Most Popular
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Tensions heighten ahead of first president-opposition chief meeting
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Seoul to provide housing subsidy to married couples with newborns
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[KH Explains] No more 'Michael' at Kakao Games
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Rapper jailed after public street fight with another rapper
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Woman gets suspended term for injuring boyfriend with knife
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Samsung chief bolsters ties with Germany’s Zeiss
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Nominee for chief of anti-corruption body pledges 'independence, effectiveness'
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NewJeans pops out ‘Bubble Gum’ video amid troubles at agency
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Med schools expect 1,500+ new admission slots next year
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KT launches new mobile plans for foreign residents
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Women speak candidly about abortion experiences
GOYANG, Gyeonggi Province ― In 2009, a group of pro-life doctors reported clinics and fellow physicians that performed illegal abortions. Under Korean law, abortions are illegal except under special circumstances, such as the unborn baby posing a serious health risk to the mother. The practice still remains widespread here, however, especially among young and unmarried women.The particular event in 2009 inspired filmmaker Jo Se-young to create a film about the issue, featuring women who agreed t
Oct. 20, 2013
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Box Office: Lovelace, Hwa-yi, Rush
Lovelace Opened Oct. 17Biography. Drama. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Linda Lovelace (Amada Seyfried) is manipulated by her abusive, domineering husband Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) into entering the porn industry. Despite her protests, she stars as the main character of a hardcore porn film “Deep Throat.” The movie is the first of its kind to gain much popularity and is screened all over the country, turning Linda into a famous porn star. Behind the glamorous fame Linda is u
Oct. 18, 2013
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Mother steals the show in ‘Carrie’ remake
Awash in blood and tears, a woman howls in unspeakable anguish as she gives birth in the harrowing opening moments of “Carrie.” She is ashen and alone, her face gnarled with fear. Believing the child to be the devil’s spawn, she grabs a pair of scissors to stab the infant to death. Only the baby’s soft mewling, the pureness of its gaze, spares it from the knife.Director Kimberly Peirce summons up the bracing thematic subtext of her stylish remake in that deeply disturbing scene. It’s masterful f
Oct. 18, 2013
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Movie harkens back to 2007 Taliban abductions of Koreans
BUSAN (AP) ― The South Korean Christians kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007 returned home to not just relief but outrage, rapped for engaging in zealous missionary activity in the Islamic country in defiance of government warnings and forcing South Korea to negotiate for their release. A new drama by director Lee Jang-ho, well-known in South Korea for his commercial movies in the 1970s and the 1980s, borrows from those true events to examine religious conviction in a country that se
Oct. 17, 2013
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Movies with a 270-degree view to hit Korean cinemas
BUSAN (AFP) ― A new format that gives moviegoers a panoramic 270 degree view will be rolled out by Korea’s biggest cinema chain this month, using the walls of theaters as additional screens. Screen X, developed by cinema chain CJ CGV, was on show at the Busan International Film Festival last week in the premiere of a 30-minute spy thriller “The X,” directed by Kim Jee-woon, a film commissioned to showcase the expanded three-screen format. Kim, who directed this year’s Arnold Schwarzenegger actio
Oct. 16, 2013
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U.S. films dominate Rome festival line-up
ROME (AFP) ― U.S. director Spike Jonze’s “Her” will be one of the hotly awaited premieres at the Rome film festival, including movies starring Scarlett Johansson and Christian Bale, the festival’s director said Monday.Marco Mueller, formerly the head of the Venice film festival, on Monday unveiled a line-up for November featuring Brazilian, Chilean, Iranian, Japanese, Mexican and Portuguese films.Of the 18 films in competition, 17 are world or international premieres, with a strong American and
Oct. 15, 2013
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Song Hae-kyo to star in ‘My Palpitating Life’
Actress Song Hye-kyo will make a comeback to the big screen with a film based on leading writer Kim Ae-ran’s celebrated novel, “My Palpitating Life,” the movie’s production company announced on Sunday. “Song Hye-kyo has always wanted to work with the director Lee Jae-yong. The casting would not have been made possible without her respect toward the director and trust in the original book,” said an official. Song is to play an affectionate mother of a son who is suffering from a rare disease that
Oct. 15, 2013
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CJ’s Pan-Asian film in English opens Hawaii International Film Fest
Korean entertainment conglomerate CJ E&M’s English-language movie “Final Recipe” had its U.S. premiere on Thursday as the opening film of the Hawaii International Film Festival. Helmed by Korean director Gina Kim and starring singer Henry Lau and actress Michelle Yeoh, “Final Recipe” is one of CJ E&M’s international projects alongside Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi flick “Snowpiercer” and Korea-China joint production “A Wedding Invitation.” The film, jointly written by Kim and Chinese-American screenwrit
Oct. 14, 2013
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Directing debuts, Tarantino and a typhoon: BIFF closes 18th edition
The 18th Busan International Film Festival closed on Saturday with the screening of “The Dinner” by Korean filmmaker Kim Dong-hyun.The 10-day festival sold over 217,000 tickets for the 299 films screened, in spite of a rare October typhoon that hit Busan four days before its closing day. BIFF was attended by more than 220,000 viewers last year during its 17th edition, which remains a record for the festival.This year’s edition was filled with highly anticipated directorial debuts by prominent Ko
Oct. 13, 2013
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Box Office: Hwa-yi, Rush, Runner Runner
