It’s been another explosive year for Korean filmmaking in the West. With anticipation building for Squid Game series two, Netflix doubled down by investing $2.5 billion in K-content this spring — around the same time that whispers of Celine Song’s Past Lives getting a nod for the 2024 Best Picture Oscar were first heard. A few months later in London, Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb sold out the 2,700-capacity Royal Festival Hall to mark a major highlight of the BFI London Film Festival. Now, disaster-thriller Concrete Utopia — the country’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2024 — gets a red-carpet premiere in Leicester Square this weekend courtesy of London East Asia Film Festival. The Parasite generation has been spoiled.
But the showcase for the filmmaking powerhouse peninsula isn’t over just yet, because the London Korean Film Festival is back for its 18th edition this November, bearing an arsenal of arthouse and commercial works — ranging from powerful dramas and moving migrant stories to innovative animated features. Here are just some essentials to add to your watchlist.
1. Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim, 2022)
This semi-autobiographical feature from writer-director Anthony Shim tells the story of a single mother (Choi Seung-yoon) and her son, Dong-hyun (Ethan Hwang), as they navigate the struggles of immigrant life in Canada through the 90s via a series of time-jumping chapters. The film has been greeted with a slew of gongs during its festival run, including the Platform Prize at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2022 and the Audience Award at Glasgow. They’re well deserved.
Shot in boxy 4:3 aspect ratio on grainy, colour-washed film stock, Riceboy Sleeps’ power lies in its sweeping and mobile long takes, which add both a rich dynamism and a sense of verisimilitude to the story that eschews the need for melodrama. This realistic quality is something that stems from Shim’s background as a theatre director; most scenes were shot on a single camera. Cinematographer Christopher Lew’s knack for composition is no less impressive, with images of golden rice paddies and rippling oceans as memorable as the roaming, kid-eye camera angles in school classrooms and playgrounds.
2. One Fine Spring Day (Hur Jin-ho, 2001)
Accompanying the sold-out Opening Gala screening of TIFF-approved A Normal Family (2023) is this Y2K classic from the same director — who made an instant impression on Korean audiences in 1998 with his beloved melodrama Christmas in August. Hur Jin-ho’s 2001 follow-up One Fine Spring Day is the simple but resounding tale of sound recordist Sang-woo (Oldboy villain Yoo Ji-tae) and radio host Eun-soo (Lady Vengeance’s Lee Young-ae), whose work partnership blossoms into romance before gradually waning as the seasons go by.
Hur’s gentle pacing ensures that every beat of this tale is well-felt, with the ambient sounds of temple chimes, electrical hums and passing ships’ horns providing a rich and warm atmosphere. The masterful shot composition — which focuses on sandy beaches, icy pathways and windy bamboo forests — meanwhile, is the work of veteran cinematographer Kim Hyung-koo, otherwise known for Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder, Lee Chang-dong’s Peppermint Candy, and various works of low-budget filmmaking icon Hong Sang-soo.
3. Walk Up (Hong Sang-soo, 2022)
Arthouse auteur Hong Sang-soo — whose accolades include a Cannes Jury Prize, the Berlin Grand Jury Prize, and Berlin Silver Bears for Best Director and Best Screenplay — shows no sign of slowing his prolific streak as he delivers his 12th film since 2017 this year. Walk Up, written, directed, shot, edited and scored by Hong, retains much of the talky charms of his previous underground successes and reunites the director with regular collaborators Kwon Hae-hyo (The Day After), Song Sun-mi (The Woman Who Ran) and Lee Hye-young (In Front of Your Face). The resulting monochromatic story is that of a middle-aged film director, his daughter, and the interior designer and landlord of a small apartment building. Over the course of several bottles of wine in Hong’s signature fixed-camera dialogue scenes the tenants gradually make their way up through each floor, revealing hidden parts of themselves as they do.
4. The Summer (Han Ji-won, 2023)
Pink and orange sunsets, twinkling city lights at night and cloudy blue skies over rolling hills are among some of the most memorable images in this beautifully animated feature from Han Ji-won. Utilising artificial lens flare and bright colours to imbue an almost ethereal quality to its queer-themed story, The Summer concerns two female high-schoolers — an aspiring footballer and a shy, bespectacled bookworm — who become romantically involved while studying in the countryside, before deciding to moving into their first apartment together in Seoul. In the big city, the couple take walks along the famous Cheonggyecheon canal and the retail stores of Jongno — but it soon becomes clear that their futures together are uncertain.
5. A Letter From Kyoto (Kim Min-ju, 2022)
Set in Yeongdo district in the port city of Busan, A Letter From Kyoto follows three sisters as they reunite on the anniversary of their father’s passing. They have little in common: Hye-young (Han Seon-hwa), a writer who has long since ensconced in Seoul, is resented by Hye-jin (Han Chae-ah), who’s unsatisfied with her career in luxury retail. Hye-joo (Song Ji-hyun), meanwhile, is an aspiring breakdancer in her final year of high school, while their mother, Hwa-ja (Cha Mi-kyeong), makes and delivers kimchi in the neighbourhood. Friction builds when Hwa-ja is diagnosed with a degenerative illness.
After its premiere at the Busan International Film Festival in 2022, this touching feature debut from writer-director Kim Min-ju (who will be present for a post-screening Q&A in London) was likened by one critic to the gentle family dramas of Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) — and it’s an apt comparison. With scenic views over Busan harbour and wide shots of its blue-and-white residential streets, A Letter From Kyoto draws in the audience, who will find compelling, nuanced characters and empathetic storytelling at its heart.
6. Mother Land (Park Jae-beom, 2022)
Over three years in the making, this Siberian eco-fable from writer-director Park Jae-beom is, quite remarkably, the first Korean stop-motion feature in 45 years. But whereas the last — 1978’s Kongjwi and Patchwi — was basically a Thunderbirds puppet version of Cinderella, Mother Land more closely recalls Princess Mononoke (or possibly a chilly episode of Pingu).
Meticulously designed and animated, and set to an enchanting ambient score by composer Sohn Min-young, Mother Land is the story of a nomadic young tribeswoman who braves the cruel wilderness in search of a mythical red-eyed bear. This ‘Master of the Forest’, believes reindeer-riding Krisha may hold the secret to curing her sick mother, but the dastardly Lieutenant Vladimir has better ideas for the beast.
7. Open The Door (Chang Hang-jun, 2023)
In a nondescript suburb on the East Coast of the US, fast-food worker Chi-hoon (Seo Young-joo) spends a night at the home of his brother-in-law (Lee Soon-won) downing hard liquor and beer. After reminiscing about the good times, the atmosphere takes a turn as the subject of Chi-hoon’s deceased mother is raised. The ensuing story, told in reverse chronology across five distinct chapters, reveals a darker side to the familiar Korean migrant tale.
Though it eventually takes a turn for the melodramatic, for the most part, this neo-noir-tinged drama rolls out like a finely-structured play, with long, uncut dialogue scenes allowing the actors to wrestle with the nuances of their individual roles. As a rare example of a Korean production set in and around New York, Open the Door also makes for a conducive double bill with one of the best films of 2023: A24’s Past Lives.