Korean pop culture has never been more prevalent in the UK than it is today. Park Chan-wook’s latest movie Decision to Leave sold out the 2,700-capacity Royal Festival Hall in October as a Headline Gala at the BFI London Film Festival. A major exhibition, Hallyu: The Korean Wave!, has just opened at the V&A. And Blackpink, the most popular girl group on the planet, headline the O2 Arena in London at the end of the month. What next?
The answer is London Korean Film Festival (LKFF). The two-week event — the biggest programme dedicated to Korean cinema outside of the country itself — will return to the capital for its 17th edition on 3 November, with over 35 films in tow. With a rich history already established (prior events have brought everything from erotic festival favourites to obscure shorts by Parasite director Bong Joon-ho to the UK), this year’s edition spotlights compelling strands highlighting contemporary Korean cinema, K-Horror and movies helmed by women. Here’s a selection of highlights worth checking out.
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1. Broker (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2022)
Four years after winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival and receiving an Academy Award nomination for Shoplifters, Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with Broker — a South Korean production starring Parasite lead Song Kang-ho.
The film concerns the owner of a laundrette (Kang-ho) who steals babies from a local church baby box and sells them for re-adoption on the black market. When a young mother returns to find her child missing, she tracks down the criminals, with a pair of detectives hot on the trail too, and learns that the motivations behind their actions are rather unusual.
Arguably the most high-profile new feature film on show at LKFF this year, Broker went home from Cannes this year with the Ecumenical Jury prize and a Best Actor gong. Song Kang-ho became the first South Korean actor to win that award, building upon his already outstanding legacy in the contemporary Korean film industry.
Broker screens at London Picturehouse Central at 20:30 on November 10th
2. The Thieves (Choi Dong-hoon, 2012)
This blockbuster smash — the ninth-highest-grossing Korean film of all time — is a typical big-screen affair. A mismatched, Ocean’s Eleven-style ensemble of cat burglars, bank robbers and master strategists join together in a plot to rob a 20 million dollar diamond from a Macau casino. A medley of ridiculous stunts and bombastic audio cues punctuate proceedings as things don’t quite go to plan.
It’s not the only box office smash the LKFF are screening this year. The Thieves director Choi Dong-hoon offers up his new sci-fi fantasy Alienoid as the festival’s opening gala, while the highest-grossing Korean film of all time – historical epic The Admiral: Roaring Currents – screens alongside its new sequel, Hansan: Rising Dragon.
The Thieves screens at London ICA at 17:00 on November 4th
3. Return to Seoul (Davy Chou, 2022)
This highlight of the festival’s Cinema Now strand concerns a young, French-adopted Korean party girl named Freddie (first-time actor Park Ji-min) who finds herself on the trail of her birth parents after arriving in Seoul.
Freddie’s investigation spans several years, in which she battles with issues of communication and identity while adopting a new group of friends herself. It all amounts to a sizeable and unpredictable character reinvention in this engaging and crisply shot melodrama — which features a score that riffs on the Bauhaus goth-rock classic “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”.
The film received rave reviews after its Cannes premiere earlier this year and has since been put forwards for Academy Awards consideration by director Davy Chou’s home country, Cambodia.
Return to Seoul screens at London Cine Lumiere at 20:35 on November 12th
4. The Road to the Race Track (Jang Sun-woo, 1991)
One of the most interesting strands at this year’s LKFF focuses on the career of actress Kang Soo-yeon, who died unexpectedly in 2022 at the age of just 55. She was one of the most recognisable actors in Korean cinema and television in the 80s and early 90s — a period largely overlooked in the west due to the limited overseas exhibition of such media.
For 1986’s The Surrogate Woman, concerning the love affair between a rich aristocrat and a poor servant during the Joseon Dynasty, Soo-yeon won the prize for Best Actress at Venice Film Festival — becoming the first Korean actor to receive an award at a major international film festival in the process. The film was directed by Im Kwon-taek, himself considered a founding father of the modern Korean film industry. Another of Kwon-taek’s collaborations with Soo-yeon, Come Come Come Upward, also plays at this year’s festival.
