Pusan
After enjoying 11 consecutive years of clear weather for its opening night, this year's Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) began with rain drenching the 6,000 who turned up for the event. It stopped just as the ceremonies finished and the opening film, Feng Xiaogang's The Assembly, started, but then the remnants of Typhoon Krosa rolled in just a few days later, bringing wind, rain and more than a little chaos.
Despite setting an attendance record, with more than 198,000 people attending hundreds of screenings from October 4 to 12, and one of the biggest celebrity turnouts ever, this year's festival had one of the most mixed reactions in its relatively young history.
Not only did the weather turn on the festival - so did the local press. They complained that opening night guest Ennio Morricone was mistreated and returned home early, to Italy, in a huff. Festival organisers insisted that, aside from a few minutes of confusion during the opening ceremonies, Morricone's visit went as planned, and there was no problem. But the press still speculated wildly about his visit.
But a complaint about an overcrowded and chaotic press conference for Lee Myung-se's M revealed the biggest problem this year: South Korea's large and combative internet media.
South Korea has developed a huge network of online journalists, and each year more and more of them attend PIFF, insisting on being treated the same as their print colleagues.
