The Traffickers (Korea) Opened Aug. 29 Crime. Thriller. Directed by Kim Hong-sun. Sang-ho (Choi Daniel) and Chae-hee (Jung Ji-yoon) are a married couple on a cruise for their first trip to Weihai, China. However, Chae-hee suddenly disappears while Sang-ho is away. He soon finds out that Chae-hee’s pictures, belongings as well as her records of boarding the ship have been completely removed. On ...

Movie fans, those with too much time on their hands, love to ponder the imponderable. Why did America flock to see “Ted”? How did Tyler Perry build an empire by donning a dress? What is new about “The Hunger Games,” other than its haven’t-seen-many-movies audience? And why isn’t Jeffrey Dean Morgan a star? In an era when Hollywood has all but given up that Leo DiCaprio’s voice will ever change...

“The Thieves” has outperformed “The King and the Clown” to become the second most popular Korean film ever shown at home, according to an industry tally. “The Thieves” has attracted 12.31 million viewers as of 5 p.m. Thursday, breaking a record set by the all-time No. 2 Korean film “The King and the Clown” (12 million) in 2005, Mediaplex Co., the distributor of the latest film said on Friday. D...

Kang Full’s Web-based comic book series made into film Countless films in the past have featured a serial killer, but Kim Hwi’s latest thriller based on Kang Full’s 2008 webcomic takes a refreshingly different approach. For the sake of suspense and excitement, many noir-thrillers do not reveal the identity of the killer until the very end. But in “Neighbors,” it is clear who the criminal is rig...

LOS ANGELES (UPI) ― Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and Tobey Maguire are working to produce an animal-trafficking film like the U.S. crime drama “Traffic,” a trade daily reported. The unnamed Warner Bros. Pictures film would look at animal trafficking from a number of perspectives, similar to 2000’s “Traffic,” directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Stephen Gaghan, The Hollywood Reporter said...

Market share of homegrown movies rises to nearly 80 percent over the weekend Korea’s homegrown films are doing better than ever at the box office, with its market share rising to nearly 80 percent in the past weekend. The top four movies at the box office from Aug. 26 to 27 were local films, according to the Korean Film Council. The films are director Kim Hwi’s thriller “Neighbors”; Kim Joo-ho...

CULPEPER, Virginia (AP) ― In the crisp 4-degree Celsius air of a converted bunker in rural Virginia lies the U.S.’s greatest collection of early film. Stacked in metal tins on shelves in 124 concrete vaults that stretch almost 2.5-meters high, movies that wowed audiences decades ago are meticulously stored so that one day, they may play again. The vaults at the Library of Congress’ Packard Camp...

Singer-actor Rain, or Jung Ji-hoon, made a surprise visit to the cast meeting of his film “R2B: Return to Base.” Rain visited Wangsimni CGV, Seoul, during a meeting with the audience on Aug. 22. Rain was unable to watch or join the promotion of his own film due to the movie’s delayed release as well as his military service. However, the 30-year-old visited the theater during his break from the m...

Korea’s Kim Ki-duk returns with ‘Pieta’ ROME (AFP) ― Hollywood veterans will brush shoulders with up and coming starlets and auteurs in Venice starting on Wednesday for the film festival in which women directors are set to take center stage. Robert Redford will fly in for the first time to the world’s oldest movie festival, where Terrence Malick’s “To The Wonder” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The...

Carnage (France, Germany, Spain and Poland) Opened Aug. 16 Comedy. Directed by Roman Polanski. Two pairs of middle-class parents meet to discuss why one couple’s child broke the front teeth of the other couple’s son. Though both parties try to remain “civilized” and “well-mannered” in the beginning of the meeting, they end up becoming childish and even attacking each other while drunk. Starring...

Boy, it sure looks like Dax Shepard is doing all his own crazy, gonzo stunt-driving in “Hit and Run,” the car-chase comedy he wrote and co-directed. “All me, 100 percent,” he says. You know how you can tell? Look in the eyes of his co-star and off-camera fiancee, Kristen Bell. Yeah, she’s in the car with him in those scenes. And no, she wasn’t scared. “Dax has always been in to off-roading, so...

The Korean heist film “The Thieves” became the fourth best-selling Korean film of all time, beating “Haeundae,” a disaster drama that opened three years ago, according to the latest official box office tally. “The Thieves,” featuring 10 Korean and Chinese thieves teaming up to steal a valuable diamond necklace at a Macao casino, had attracted about 11.5 million viewers as of Wednesday, the data ...