Director talks about issues of capital punishment and domestic violence in her upcoming film She made a highly successful debut with a charming romantic comedy in the late 1990s, and enjoyed another box-office home run with a heart-warming tale of a grandmother and a grandson in 2002. Now director Lee Jeong-hyang is back after the nine-year break, with a deeply philosophical and layered work on...

The Four Times (Italy, Switzerland, Germany) Opening Oct. 20 Drama. Directed by Michelangelo Frammartino. An old shepherd lives alone with his goats, in a remote village perched on the hills of Calabria, in the southernmost region of Italy. The weary old man gets sick one day, and believes the only medicine that can save his life is the dust on the church floor. He mixes the gathered dust with ...

Born in northern China and raised in Beijing, Sally Liu came of age in the 1990s and dreamed of becoming a filmmaker. With the world’s most populous nation swelling with thousands of new cinemas, big-budget productions proliferating and box-office grosses multiplying, the movies in China aren’t just glamorous, they’re a serious growth industry. When it came time to apply to film school, though, ...

Hallyu girl group Girls’ Generation will release their latest single “The Boys” in the U.S. and other countries, through Interscope Records, an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. The record label is home to many big-name stars, including Lady Gaga, Eminem and the Black Eyed Peas. SM Entertainment, the group’s agency, announced on Wednesday that the new single will be relea...

BUSAN (AFP) ― Actress Michelle Yeoh, who plays Aung San Suu Kyi in a new biopic of the Myanmar activist, said Wednesday that the release of jailed dissident and comedian Zarganar was “joyful news.” Zarganar, one of Myanmar’s most celebrated satirists who had been incarcerated since 2008 for his political activities, was among dozens of political prisoners given their freedom in military-dominate...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A man was charged with hacking into celebrity email accounts in a computer invasion scheme that led to the posting of private and revealing information, including nude photos of actress Scarlett Johansson, on the Internet, federal authorities said Wednesday. Scarlett Johansson (captured from Youtube) Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested without incid...

BUSAN (AFP) ― When filmmaker Davy Chou began to research the history of Cambodian cinema he found the films themselves had almost vanished amidst the devastation of war but that memories were keeping them alive. “The Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh in 1975 and the film industry just simply vanished,” says Chou. “But the wonderful thing to me was that everywhere I went, people would remember...

BUSAN (AFP) ― The growing power of China’s cinema industry is on show at Asia’s top film festival, but some filmmakers worry that a thirst for blockbusters is hurting quality and creativity. “It’s a big population and a big market and a lot of opportunity to increase that market,” independent Chinese filmmaker Wang Xiaoshuai said on the sidelines of the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BI...

BUSAN (AFP) ― A 3-D horror movie set in a public toilet block is part of a revolution underway in the Asian film industry as low-budget 3-D productions take on the big studios at their own game. At the 16th Busan International Film Festival, audiences have been lining up to see the likes of multi-million dollar 3-D productions “The Three Musketeers” and the re-imaged version of the local monster...

French actress Isabelle Huppert poses for a photo during the opening ceremony of the 16th edition of BIFF at the Busan Cinema Center in Haeundae, Busan, on Thurs­day. (Yonhap News) BUSAN, South Korea (AP) ― French actress Isabelle Huppert says curiosity has drawn her to Asia and helped her discover the region’s innovative talents. Huppert made inroads into Asia as an actress this year when she ...