Festivals: Busan IFF
Busan 2025 Review: Hypnotic Meta-Mystery BLACK RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT Bends Time, Space and Genres in Quantum Storytelling
Black Rabbit, White Rabbit, Tajikistan's official submission for the 2025 Academy Awards, marks the Iranian filmmaker's first international production and an ambitious continuation of his narrative recursion, cinematic illusion.
Busan 2025 Review: KOKUHO, Heir Commits Himself to an Artist's Life
A hit in Japan, where it was selected to represent the country at the Academy Awards, Kokuho is a tougher sell elsewhere. Focusing on two kabuki rivals over a 50-year period, the film is nothing if not ambitious. Viewers unfamiliar...
Busan 2025 Review: ALL GREENS, High Schoolers Become Drug Dealers in Goofy Comedy
A bright, bouncy film about coed drug dealers, All Greens makes full use of its narrative contradictions. It employs a tone similar to the Baby Assassins franchise, only without violent stunts. Of the many coming-of-age films at this year's Busan...
Busan 2025 Review: COMING OF AGE, Death Comes for Us All in Morbidly Amusing Korean Indie
Time and its many forms form the core of Coming of Age, one of the standout new titles at this year's Busan International Film Festival. Director Jeong Seung-o explores familial responsibility and personal desire with wit, frankness and lucidity in...
Busan 2025 Review: THE GORALS, Animals and Outcasts in Twee Teen Tale
Four teenage outcasts team up to save the animals in the quirky and quietly metaphorical The Gorals. This second film from Yoo Jae-wook, the co-director of Limecrime, another tale of teens on the fringe, recalls several indie films about young...
Busan 2025 Review: TIGER Charts the Challenges of a Queer Male Sex Worker in a Deeply Divided Japan
Inspired by real stories from Tokyo’s LGBTQ+ community, Anshul Chauhan’s Tiger follows a young man as he navigates the Japanese capital’s underground queer scene, while also struggling to reconcile his chosen lifestyle with the one he left behind. Tiger had...
Busan 2025 Interview: HANA KOREA, Frederik Sølberg on Directing Across Cultures, Casting Minha Kim
Danish filmmaker Frederik Sølberg discusses his fiction debut, an immersive and collaborative drama that bridges documentary sensibilities with narrative cinema to portray the complex realities of North Korean refugees in the South.
Busan 2025 Review: BUGONIA, Vivid and Deranged Remake of Korean Cult Classic Seeks the Truth
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons star in Yorgos Lanthimos' 'Save the Green Planet' remake.
Busan 2025 Interview: ALL GREENS Director Takashi Koyama Talks the High-School Drug-Dealing Dramedy You Didn't Know You Needed
A lively conversation with the mind behind a daring dramedy at this year's BIFF.
Busan 2025 Review: THE GREAT FLOOD, Thrilling Disaster Drowns in Confounding Sci-fi
Following Omniscient Reader this summer, Director Kim Byung-woo returns with his second effects-heavy tentpole this year, the Netflix original The Great Flood, an ambitious film that dazzles and confounds in equal measure. The Witch star Kim Da-mi plays An-na, a...
Busan 2025 Review: BEAUTIFUL DREAMER, Social Stigma of Suicide Takes Center Stage in Measured Korean Indie
Indie cineaste Lee Kwang-kuk returns to Busan with his fifth film, Beautiful Dreamer, a sensitive tale of social stigma that dials down the wry humour that marked earlier works such as A Matter of Interpretation and A Tiger in Winter....
Busan 2025 Review: NO OTHER CHOICE, Park Chan-wook's Delirious Dark Comedy Is a Twisted Delight
After losing his job of 25 years, an increasingly frustrated family man is driven to the brink in his efforts to protect his comfortable life in Park Chan-wook’s outrageous black comedy, No Other Choice. After debuting at Venice the film...
Busan 2025 Review: FUNKY FREAKY FREAKS, Korean Teens Put Through the Wringer in Livewire Debut
Han Chang-lok announces himself as a talent to watch with the grungy and livewire debut Funky Freaky Freaks, one of the titles duking it out in Busan's revamped competition section this year. This Korea National University of Arts (K'Arts) feature...
Busan 2025 Review: EN ROUTE TO, Poignant and Wry Debut Film Handles Difficult Subject with a Light Touch
Teenage pregnancy, parental abandonment, abusive teachers, suicide: En Route To has all the hallmarks of a meaningful but potentially heavy-going indie social drama. This even extends to its producer, the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA), which excels in topical...
Busan 2025 Review: GOOD NEWS, Ambitious and Jangly Period Political Satire Channels DR. STRANGELOVE
Following Kill Boksoon, director Byun Sung-hyun teams up once again with Netflix for Good News, a high-concept and ambitious black comedy that pulls a few pages straight out of the Dr. Strangelove playbook. Very loosely based on a fascinating real-life...
Busan 2025 Review: In DEAR STRANGER, a Kidnapping Cracks Open a Troubled Marriage
Hidetoshi Nishijima and Gwei Lun-Mei star in director Mariko Tetsuya's suspense thriller.
Busan 2024 Review: THE KILLERS, Lee Myung-se Masterminds Gleefully Cinematic Hemingway and Noir-Inspired Anthology
Some 17 years ago, viewers were both maddened and mesmerized by the tactile fever dream that was M, a cornucopia of sound and motion that is, for the moment, Lee Myung-se's last feature-length testament to the cinema medium he so...
Busan 2024 Review: THE FINAL SEMESTER, Youth Enters the Workforce in Empathetic Korean Indie
Four years after her layered character study A Leave, director Lee Ran-hee returns to the Busan International Film Festival with her sophomore film The Final Semester, a film that also examines the professional struggles of the trade-bound working class. While...
Busan 2024 Review: THE LAND OF MORNING CALM, Grim Coastal Drama Offers Satisfying Character Portrait
Following his intriguing debut The Girl on a Bulldozer, which screened at the Busan International Film Festival in 2021, directed Park Ri-woong returns to the festival with the New Currents competition title The Land of Morning Calm. Set far away...
Busan 2024 Review: KIKE WILL HIT A HOME RUN, and So Does This Kaurismaki-esque Korean Indie Delight
Possibly the highlight among the new Korean Indies on show at the Busan International Film Festival this year (though this critic hasn't quite seen everything yet), Kike Will Hit a Home Run is a quirky, charming and assured follow-up from...
