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The Housemaid Is Watching is the lowest-rated book in Freida McFadden's series, with a 3.96 rating on Goodreads. The book's premise deviates from the original, with the titular housemaid no longer working as a maid, losing the series' core theme of class inequality. Based on reviews, the series should end with The Housemaid Is Watching, as any future books would only change the original premise further.

In 2022, Freida McFadden gained popularity for her thriller book The Housemaid, but unfortunately, the latest book in the series, The Housemaid is Watching, is missing what made the first two spectacular. The Housemaid Is Watching is the third installment in the highly anticipated thriller book series, The Housemaid, which gained traction after becoming popular on Booktok. Before writing these books, McFadden had already published a number of popular thrillers, including Never Lie, The Inmate, and The Teacher.

The Housemaid books follow Millie, a housemaid...

Actor Lee Jung-jae will attend the Monte-Carlo Television Festival next month for the French press launch of Lucasfilm’s latest live-action series “Star Wars: The Acolyte,” which streams on Disney+. In the show, Lee plays a Jedi Master.

It was his role in the globally successful Netflix series “Squid Game” that first catapulted Lee’s career to an international level. Starring as Seong Gi-hun (No. 456), a financially struggling father who participates in a deadly survival game, his performance earned him the Emmy Award for best actor in a drama series, a first for a non-English speaking actor.

This tremendous success significantly elevated the career of Lee, who is now considered by many as the international standard-bearer for a highly creative and avant-garde Korean culture.

In “Star Wars: The Acolyte,” an investigation into a series of shocking crimes pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee) against a dangerous warrior from his past.

The next book in Freida McFadden's Housemaid series, dubbed The Housemaid Is Watching, comes out in 2024. Millie's story could take a turn in The Housemaid Is Watching, which might see her past catching up with her. It's unclear if there will be another book in The Housemaid series, but a movie adaptation has been announced.

The Housemaid series by Freida McFadden is one of the most popular thriller offerings out there, and the next book, titled The Housemaid Is Watching, is returning readers to the author's story in 2024. The Housemaid tells the gripping tale of a young woman who takes a job as a maid for a wealthy family. Millie is desperate enough to stay with the Winchesters, even when it becomes clear that something is very, very off. And her journey takes readers on a psychological thrill ride full of twists that have cemented the book's success.

The Housemaid...

The 28th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival unveiled its official poster on May 13th. Bifan is anticipated to become an even richer festival this year, building on 27 years of experience of programming a wide variety of films and public events. It has stablished itself as Asia's premier genre film festival.

Everything Sensational! A unique genre film festival that ‘Stays Strange'

Combines AI with traditional elements! Unveiling the unconventional and renewed poster!

▲ Official poster of the 28th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival

With new and unconventional images and various interpretations, the new official poster adds fresh stimulation and raises the expectations of an audience eagerly awaiting the festival. While maintaining its identity expressed through the slogan “Stay Strange”, which has attracted interest and love from audiences and citizens over the years, the festival will address the hot topic of the mega trend AI and its impact on filmmaking this year.

The poster's art director,...

Echelon Studios is proud to announce Korean director Kim Ki-young's posthumous feature and critical hit, An Experience to Die For aka Be a Wicked Woman, will screen in New York and be available online later this month.

The film follows Yuh-jung, played by Academy Award winner Youn Yuh-jung (Minari), and Myeong-ja, played by Lee Tam-mi, two wounded wives who meet by chance and agree to take revenge on each other's husbands.

The film remains one of Kim's most controversial works and marks the director' third collaboration with Youn, following her appearance in Woman of Fire (1971) and The Insect Woman (1972).

Although completed in 1990, the movie wasn't seen until after Kim's death in 1998, when it was shown for the first time during the Busan International Film Festival. This screening marks the first time the film has been shown in the U.S.

An Experience to Die For will screen at New...

