https://www.scmp.com/rss/301827/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Song Hye-kyo and Kang Dongwon are superstars in their native South Korea, and they reached that status long ago. Both enjoyed early success, making professional debuts in their teens – the actress in television drama First Love (2000), and Kang as a model before trying his hand at acting. Now in their early 30s, they are both in their prime, and in their new film, My Brilliant Life, they play parents for the first time. The film is based on Kim Ae-ran’s bestselling 2011novel, My Palpitating... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1631827/kang-dong-won-and-song-hye-kyo-talk-about-learning-life-lessons-my?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1631827/kang-dong-won-and-song-hye-kyo-talk-about-learning-life-lessons-my?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Nov 2014 16:00:00 +0000 A film festival is much more than just a place to watch movies. The latest edition of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which ran from October 2-11, was a reminder of that fact. South Korea and its port city of Busan take an obvious pride in the annual event, which has grown by leaps and bounds since its launch in 1996. Now it not only serves as a film lover's dream weekend, but also a place where industry trends, economics, culture and politics collide. This year, political... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1618394/postcard-busan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1618394/postcard-busan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Oct 2014 15:54:13 +0000 What is it that makes a family? In past centuries, the answer to this question might have seemed obvious: blood ties are what define a family and hold it together. But of course, the 21st century answer to this question is much more complicated. And director Kim Tae-yong takes on this issue directly in Family Ties, a 2006 drama that holds a special place in the hearts of South Korean cinephiles. Recently voted by critics and scholars as one of the 100 most iconic South Korean films of all time,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1616851/art-house-korean-drama-family-ties-analyses-what-it-means-be-related?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1616851/art-house-korean-drama-family-ties-analyses-what-it-means-be-related?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Oct 2014 14:31:04 +0000 Strange things are happening at the South Korean box office. Chief among them is that The Admiral: Roaring Currents, a homegrown movie about a 1597 sea battle, has overtaken 2009 Hollywood hit Avatar's 13.3 million admissions, setting a new box office record. In the seven weeks since its July 30 release, the South Korean film has notched up 17.5 million admissions (with a gross approaching US$135 million). In a country of 50 million people, that's more than a third of the population. That Kim... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1600854/film-postcard-seoul?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1600854/film-postcard-seoul?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Sep 2014 04:07:42 +0000 Various actors have rocketed to stardom during South Korea's contemporary film renaissance over the past 15 years - but few have managed to remain at those heights. Staying power seems an elusive quality for most - except for Song Kang-ho. Eighteen years after making his film debut, aged 29, in Hong Sang-soo's The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996), the former thespian has turned in his most successful year yet. That's saying something for an actor who has appeared in many of contemporary South... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1579153/south-korean-actor-song-kang-ho-has-big-screen-staying-power?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1579153/south-korean-actor-song-kang-ho-has-big-screen-staying-power?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Aug 2014 14:53:41 +0000 Mention South Korea's Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) to someone unfamiliar with the film festival circuit and you might be met with a puzzled stare. What is a "fantastic" film festival anyway? In this case, it's not a synonym for "amazing" but a reference to works that spring from our fantasies, representatives of imaginative genres such as horror, science fiction, fantasy, monster movies, and more. It was a bit unexpected that such a film festival should take root in the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1564212/postcard-bucheon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1564212/postcard-bucheon?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Aug 2014 03:28:46 +0000 It's not uncommon for a film to mean something slightly different to local, as opposed to international, viewers. But South Korean feature The Attorney, which opens in Hong Kong on Thursday, is a particularly unusual case. On the surface, it is a moving and inspiring story about a lawyer defending a group of students who fall victim to police torture during the South Korean military dictatorship in the early 1980s. But like an iceberg, there is a massive, unspoken back-story. But you don't have... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1531618/postcard-seoul?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1531618/postcard-seoul?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Jun 2014 03:52:53 +0000 Spies infiltrated the South Korean film industry in 2013 - and the local people welcomed them. The notion of spying may seem romantic to people in other countries, but since the Korean war in the 1950s, South Korea's media have been reporting incidents involving real spooks. Deadly confrontations took place throughout the 20th century on both sides of the border. Nor is this a thing of the past: Seoul claims to have arrested 49 North Korean spies since 2003. In South Korean movies, the North's... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1407695/postcard-seoul-darcy-paquet?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1407695/postcard-seoul-darcy-paquet?