Cinema Now
The purpose of the Cinema Now strand is to offer a synchronic cross section of contemporary, popular Korean cinema and take the temperature of the moment.
Handsome Guys
핸섬가이즈
Tue 05 Nov, 9:10pm
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
“This used to be a home to an American missionary,” the realtor tells carpenter Jae-pil (Lee Sung-min) and Sang-gu (Lee Hee-joon) of the dilapidated country house that the stepbrothers are about to buy and refurbish so that they can enjoy a quiet life together. “Villagers were so grateful that they built him a Western-style home.” Writer/director Nam Dong-hyub’s feature debut similarly imports...
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The Guest
301호 모텔 살인사건
Thu 07 Nov, 8:30pm
Ciné Lumière
Severely indebted Min-cheol (Lee Ju-seung) and Young-gyu (Han Min) manage a remote, dingy motel for violent loan shark Deuk-chan (Hyun Bong-sik), while reluctantly making hidden-camera videos of its guests’ private activities for him to sell on. Cleverly blending and thoroughly updating elements from other hotel horrors – chiefly Psycho (1960), a distant mother, showers, voyeurism) and T...
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Following
그녀가 죽었다
Fri 08 Nov, 6:10pm
BFI Southbank
“I work as a realtor, and my hobby is peeping,” is how Koo Jung-tae (Byun Yo-han) introduces himself in voiceover. His status as narrator forces us into uneasy complicity with a voyeur and stalker – which, in a way, every viewer of a film is as well. This “good man” – with a double life – first encounters popular online influencer Han So-ra (Shin Hae-sun) biting into a meat sa...
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House of the Seasons
장손
Fri 08 Nov, 6:30pm
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
Structured around both commemorative rites for departed ancestors and actual funerals that occasionally draw young, failing actor Kim Seong-jin (Kang Seung-ho) back from Seoul to his family home in rural Daegu, Oh Jung-min’s feature debut tracks multiple generations of the extended Kim family. At its centre is a tofu factory that, like the family itself, keeps having to evolve with the times to...
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Mother’s Kingdom
엄마의 왕국
Fri 08 Nov, 8:45pm
BFI Southbank
Thirty-something Ji-wook (Han Ki-jang), author of a faith-based motivational book (The Power of the Truth), still lives with his mother Kyung-hee (Nam Kee-ae), who is drifting into dementia. As her brother-in-law Joong-myung (You Seong-joo), a pastor, tries to discover what happened decades ago to his brother before the facts are forgotten, Ji-wook too starts asking questions about his past and...
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Mimang
미망
Sat 09 Nov, 8:30pm
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
An unnamed Man (Ha Seong-guk) runs into an unnamed Woman (Lee Myung-ha) who is an old college acquaintance, and they walk briefly together in the rain through a part of Seoul in which he is unfamiliar, reminiscing about time and change. A monumental statue of Admiral Yi supposedly anchors the pair’s amble through an ever evolving city. Although the statue is scheduled to be moved, and is subjec...
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The Noisy Mansion
백수아파트
Sun 10 Nov, 8:00pm
Ciné Lumière
Nothing is more frightening, as the narrator points out, than a ‘time-rich nosy person’. Exhibit A is Ahn Geo-ul (Gyeong Su-jin), who commits herself to social justice causes with terrifying tenacity. After temporarily renting a unit in the Baek-sae Apartment building, she discovers that a loud, hard to locate banging noise occurs from 4am every night, making the residents’ lives an insomniac h...
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