Kim Ki-young will be forever remembered for one of the undeniable Korean masterpieces, 1960's “The Housemaid”. Recently, however, and particularly after Youn Yuh-jung won the Oscar for “Minari”, much light was shed to some of his previous works that included her in the starring roles, “Woman of Fire” and “Insect Woman”, both well accepted films that featured a narrative similar to that of “The Housemaid”. On the other hand, “An Experience to Die For”, the third collaboration between the two, was made in 1990 as Kim's last work, but was not released as he is said to have been disappointed with the outcome and decided not to release it. The film was submitted to the censors twice — once in 1990 and again in 1995, but was not screened for the public until the 1998 Busan International Film Festival, following Kim's untimely death in a house fire.

“An Experience to Die For” will have two...

Indie icon Kim Gordon, whose excellent solo album “The Collective” dropped last week, is this month’s featured film curator for Galerie, the new online film club launched by Indian Paintbrush. Below, Gordon shares a deeply personal curation of eight films that influence and reflect audio, visual art, and personal style. While best known as a musician and cofounding member of Sonic Youth, Gordon’s art has long stretched into multiple other disciplines, with film being just one.

“Morvern Callar,” dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2002

I love the way Lynne Ramsay uses sound dynamics. In this movie the music is like another character. The mixtape that her dead boyfriend made and left for her (saying “Keep the music to yourself”) becomes a thread throughout the film. He is the music — it not only keeps him alive for her but replaces him.

“Clouds of Sils Maria,” dir. Olivier Assayas, 2014

The relationship in this...

As December begins, you might be looking forward to spending time with friends and family over the holidays—and in need of some gift-giving inspiration. Look no further than Notebook's Cinephile Gift Guide, the proverbial online Shop Around the Corner (1940).Below is our third annual, lovingly curated guide to the holiday season. It's sure to spread film-themed cheer, and we hope it's thorough enough to surprise all of the film fans in your life.Jump to a category:Books about cinemaBooks by filmmakers and artistsHome videoMusicHome goods, posters, and gamesApparel Books About CINEMAFirst up is UK culture and music critic Ian Penman’s kaleidoscopic, genre-bending offering to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors. The book has drawn comparisons to Charles Baudelaire and Roland Barthes, but is undoubtedly a sui generis response to a singular legacy.On offer this year from Another Gaze Editions is My Cinema by Marguerite Duras, a...

Just as Pulp Fiction triggered a wave of inferior gangster flicks with a penchant for witty, fast-paced dialogue and Get Out paved the way for several socially conscious horror efforts, the seeds of Parasite’s widespread influence are beginning to sprout. The disaster movie Concrete Utopia would have still existed were it not for the unprecedented international success of Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar winner, of course, but I doubt producers would have been as eager to give blockbuster funding to a similarly class-conscious satire (which just happens to unfold under near-apocalyptic circumstances) if they didn’t sense similar breakout potential.

It’s not necessarily a criticism that the third film by director Um Tae-hwa follows closely in Bong’s footsteps, marrying his love for the country’s early wave of issue-driven melodramas––as was the case with Parasite, the influence of Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid looms large––with contemporary big-budget spectacle.

The extremely successful John Wick universe is expanding! Brand-new TV prequel series The Continental lands on Peacock in the US and Prime Video in the UK this September with a mission to take the world of John Wick beyond the ultra-violent adventures of Mr. Wick himself, but they’ll still need guns – lots of guns.

Unfortunately, John Wick star Keanu Reeves does not appear in The Continental, but there are lots of new and familiar characters checking into both the notorious New York hotel and the intricate lore of the franchise in this big budget streaming TV series. If you need to know more about those characters and the actors behind the roles, we’re here to help.

Colin Woodell is Winston Scott

Winston Scott should be familiar to fans of the John Wick franchise, but even if you’ve only seen one of those movies before, you’ll have...

The Continental is set to spin off the John Wick franchise in big ways. The franchise has come a long way since it debuted in 2014. John Wick reinvigorated the career of star Keanu Reeves. The film's plot involved Reeves’ hit man, the titular John Wick, being unceremoniously forced out of retirement by the reckless act of a gangster’s son. The film was a modest hit financially, grossing $43 million at the domestic box office, along with another 43 million dollars worldwide. A return to the basic plot conventions of a lean and mean revenge thriller combined with excellent camera work and stunt coordination struck a nerve with audiences. Word of mouth propelled John Wick to many must-see lists in 2014.

