Tag: biff2019

Busan 2019 Review: COMING HOME AGAIN, A Personal Chamber Piece on Food and Filial Piety

In Coming Home Again, a Korean American man returns home to take care of his dying mother in this modest and sensitively-rendered chamber piece that takes place in the span of one day on New Year’s Eve. Adapted from a...

Busan 2019 Review: LIGHT FOR THE YOUTH Conveys the Desperate Struggles of South Korea's Younger Generation

The acute hardships of South Korea’s youth and the dog-eat-dog mentality of the corporate workplace are the focus of writer-director Shin Su-won’s fourth feature, Light for the Youth. With Glass Garden (2017), Madonna (2015) and Pluto (2012), Shin’s previous films...

Busan 2019 Review: THE EDUCATION, A Life Lesson on Human Nature

In The Education, a young woman develops an unlikely relationship with a teenager when she is hired to take care of his severely disabled mother. One of three Korean features in the Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents competition section, director...

Busan 2019 Review: AN OLD LADY Addresses Elderly Rape, Ageing and Mortality

Premiering in the Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents competition section, Lim Sun-ae’s An Old Lady touches on the less-commonly addressed issue of elder sexual abuse in South Korea. A 69-year-old lady accuses a nursing assistant of rape at a...

Busan 2019 Review: KYUNGMI'S WORLD, Bleak and Unsparing Portrait of the Ties that Bind

In Kyungmi’s World, we never get to see the face of the titular Kyungmi. Instead, the main characters in the film are Soo-yeon (Kim Misu) – Kyungmi’s daughter – and her estranged grandmother Young-soon (Lee Young-ran), who reconnect for the...