Hwa-yiOpened Oct. 9Action. Thriller. Directed by Jang Joon-hwan. A five-member crime organization lives on a deserted farm in the middle of a forest. A plan-gone-wrong leaves the gang with a kidnapped boy, and the five members -- Seok-tae (Kim Yoon-seok), Ki-tae (Jo Jin-woong), Jin-sung (Jang Hyun-sung), Dong-beom (Kim Sung-kun), and Beom-soo (Park Hae-joon) -- raise the boy as their son. The boy, named Hwa-yi (Yeo Jin-goo), longs for an ordinary life but is deprived of his childhood, forced to
Oct. 11, 2013
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Hanks and his co-star: An encounter at sea
It’s a moment rife with dread, surprise, panic, suspense. In “Captain Phillips,” Paul Greengrass’ white-knuckle re-enactment of the 2009 hijacking of a U.S.-flagged freighter in the Arabian Sea, four Somali pirates take the bridge of the Maersk Alabama.It is the first time that Muse, the lean, stone-eyed leader of the marauders, and Richard Phillips, the mariner in charge of the giant container vessel, meet.And for Greengrass, it was a doubly crucial moment. He had cast Barkhad Abdi, a Somali-Am
Oct. 11, 2013
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DreamWorks CEO to share lecture stage with director Bong
Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, one of the world’s most acknowledged animation houses, will give a dual lecture on cultural content and its role in the creative economy with Korean film director Bong Joon-ho on Oct. 18. As part of CJ’s Global Creative Forum held at Daeyang Hall of Sejong University in Seoul, Katzenberg will talk about DreamWorks’ “Kung Fu Panda” series and its strategy of mixing Asian characters with Western philosophies. He will also discuss the use of cutting-
Oct. 11, 2013
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Busan film fest grows on goodwill of Asia’s stars
BUSAN (AP) ― How much would it cost to hire Asia’s biggest movie stars to host the region’s largest film event? Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok opened this year’s Busan International Film Festival for a mere 500,000 won, or $465, according to Yang Heon-kyu, who oversees the festival’s budget. In 2012, Chinese actress Tang Wei accepted the same amount. The goodwill from big-name stars is one indication of how important Busan has become to the Asian film industry in less than two decades.It is not just
Oct. 10, 2013
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Asian filmmakers revisit classic Westerns
BUSAN (AFP) ― Two major Asian adaptations of classic Westerns have hit screens at the Busan International Film Festival, in a revival of a genre that drew some of its early inspiration from the cinema of the East. Japanese-Korean director Lee Sang-il’s “Unforgiven” is a remake of the 1992 Clint Eastwood classic of the same name, starring the Oscar-nominated Ken Watanabe. “Once Upon a Time In Vietnam,” directed by Vietnamese-American director Dustin Nguyen takes its inspiration from Sergio Leone’
Oct. 9, 2013
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Director Bong plays down Weinstein controversy
BUSAN (AFP) ― Korean director Bong Joon-ho on Monday played down controversy over the international release of his English-language debut “Snowpiercer,” saying he would accept any final cuts Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein made to the film.“For me, the important thing is that it reaches an audience,” said Bong, a king of the box office in Korea, where his sci-fi thriller has been a hit with takings so far of more than $61 million.Weinstein has picked up the rights to the apocalyptic cliff-hange
Oct. 8, 2013
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Director sees drama migrating from the big screen to TV
BUSAN (AFP) ― Six-time Oscar-nominated Irish director Jim Sheridan said Sunday that Hollywood’s fixation with making money from the international box office had moved drama off the big screen and onto television.“We’re in a transition period worldwide,” he told a press conference on the sidelines of the 18th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the largest in Asia.“I think Hollywood is making movies for China and India and Brazil and Russia. So they don’t want dialogue movies. They don’t wa
Oct. 7, 2013
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Korean movies attract more than 100 mln people for 2nd straight year
Korean movies attracted more than 100 million people to box offices for the second straight year in 2013, official data showed Saturday.According to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), which monitors ticket sales in the country, audience numbers hit the vaunted mark as of Friday this year. It said the numbers translate into an average Korean seeing at least two locally made movies this year. South Korea has a population of 50 million.It added that the figure is significant because the 100 million m
Oct. 5, 2013
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‘Gravity’ has the weight of an epic space opera
Technically dazzling and emotionally gripping, “Gravity” is a space-age science fiction thriller grounded in something pretty close to reality.A space shuttle / space junk accident picture, Alfonso Cuaron’s movie gives us Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, space-walkers whose ship is wrecked, forcing them to face the ultimate human fear.No one wants to die alone. There is no place lonelier than the cold, silent and airless vacuum of space.Filmed in a stunning “How’d they DO that?” 3-D, we meet c
Oct. 4, 2013
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Box Office: Rush, Runner Runner, The Face Reader
RushOpens Oct. 9Action. Drama. Directed by Ron Howard. Based on a true story, race-car drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Austrian Niki Lauda are young and talented, and both are looking to win it big. After a Formula Three race in 1970 at the Crystal Palace circuit in England, where both their cars spin out-of-control but Hunt ultimately wins the race, the two begin to view each other as rivals. A rivalry that first began on the track grows into off-track drama, and the pair experiences
Oct. 4, 2013
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Director Im unveils plan for 102nd film at BIFF
Filmmaker Im Kwon-taek announced Friday that his 102nd movie would be a film adaption of author Kim Hoon’s 2004 award-winning short story “Hwajang.” Actor Ahn Sung-ki, who previously starred in a total of six films by Im, has been cast in the leading role. Kim’s short story, which won the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Award in 2004, is about a middle-aged man who spends most of his life working for a cosmetics company, and his wife, who is dying of cancer. The devoted and patient husband also has
Oct. 4, 2013