The rest is history as the action film has spawned three sequels, the most recent of which was John Wick: Chapter 4, which came out on March 24, 2023, and is one of the biggest movies of the year,...

“Cobweb,” the Kim Jee-woon-directed satire that debuted at Cannes this year, has been cleared for theatrical release in its native Korea later this month. On Monday it saw off an injunction that sought to derail its hometown debut.

The film is a tongue in cheek tribute to the Korean movies of the 1970s and plays partly as a film within a film, jumping from color to black and white as it does so.

It stars Song Kang-ho as director Kim, who needs just two more days of reshoots to craft a new ending to his latest film (also called “Cobweb”) so that it will no longer be the trashy potboiler everyone thought he was making. However, there is turmoil on Kim’s set and he has to deal with regular interference from the interventionist censorship authorities.

With the reputation of the real-world director Kin Jee-woon and Song’s star-power,...

The opening action sequence of The Continental: From the World of John Wick features the iconic elements of the Wick universe, including intense fights and headshots. The series explores an alternate history 1970s where legal assassins find safety in The Continental chain of hotels, with a focus on Winston Scott's rise to power. Mel Gibson joins the cast as Cormac, a ruthless criminal kingpin who manages The Continental Hotel in New York City, adding to the intrigue and conflict in the story.

The opening action sequence from this month’s John Wick prequel, The Continental: From the World of John Wick, has been unleashed. Coming courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes, the action scene drops audiences into New York City in the 1970s, with the footage featuring all the things now associated with the world of Wick, including long takes, fist fights, and plenty of headshots. Check out the opening of...

Film at Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema - in collaboration with the Korean Film Archive and the Korean Cultural Center NY - have partnered to showcase a major retrospective of 1960s Korean Cinema, highlighting the country's rapid growth and diverse cinematic styles during this era. The screenings feature English subtitles and sometimes 35mm archival prints, providing audiences with a unique opportunity to explore the innovations and stylistic choices of acclaimed directors from this golden decade. The series includes a mix of genres, from melodramas to monster movies, and some screenings will offer discussions to further delve into the growth of Korea's film industry and the artistic vision of renowned filmmakers. Sponsored by Mubi Go, tickets are available on Film at Lincoln Center's website.

The Hallyu wave has brought Korean entertainment and culture to Western shores more than ever before in recent years, thanks to the global expansion of Kpop and Kdramas.

Film at Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema announce “Korean Cinema's Golden Decade: The 1960s,” a sweeping retrospective that features 24 films from this remarkable period in Korean film history. The series will run from September 1–17 and is one of the largest retrospectives ever of 1960s Korean Cinema outside of Korea, including many rarely screened films, several presented on 35mm archival prints.

Long before Bong Joon Ho, Hong Sangsoo, and Park Chan-wook catapulted South Korean cinema onto the world stage, the foundation of their country's film industry formed in the aftermath of the Korean War. The period kickstarted a wealth of eclectic and innovative filmmaking that culminated in the 1960s. Closer inspection of this decade, now widely considered Korea's premier film renaissance, reveals the arrival of seminal works from auteurs such as Kim Ki-young, Shin Sang-ok, Yu Hyun-mok, Kim Soo-yong, and Lee Man-hee, alongside a meteoric rise and reinvention of genres—from...

The Continental, a three-part event series that serves as a prequel to the John Wick films, will be making its premiere on the Peacock streaming service on September 22nd, with Night 2 following on September 29th and Night 3 on October 6th. Outside of the United States, the Middle East, and Israel, the show will be available to watch on Amazon Prime Video. And with just over a month to go before the show starts airing, a full trailer has arrived online. Check it out in the embed above!