Of the five Kang Soo-yeon feature films screening at LKFF 2022, though, perhaps Jang Sun-woo’s 1991 classic The Road to the Race Track — a controversial and sexual film that won the actor a sweep of awards — is the most compelling. Considered by critics to be both Sun-woo and Soo-yeon’s best film, it helped to trigger a wave of postmodernism across Korean society in the early 90s.
The Road to the Race Track screens at London ICA at 18:30 on November 8th
5. I Am More (Lee Il-ha, 2021)
In Seoul’s vibrant Itaewon neighbourhood, More, a former ballerina turned drag artist, enters a nightclub draped in rainbow-coloured lights in an area known as “homo hill”. Despite her complicated relationship with the vocation, she’s been performing at venues like these for over two decades — and soon, she’ll be in New York to perform at the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
Issues of sexual conformity and acceptance in Korea come under the spotlight in Lee Il-ha’s new documentary, which offers a fascinating insight into a protagonist who sees the world itself as a stage. Through vibrant visuals and the charisma of the leading star, I Am More offers a compelling, human story told with empathy and compassion.
I Am More screens at London Rio Cinema at 14:00 on November 13th
6. Through My Midwinter (Oh Seung-ho, 2021)
Young couple Kyung-hak (Kwon Da-ham) and Hye-jin (Kwon So-hyun) enjoy an unsteady romance marked by practical jokes and steamy sex. He is training to become a policeman while she aspires to work for the Korean Tourism board, and everything seems normal for a while. But when Kyung-hak receives a call telling him he is liable for a $20,000 debt incurred by his mother, the couple’s dreams must give way to punishing delivery work and dull office jobs as they strive to keep their heads (and their relationship) above water.
As described by programmer Darcy Paquet (author of the 2009 book New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves), the situation experienced by the two protagonists of Through My Midwinter is sadly a common one — with financial struggles widespread among Korea’s younger generation. The resulting film, nonetheless, is a captivating highlight of the festival’s Indie Talent section, which spotlights emerging filmmakers telling modern stories about Korean society.
Through My Midwinter screens at London Picturehouse Central at 15:00 on November 13th
7. The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (Park Sye-young, 2022)
Memorable works like Kim Jee-woon’s Kubrickian A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), Park Chan-wook’s Thirst (2009), and Na Hong-jin’s rural horror The Wailing (2016) have exemplified the best of Korean horror filmmaking over the past two decades. But in 2022, one of LKFF’s most gruesome works concerns not ghosts, vampires, or exorcisms — but funghi that grows in an old, discarded mattress.
The film in question is Park Sye-young’s visually distinctive The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (2022) — a spore of Cronenbergian body horror that makes a deep impression within the After Dark: K-Horror strand. Combining lysergic colours with unsettling stop motion, this experimental late-night nasty is kaleidoscopically gross — much to its benefit.
The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra screens at London Genesis Cinema at 20:50 on November 10th
8. 29th Breath (Kook Joong-yi, 2022)
“For once I want to say my lines on the set, instead of gurgling and growling!” In a mess of gory flesh wounds and rainbow-coloured lights, aspiring actress Ah-hee delivers a convincing performance as a bloodthirsty extra in a zombie movie. Ah-hee keeps landing these kinds of roles — in fact, she’s appeared in everything from global zombie sensation Train to Busan to Netflix’s undead hits Kingdom and All of Us are Dead. But Ah-hee yearns for more. Can she break free of this typecasting to finally land the role she dreams of?
Full of strong performances and creative camerawork, 29th Breath is a 30-minute highlight from the Shorts x Jeonju International Film Festival – Part 2 anthology.
29th Breath screens as part of LKFF 2022: Shorts x Jeonju International Film Festival – Part 2 at London Garden Cinema at 20:30 on November 11th