Hong Sang-soo's 'Nowhere to Lay My Eyes' to premiere at Locarno

Hong Sang-soo is heading back to Locarno. The director's latest film, "Nowhere to Lay My Eyes," will have its world premiere in the main competition at the 79th edition of the Swiss festival, his production company Jeonwonsa Film said Friday. The festival, which runs Aug. 5-15, unveiled its full lineup Thursday. Hong's film is one of 17 titles vying for the Golden Leopard, the event's top honor. Kim Min-hee stars as Sang-hee, a woman who travels with her younger brother to Jeju Island to visit t

2026-07-10 11:11:41:00

Movies in theaters this week

"Moana" (US) Opened July 8 Musical/Drama Directed by Thomas Kail A Polynesian island chief's daughter (Catherine Laga'aia) sets sail with the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) to undo an ancient curse, in this live-action remake of the 2016 Disney film. "Hana Korea" (Denmark/South Korea) Opened July 8 Drama Directed by Frederik Sølberg A young North Korean defector (Kim Min-ha) struggles to build a new life in Seoul as she reckons with the past she left behind. "Marty Supreme" (US) Opened July 1 Dra

2026-07-10 10:03:41:00

In a defector's new life, Kim Min-ha finds a story for everyone

"It didn't feel like I was reading fiction," Kim Min-ha says of the script for "Hana Korea." "It felt like reading someone's diary." She had her reasons. The film casts her as Hye-sun, a 21-year-old from North Korea's Ryanggang Province who defected to the South to pay her mother's medical bills back home. Her narrative is built around a series of letters she writes home in voice-over. Stories like Hye-sun's are hardly scarce on Korean screens, but they mostly belong to documentaries and talk sh

2026-07-10 09:00:00:00

'Hope' is the weirdest blockbuster money can buy

"Hope" is a shock-and-awe monster rampage stretched to a monstrous 160-minute runtime, and that might be all you could ask for. The set pieces are stunning: vehicles and debris flung around like toys, torrents of gunfire raking creatures that simply will not die, storefronts ripped open and streets buried in rubble, all captured in tracking shots so fluid it's hard to say how anyone pulled them off. The monsters themselves are nothing special to look at — imagine "Attack on Titan" by way of "Res

2026-07-07 20:38:27:00

Na Hong-jin, 'Hope' stars unpack alien epic ahead of July release

"Compared to my previous films, I thought the level of violence here would be far lower — and that's how I wanted to make it," director Na Hong-jin said Monday. That may come as a surprise to anyone who has seen "Hope." Na's first feature in the decade since "The Wailing" is a creature spectacle of staggering scale, one that levels half a town and burns through enough ammunition to stock a small army. But for the director, who met the press after a media screening at Megabox Coex in southern Seo

2026-07-06 19:56:49:00

Movie ticket discounts are back. Here's how to grab one

For the second time this year, Korea is rolling out movie-ticket discount coupons to draw audiences back to theaters. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Monday that the coupons, each worth 6,000 won ($3.90) off a ticket, will become available at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The first round went out in May, and this week's release adds another 2.05 million into circulation. If you have an online account with one of the country's four major multiplex chains — CGV, Lotte Cinema, Megabox or Cine

2026-07-06 13:11:59:00

'Notes from the Last Row' stars compare notes

Choi Min-sik went in with one image for his character: meat on a hook. "I wanted to strip this man bare and hang him up like a slab of meat," he said of Heo Mun-oh, the failed novelist turned embittered literature professor at the center of "Notes from the Last Row." "He's a professor, an author. But learning has nothing to do with character. He's just a lump of desire." Released June 26 on Netflix, the six-part suspense drama from director Kim Gyu-tae adapts a Spanish play by Juan Mayorga. Mun-

2026-07-03 16:15:29:00

Josh Safdie on 'Marty Supreme': 'Life is what happens when you're dreaming'

"I'm very interested in seeing characters do the things that sometimes we cannot do," Josh Safdie said Thursday. "There's something somewhat heroic in that." The impulse to root for someone you probably shouldn't cuts straight through "Marty Supreme," a rambunctious odyssey of a glory-obsessed ping-pong player that's now the highest-grossing title in A24's history. It opened in Korea on Wednesday months after its stateside run, arriving with a reputation built as much on the film itself as its s

2026-07-03 09:00:00:00

'Supergirl' can't get off the ground in Korea, either

Superman's high-flying cousin is coming up short of expectations on both sides of the Pacific, and it's not even close. "Supergirl," the second film in James Gunn and Peter Safran's rebuilt DC Universe, opened in Korea on June 24, two days ahead of its North American debut. In terms of competition, there wasn't much standing in its way. Other than Disney and Pixar's "Toy Story 5," which was cruising at No. 1 a week into its run with close to half of all ticket sales, the chart was mostly weeks-o

2026-07-01 14:59:15:00

Korea's biggest piracy operator is finally home — and behind bars

For years, readers who didn't want to pay for their webcomics and manga knew exactly where to go. Until it shut down in April, Newtoki and its sister websites offered pirated copies of Korea's most popular webtoons, along with Japanese manga and web novels. The man said to be running them stayed shrouded in mystery for years, thought to have fled to Japan and taken citizenship there to put himself out of reach. That run is finally over. The alleged operator is now in Korea, where he has been han

2026-06-30 17:13:34:00