Colin Woodell (The Flight Attendant) takes on the role of a younger Winston in The Continental, and throughout the series, viewers will follow Winston through the underworld of ’70s New York, where he will battle demons from his past as he attempts to seize control of the iconic hotel – a hotel that serves as a meeting point for the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Peacock has announced the premiere date for the upcoming John Wick prequel series, The Continental: From the World of John Wick alongside releasing a first look and some behind-the-scenes footage during the panel at San Diego Comic Con. The Continental: From the World of John Wick is now due to debut on Peacock on Friday, September 22, 2023, with Night 1, followed by Night 2 airing September 29 and Night 3 airing October 6.

The creative team behind the series appears as part of Sdcc for Peacock’s three-part event for The Continental: From the World of John Wick hosted by Collider’s Steven Weintraub, revealing behind-the-scenes moments and an exclusive first look at the series (in-room only). The panel features executive producer/director Albert Hughes, executive producer Marshall Persinger and the creative team including action director Larnell Stovall, production designer Drew Boughton and editor Ron Rosen.

A prequel to the blockbuster action franchise, the series will...

Academy Award winner and controversial Hollywood superstar Mel Gibson will soon the world of John Wick in the upcoming prequel series, The Continental: From the World of John Wick. Now, Gibson has discussed joining the project and revealed several details regarding his character, the ruthless criminal kingpin, Cormac in an interview done ahead of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

“He's kind of like [Winston and Charon’s] mentor, or actually, mentor or tormentor, I'm not sure which. But he's rather a nefarious character who's like a father figure to them, and they perceive him that way when they're young, but as they grow and begin to analyse who he really is, they realise he's probably not the father figure he pretends to be. He's pretty selfish in his own motives, and has used them in an ill way, and I think they're burned by that and they want to get even. Rightly so.”

Described as “an intimidating force,...

From the Palme d’Or for “Parasite” to a stint on the following jury to a Best Actor prize all of his own with last year’s “Broker,” Song Kang-ho has become a recent fixture at Cannes. This year he made a late-break for Croisette with “Cobweb,” a slight-but-entertaining film about the movies from director Kim Jee-woon. Premiering late and out of competition, “Cobweb” doesn’t equal the films that made Song the new king of Cannes, but it certainly has style to burn and plenty to admire.

Of course, the South Korean star and his “Cobweb” director go way back, as Kim first launched Song’s career with 1998’s “The Quiet Family” and then nourished it with blockbusters like “The Good, the Bad, the Weird” and “Age of Shadows.” Those intertwining paths certainly tangle in this latest collab, which finds Song playing a filmmaker also named Kim.

Don’t...

The John Wick franchise is putting a hit out on wallets this Friday as it becomes a billion-dollar earner globally. The John Wick franchise stands tall, with $1.011 billion across four chapters worth of spectacular stunts, stylish action, and nail-biting cliffhangers for its leading boogeyman. The latest installment, John Wick: Chapter 4, is still making money at the box office before arriving on digital and physical platforms on May 29 with $425 million.

Unlike other franchises that could experience a downturn with each chapter, the John Wick franchise is more successful with every new film. Chapter 4 cost the studio $100 million to produce. However, $425 million more than makes up for the cost, lining the pockets of studio executives and creatives in charge of the John Wick narrative.

“This milestone is a testament to the incredible work of Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves, alongside Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee, who have made it their mission to...

John Wick: Chapter 4 (read our review Here) is currently in theatres, raking in the cash at the global box office while Keanu Reeves continues to rack up a body count on screens around the world. As of right now, the film has earned over $270 million… and while we wait to hear if or when that’s going to lead to another John Wick movie being made, a teaser trailer for the prequel series The Continental has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.

A three-part event series, The Continental will be making its premiere on the Peacock streaming service in September. Outside of the United States, the Middle East, and Israel, the show will be available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.

This series centers on the character of Winston Scott, played by Ian McShane in the films. Colin Woodell (The Flight Attendant) takes on...