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jan 2014 07:47:46 +0000 At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 19-year-old Park Tae-hwan became the first South Korean to win a gold medal in swimming when he touched the finish line in the 400-metre freestyle event. His triumph sparked a new interest in competitive swimming in his country. The teen swimmer also opened the door for the production of No Breathing. Although it's not a biopic, the film is inspired by Park's early career, with its two main characters embodying elements of his story. Ultimately, learning to be... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1374505/competitive-swimming-film-shows-young-people-how-stay-afloat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1374505/competitive-swimming-film-shows-young-people-how-stay-afloat?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Dec 2013 08:00:00 +0000 The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) likes to have it both ways. On the one hand, the event - which ran this year from October 3 to 12 - is a glitzy, star-studded event that injects the South Korean port city of Busan with a healthy dose of glamour every autumn. Scores of the local industry's top actors make the trip from Seoul. The setting of the festival is also luxurious. With the active support of the city government, the BIFF has built an architecturally bold cinema complex designed... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1334570/postcard-busan-international-film-festival?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1334570/postcard-busan-international-film-festival?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Oct 2013 09:00:30 +0000 Cold Eyes, one of the hottest films at the South Korean box office this summer, may strike fans of Hong Kong cinema as oddly familiar. That's because it is an official remake of Eye in the Sky, the gripping 2007 Milkyway Image feature about a police surveillance unit that is scriptwriter Yau Nai-hoi's sole directorial outing to date. Transposed to the city of Seoul, Cold Eyes easily topped the South Korean box office in its first week of release (July 3), taking in US$13.8 million. It had taken... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1294643/cold-eyes-shows-how-south-korean-producers-find-inspiration?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1294643/cold-eyes-shows-how-south-korean-producers-find-inspiration?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Aug 2013 16:00:00 +0000 How much can the casting of a popular star drive a film's box office? In South Korea, Kim Soo-hyun may have provided the answer. Early last month, the drama-comedy Secretly Greatly, in which the actor-model-singer plays a North Korean spy, enjoyed the biggest opening in South Korean film history. It set a record for ticket sales in a single day (919,027 admissions), and its overall total of just under 7 million admissions gives it the equivalent of US$43.3 million in revenue. Virtually all... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1291268/postcard-seoul?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1291268/postcard-seoul?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 In the past 12 months, the South Korean film industry has seen three massive box office hits. Two - heist movie The Thieves, starring Gianna Jun Ji-hyun and Kim Yun-seok, and period drama Masquerade, starring Lee Byung-heon - are high-profile, big-budget productions. But the runaway success of the third work, Miracle in Cell No7, came as a surprise to critics and film industry insiders alike. With more than 12.8 million tickets sold in South Korea - a box office take of US$82 million - the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1255629/postcard-south-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1255629/postcard-south-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 HAVING VISITED THE mainland three times, including in 1999 when he spent time on the set of Kim Young-jun’s Bichunmoo, South Korean director Oh Ki-hwan became increasingly drawn to the country. “Each time, I thought to myself, ‘This is a really interesting place. I’d love to shoot a film here some day,’” the 45-year-old recalls. So when CJ Entertainment, a major film company in South Korea, came knocking in 2011 with a proposal to remake his 2001 melodrama Last Present for the Chinese market, Oh... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1250610/present-and-correct?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1250610/present-and-correct?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The city of Berlin might seem an odd setting for an action movie about North and South Korean spies. But on a visit to the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011, South Korean director Ryoo Seung-wan was suddenly inspired. "Berlin [was] a symbol of the cold war during the 20th century. Those tensions still exist on the Korean peninsula, so I thought it would be a meaningful place to set an espionage film that looks at our contemporary political situation," the 39-year-old says. The result is... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1234534/tension-transplant-berlin-file?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1234534/tension-transplant-berlin-file?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 South Korea's biggest-grossing film in history is a work that features popular Korean actors, but also benefits significantly from Hong Kong star power. Last summer, The Thieves sold a record-breaking 13 million tickets in South Korea, and part of the appeal was the presence of actors Simon Yam Tat-wah, Derek Tsang Kwok-cheung and Lee Sinje, and even the urban landscapes of Hong Kong and Macau. To South Koreans in their 20s, this might have seemed novel - yet co-productions and partnerships... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1213022/reel-partners?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1213022/reel-partners?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000