Director Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” won the Audience Award at Denver Film Festival 2020. With films such as “Green Book,” directed by Peter Farrelly, and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” directed by Martin McDonagh, having gone on to Oscar nominations after winning awards at the Denver Film Festival, hopes for “Minari” within the local film industry got a boost with the latest win. The 2021 Academy Awards are scheduled for April

The first Korean sci-fi blockbuster set in space, “Space Sweeper,” will be released exclusively on Netflix. The film was scheduled to open in theaters on Sept. 23, but the release was postponed due to COVID-19, and there are now no immediate plans to show the film in theaters. Set in 2092, “Space Sweepers” by director Jo Sung-hee is about a space cleanup crew trying to sell a weapon of mass destruction: the humanoid Dorothy. With a star-studded cast including Song Joon-

Finding distributors is a challenge for directors; some are taking matters into their own hands

More Than Family (Korea) Opened Nov. 12 Drama, Comedy Directed by Choi Ha-na Toe-il (Jung Soo-jung) finds out she is pregnant. The father of the baby is Ho-hoon (Shin Jae-hwi), a student she has been tutoring. She plans to marry Ho-hoon, who is younger than her, and while preparing for the wedding she suddenly decides to look for her own biological father, who abandoned her and her mother many years ago. But she cannot remember much about her father -- not even his face or his first name. 

After the trailer of the romance film “Josee” was presented during an online press conference Tuesday, the two lead actors -- Han Ji-min and Nam Joo-hyuk -- began crying. “Watching the trailer brought back all the emotions that I felt when filming,” Nam said. After fixing their makeup, Han and Nam shared their experiences of teaming up again in “Josee” after working together on the 2019 TV drama “The Light in Your Eyes.” “Even when we w

With the recent releases of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, Netflix is gearing up to capture video gamers with visual content based on popular game universes. The easy access to Netflix offered by the new XSX and PS5 released this month makes the visual content on Netflix more appealing to gamers and makes the consoles all-round multi-entertainment tools. The PS5 media remote is equipped with a Netflix button, giving users instant access to Netflix, and Xbox users can easily download Netfli

Gotham Independent Film Awards 2020 announced that veteran actor Youn Yuh-jung was among the nominees for its best actress award. Youn was nominated for her role in “Minari,” directed by Korean American Lee Isaac Chung. The other nominees are Nicole Beharie for “Miss Juneteenth,” Jessie Buckley for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” Carrie Coon for “The Nest” and Oscar-winning actor Frances McDormand for “Nomadland,” the US indep

Oh Dal-su, who dropped out of acting in 2018 following allegations of sexual assault, is returning to the big screen in “Good Neighbor.” The sexual assault claims surfaced in February 2018 amid the spread of the #MeToo movement in Korea, and scenes featuring Oh were subsequently removed from tvN series “My Mister” and hit film “Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days” in the same year. Filming for “Good Neighbor” was likewise completed in February 2

Collectors (Korea) Opened Nov. 4 Crime, Comedy Directed by Park Jung-bae Kang Dong-goo (Lee Je-hoon) is a genius thief of ancient treasures and works with an expert in ancient tomb murals, Dr. Jones (Cho Woo-jin), and legendary shoveling expert Sabdari (Lim Won-hee). One day, Kang meets an ancient art expert, Ms. Yoon (Shin Hye-sun), and puts together a team for the dangerous job of stealing the Korean version of Excalibur in the royal tomb Seolleung in Seoul for Ms. Yoon’s boss. The No

As the latest Netflix original film, "Hillbilly Elegy," has hit screens of South Korea's two biggest multiplex chains of CJ CGV and Lotte Cinema, the yearslong conflict between major theaters and the global streaming giant has apparently come to an end amid the COVID-19 pandemic. CGV and Lotte Cinema decided to screen the Netflix-made film from Wednesday for two weeks before Oscar-winning director Ron Howard's drama is released on Netflix on Nov. 24. It is the first time that a Netfl

Actor Kim Hye-soo said her upcoming film “The Day I Died” was like her destiny. “It is hard to explain but I felt a strong pull to take the role. I think it is because that was the time that I had a strong desire for some sort of comfort,” Kim said during a press conference at CGV Yongsan in Seoul on Wednesday. “At that time, I was broken down and had wounds. (Like Hyun-soo in the movie,) I got comfort from meeting actors at our filming site.” “The Da

Martin Eden (Italy, France) Opened Oct. 29 Drama, Romance Directed by Pietro Marcello Martin Eden (Luca Marinelli), a ship worker, falls in love at first sight when he meets Helena (Jessica Cressy), an upper-class woman. Hoping to gain a place among the literary elite to be with her, he decides to become a writer and embarks on a quest to educate himself. The movie is based on a 1909 novel by American author Jack London. Tesla (US) Opened Oct. 28 Drama Directed by Michael Almereyda Inventor

Jung Soo-jung, more widely known as Krystal of K-pop girl band f(x), plays a confident university student, Toe-il, who becomes pregnant at a young age, in her debut feature “More Than Family.” “At first, I was hesitant to play this role. But after reading the script I said I will take the role,” Jung said during a press conference at CGV Yongsan on Tuesday. “Toe-il is confident and she believes in herself. I think she is representative of women today. She is relat

Local OTT platform Watcha is holding an online film festival Nov. 1-25 that will showcase the works of the Korean Academy of Film Arts’ graduating class. “Eye Contact,” co-hosted by the platform and the school, will consist of 24 short films created by the KAFA’s 36th batch of graduates. The movies will include “Doong-ji,” Jo Kyoung-won’s film about a teenage girl who wants to avoid bringing friends home to work on a school project; “Help Me!&rd

Pandemic, global reach spur more Korean films to go straight to OTT