This fast-moving yarn about a woman balancing contract killing with raising a teenage daughter has flair and depth to spare

Like a lot of topline Korean films, this prestige action thriller is a little too long at 137 minutes, but it’s consistently entertaining throughout, and quite well-suited given the length to being viewed on a streaming platform. Viewing in chunks works quite well, especially since the dialogue zips by so quickly that if you don’t speak Korean you may need to rewind to read the subtitles – and they’re actually worth reading here, which is not something you can always say about a film with this much martial arts and fisticuffs.

Jeon Do-yeon stars as Gil Bok-soon, a middle-aged single mother to teen daughter Jae-yeong (Kim Si-a). Jae-yeong and the yummy mummies at the private school Jae-yeong attends think Bok-soon is some kind of executive for an events company,...

If John Wick were a middle-aged single mom whose teenage daughter was about to come out as a lesbian, than she would be something like Gil Boksoon, the bone-crushing, throat-slashing, but otherwise fragile heroine of Korean director Byun Sung-hyun’s new action thriller, which premiered out of competition at the Berlinale.

Cheekily titled Kill Boksoon, the Netflix original takes cues both from Tarantino and the Wick franchise, with highly kinetic fight scenes where computer-generated blood fills the air like raindrops, and a plot revolving around corporatized assassins who inevitably turn on each other until there’s only one man — or woman — left standing.

The film also has an emotional undercurrent, albeit a rather familiar and facile one, as Boksoon copes with her daughter’s growing pains while she slays, slays and slays. At well over two hours it’s way too long and heads more or less where you think it will,...

Within the Korean film industry, Jeon Do-yeon is both a big star and a deeply respected actor’s actor. In over 25 years on-screen, she has appeared in scores of K-dramas and over 20 films, including numerous titles now considered modern Korean classics. Now, she’s poised for greater global exposure as the star of Netflix’s forthcoming action drama Kill Boksoon, a film that blends everything international audiences have come to love about Korean cinema: wit, genre invention, powerful performances, slick production values and a bit of the old ultra-violence.

Soon after her breakthrough on the small screen in the 1990s, Jeon quickly earned a reputation as a uniquely chameleonic film actress, inhabiting a diverse range of characters — from a doctor (A Promise, 1998) to a school girl (The Harmonium in My Memory, 1999), an adulterous wife (Happy End, 1999), a dreamy bank teller (I Wish I Had a Wife, 2001), a time traveler (My Mother,...

Netflix has unveiled a trailer for Berlin-bound action drama “Kill Boksoon,” with Jeon Do-yeon, previous winner of the best actress prize at Cannes, in the starring role.

The film sees Jeon as Gil, a single woman juggling the demanding and conflicting roles of professional killer and mother to a teenage daughter.

Despite her unblemished track record as an assassin, Gil hesitates about renewing her contract at the killing company where she is employed and decides to spend time finding out what is gnawing at her daughter. But complications are never far away, such as discovering her next target is at a parent-teacher meeting.

She also finds herself in competition with another hired gun (portrayed by “Peninsula” star Koo Kyo-hwan) and under pressure from her employers, portrayed Sul Kyung-gu and E Som (“Samjin English Company Class”).

The movie will have its world premiere in the Berlinale Special section, which acts as...

Keanu Reeves as John Wick and Donnie Yen as Caine in John Wick 4. Photo Credit: Murray Close

Check out the brand new trailer for John Wick: Chapter 4.

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating The High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.

The film stars Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, and Ian McShane.

Directed by Chad Stahelski, written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch and based on characters created by Derek Kolstad, John Wick: Chapter 4 opens in theaters March 24.

It was announced in early November Prime Video will launch The Continental, the highly anticipated special event series based on the blockbuster action franchise John Wick. The prequel is produced by Lionsgate Television,...

Prime Video will launch ‘The Continental,’ the highly anticipated special event series based on the blockbuster action franchise ‘John Wick.’

The prequel is produced by Lionsgate Television and will be exclusively available to Prime Video members worldwide excluding the U.S., Middle East and Israel in 2023.

