissions over the holiday. On the Monday after it, the foundation that keeps Park Chung-hee's memory demanded an apology and a halt to screenings, the leader of the opposition asked why insulting Park is 'freedom of expression' when touching Roh Moo-hyun gets you sued, and by Tuesday morning a former city councillor had filed a criminal complaint against the producer, the director and both writers. Hur Jin-ho's answer is that the film nowhere says Park ordered his wife shot, and that he now wishes he had drawn that line in dialogue. The audience score is 8.3. The netizen score is 2.2.

12 min read

K-Movie

Seven Shots or Six? The 1974 Record Can Be Read Both Ways. Hur Jin-ho's Film Took Six, and Built a Newsroom Around the Bullet Nobody Examined.

Hur Jin-ho's 《암살자(들)》 opens on 23 September as the most pre-booked Korean film of the Chuseok season, ahead of 《인턴》, with a bracketed plural in its title that is the whole argument. The 1974 file on the shooting of First Lady Yuk Young-soo lists seven shots, one of them a misfire; the Park Chung-hee foundation now counts six; the film counts six and finds four bullets. What none of them can show is the bullet that killed her — and the director says he is offering a hypothesis, not a verdict.

13 min read

K-Movie

《인턴》 Opens on 16 September Behind a Film From August and a Film From the Following Week

Two days before Korea's warmest film of the autumn opens, it is the third most-booked film in the country. Above it: a Christopher Nolan film that has been number one for forty consecutive days, and a Korean thriller that does not open until the 23rd. The critics have praised the two leads in every review and called the script safe in every review. And the whole thing exists because a studio that quit Korea six years ago came back for it.

11 min read

K-Movie

The Last 《타짜》 Is Named After a Bet Between Two Devils. The Loser Turned Into a Fly.

Twenty years after the flower-card original, the fourth and final Tazza opens on 23 September as a Texas hold'em film with a yakuza-backed heiress and a title from the two of spades. The director says the spades in a deck carry demons' names — a claim we could not find anywhere outside the film. The 2019 instalment everyone remembers as a collapse actually did more business on its second day than its first. And all four films have opened within days of Chuseok, on purpose.

12 min read

K-Movie

In English She Is the Director of 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982.' In Korean She Is a Remake Specialist.

Kim Do-young's Korean 'The Intern' opens 16 September with Choi Min-sik and Han So-hee. Every English write-up introduces her by the film that started a national argument about feminism. Korean film writers introduce her as someone on a two-for-two run at adapting other people's material, going for three. Same director, same three films, two completely different careers — and which one you get depends on which language you read.

12 min read

K-Movie

Three Korean Films Open the Day Before Chuseok. One of Them Isn't Competing — It's Meeting a Deadline.

On 23 September, a card-gambling franchise finale, a true-crime thriller about a 1974 assassination attempt, and Lee Chang-dong's Oscar entry all open in Korean cinemas. Two of them are fighting over the biggest holiday audience of the year. The third is there because the Academy requires a seven-day theatrical run by the 30th — the film no Korean investor would fund is using Chuseok as a compliance window.

12 min read

K-Movie

Forty Thousand People Queued for 624 Seats. On 28 August a New Law Bans Ticket Scalping — But Not This Kind.

Nolan shot The Odyssey entirely on IMAX cameras, for a 70mm format that exists in 41 cinemas worldwide and none of them in Korea. What Korea has is one digital screen in Yongsan that shows the full frame uncropped. Seats resell at five times face value, the resale ban taking effect this week specifically does not cover cinema tickets, and the thing that will actually end the run is a law written to protect Korean film.

12 min read

K-Movie

Busan Spent Thirty Years Becoming a Gatekeeper. This Year the Key Doesn't Fit.

In 1997 the Busan film festival's programmers were arguing with police on an outdoor stage about whether protesting censorship counted as a festival event. In May 2026 the Academy made Busan's top prize a direct route to an Oscar submission — the only Asian festival on that list. The prize is announced on 15 October. The submission deadline is 30 September.

12 min read

K-Movie

The Biggest Korean Film of 2026 Is the One Koreans Can't Agree On: 호프, Explained

Na Hong-jin's 'Hope' has topped the Korean box office for thirteen straight days while the market collapsed around it — and set off the loudest argument Korean film has had in years. A critic who gave it four stars had to publicly deny owning the director's phone number.

12 min read

K-Movie

Korea's Greatest Living Director Couldn't Get Funded at Home: Lee Chang-dong's 'Possible Love'

가능한 사랑 is Korea's Oscar entry, opens in Korean cinemas on September 23 and reaches Netflix worldwide on November 6 — Lee Chang-dong's first film in eight years. The staggered release is an Oscar clock. The reason it's a Netflix film at all is that no Korean investor would back it.

11 min read

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