Tag: busanfilmfestival
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: 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: 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 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...
UPRISING to Tear Open the 29th Busan Film Festival
Uprising, the highly anticipated period action film produced and co-written by Park Chan-wook, has been set as the opening film of this year's 29th Busan International Film Festival, which is set to open its doors on October 2. Closing the...
Busan 2023 Review: WORK TO DO, Downsizing Drama Examines Moral Quagmire of Middle Management
Caught between professional duty and personal responsibility, a young man navigates through a maze of grey with a spinning moral compass in the compelling debut Work to Do from director Park Hong-jun. Jun-hee is a diligent young man, now in...
Busan 2023 Review: HERITAGE, Korea's Generational and Social Divides Under the Loop in Ruminative Indie
What sort of a world has the older generation left behind for the incoming one, how do they expect them to navigate it, and what do they anticipate in return? These questions and more concerning the uneasy ties that bind...
Busan 2023 Review: FAQ, A Young Girl's Surprising Journey Takes a Sci-Fi Turn
The intense and at times faintly ridiculous extremes of Korea's private education system are laid bare in the disarming fantasy satire FAQ. Morse code and Farsi language classes are just some of the things an elementary school girl is forced...
Busan 2023 Review: AT THE END OF THE FILM, Hypnotic if Overlong Snapshot of Korean Indie Sector in Crisis
Director Ahn Sun-kyoung returns with her fourth and most ambitious work, At the End of the Film, screening in the Jiseok competitive section at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), ten years after her terrific sophomore film Pascha won the...
BECAUSE I HATE KOREA to Open 28th Busan International Film Festival
Following some struggles behind the scenes earlier this year, which resulted in a staffing reshuffle, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will return next month with a sparkling program for its 28th edition. The festival will open on October 4th...
Busan International Film Festival Returns to Full Strength with Packed 27th Edition
For the first time since 2019, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will return to full force, with a complete lineup for its upcoming 27th edition, which will welcome a full complement of international guests for the first time since...
Busan 2021 Review: SEIRE, Ace Horror Debut Plunges Us into Korean Superstition
Superstition and fatherhood collide in Park Kang's crisply staged and chilling indie horror debut Seire, which had its world premiere in the New Currents competition at the Busan International Film Festival. Channeling Rosemary's Baby and The Wailing, this low-budget gem...
Busan 2020 Review: SPEED OF HAPPINESS Delivers Soothing Snapshot of a Unique Profession
Documentary filmmaker Park Hyuck-jee, known for the charming documentary With or Without You, is back with his latest non-fiction work, his first to be invited to Busan. Set in the mountainous Oze region of Central Japan, the pleasurable and satisfying...
Busan 2020 Review: FIGHTER, Compelling Character Study Winds Up Pulling Its Punches
After opening the festival in 2018 with Beautiful Days, director Jero Yun returned to Busan this year with his second narrative feature Fighter, which once again focuses on a North Korean defector's difficult experience adjusting in South Korea, and how...
