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.
Open the Door
오픈 더 도어
Sat 04 Nov, 6:30pm
Rich Mix
Five economic chapters, told in reverse order, stage pivotal moments in the breakdown of a Korean migrant family’s hopes for a better life in New Jersey, as Chi-hoon (Seo Young-ju), his sister Yoon-ju (Kim Soo-jin) and older brother-in-law Moon-suk (Lee Soon-won) say things that cannot be unsaid, do things that cannot be undone, and open and close different doors. Here the American dream of pro...
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Phantom
유령
Sat 04 Nov, 8:15pm
BFI Southbank
In 1933, after an attempted assassination of the incoming Japanese Governor-General of Gyeongseung (now Seoul), his ruthless Chief Guard Takahara Kaito (Park Hae-soo) takes the five chief suspects – all Koreans or half-Koreans – to a remote clifftop hotel to flush out the infiltrator. Ex-police officer Murayama (Sul Kyung-gu), intelligence officers Park Chakyung (Lee Hanee), Cheon E...
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I Haven’t Done Anything
좋.댓.구
Sun 05 Nov, 5:00pm
Picturehouse Central
Essentially playing himself, Oh Tae-kyung is a washed-up actor who capitalises on his past role as the younger version of Choi Min-sik’s protagonist in Park Chan-wook’s OldBoy (2003) to create the online persona ‘Lil Daesu’ for his new YouTube channel ‘Oh!’ where he promises, in his own inimitably schlubby way, to solve subscribers’ problems. When user ‘Bulldog’ offers a monetary reward if Oh c...
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Soulmate
소울메이트
Wed 08 Nov, 6:30pm
ICA
Summoned to a gallery to see a giant hyperrealist sketch of herself, single mother Ahn Mi-so (Kim Da-mi) denies all knowledge of where Ha-eun (Jeon Sonee), the mysterious woman responsible for the photo-like drawing, might be – and a series of flashbacks show the shifting relationship, over 14 years, between subject and artist, who first met as 11-year-olds on Jeju Island. This is a port...
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Greenhouse
비닐하우스
Wed 08 Nov, 8:00pm
Picturehouse Central
Greenhouse-inhabiting Moon-jung (Kim Seo-hyung) is a messy, contradictory figure – bitterly divorced, desperate to find a new home for when her teenage son is released from juvenile detention centre , solicitous towards the elderly wife suffering from dementia and her blind husband (Yang Jae-sung) whom she looks after for a living while indifferent to her own care-home mother, and identif...
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Hail to Hell + Q&A
Thu 09 Nov, 8:00pm
Picturehouse Central
After schoolgirl Park Chae-lin (Jung Yi-ju) abandons her best friend Song Na-mi (Oh Woo-ri) and leads a horrific bullying campaign against Hwang ‘Phony’ Sun-woo (Bang Hyo-rin), the two wronged girls make a suicide pact, but first agree to track Chae-lin to Seoul to make her life as hellish as theirs has become. There they find that Chae-lin has dedicated herself to good works within an apocalyp...
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Walk Up
탑
Wed 15 Nov, 6:30pm
Cine Lumiere
“There’s a lot of talking in your films, but the dialogue never rubs me the wrong way,” says Sunhee (Song Sunmi) about the work of director Byungsoo (Kwon haehyo), who first visits the building where Sunhee runs her small restaurant to persuade the building’s owner (and his old friend) Ms Kim (Lee Hyeyoung) to take on his estranged daughter Jeongsu (Park Miso) as an apprentice in her interior d...
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