The story is told from the perspective of the hotel manager, portrayed by Ian McShane in the film franchise – a young Winston Scott, played by Colin Woodell (The Flight Attendant). Throughout the series, viewers will follow Winston through the underworld of ‘70’s New York, where he will battle demons from his past as he attempts to seize control of the iconic hotel – a hotel that serves as a meeting point for the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Also in news – Aubrey Plaza cast in Marvel’s ‘WandaVision’ spinoff ‘Agatha: Coven of Chaos’

Woodell is joined by Mel Gibson (Braveheart), as Cormac; Ayomide Adegun (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes...

Poppy tunes open Vo Thanh Hoa’s screen adaptation of Kenji Uchida’s “Key of Life” (2012), following the first action scene that introduces one of the film’s three key characters – Thach (Kieu Minh Tuan), a notorious assasin who’s seen completing his task and then disappearing from the crime scene. In just a couple of minutes he will shake of a bunch of armed criminals by swiftly changing roles from one type of servant to the other, to be ridiculously defeated by a simple bar of soap. Just like in Kenji’s original, the fantom assasin gets knocked unconscious in a bath house, and wakes up with amnesia and a wrong locker key in his hand, logically believing to be someone else.

Chìa Khoá Trăm Tỷ (A Hundred Billion Key) has opened in 50 major U.S. theaters nationally on Friday, Oct 28th.

Thach starts living...

London East Asia Film Festival (Leaff) is back with a diverse programme from East and Southeast Asia, including international and UK premieres. Seven strands runs throughout the festival: Official Selection, Competition, Documentary Competition, Actor Focus: Lee Jung-Jae, Filmmaker Focus: Cinematographer Mark Lee, Classics Restored and Halloween Horror Special.

The festival screenings and events will take place at five venues around London. Following the Opening Gala at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on 19th October, Leaff will continue for 11 days at Odeon Luxe West End, the Cinema at Selfridges, Chiswick Cinema and the Cinema Museum in London! Squid Game star, Lee Jung-Jae will be attending Leaff for the Opening Gala screening of “Hunt”.

Leaff aims to champion the growing collaboration in East Asian filmmaking with a philosophy that marks a shift in the cinematic landscape of East Asia, and moves away from cultural and cinematic borders. The Festival vision is to bring a much wider,...

After over two years of Covid-19, I don't think anyone would want to be on a plane like this — but watching it from the comfort of our homes? We can definitely do that. The upcoming South Korean survival thriller "Emergency Declaration" has been highly anticipated, and /Film has an exclusive clip for you to sink your teeth into.

According to the film's press release, "Emergency Declaration" stars "Squid Game" actor Lee Byung-hun as "a man trapped in an airplane where a terrorist is threatening to release a deadly virus" while costar Song Kang-ho — perhaps best known in the United States for his work as patriarch Ki-taek in Bong Joon-ho's acclaimed black comedy-thriller "Parasite" — plays "a detective in a race against the clock to stop the attack." Needless to say, tensions rise in the air as well as on the ground when forces waiting for the plane to land start...

Action-drama film, “Emergency Declaration” pulled together several of Korea’s top stars – Song Kang-ho (“Parasite”), Lee Byung Hun (“G.I. Joe”) and Jeon Do-yeon – and it first took to the air as a Midnight Screening at the Cannes Film Festival, back in July 2021.

Directed by Han Jae-rim, the story involves a veteran police detective who receives a tip-off about an unspecified terrorist threat against a plane. Puzzlingly, he discovers that the chief suspect has got on the flight too. Meanwhile, the political authorities kick into emergency response mode. Fear and chaos spread on the ground and at 40,000 feet.

But, unlike the airborne on-screen action, the film remained firmly grounded after its proving flight in Cannes.

“Emergency Declaration” had been expected to be a highlight of Korean cinemas’ 2021 summer season. But that was not calculating with the arrival of new variants of the coronavirus which extinguished a brief late-summer 2021 box office revival in Korea.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe Mother and the Whore (1972).The lineup for this year's Cannes Classics boasts a 4k digital restoration of Jean Eustache's The Mother and the Whore, a rare screening of Satyajit Ray’s newly restored Pratidwandi, films by Vittorio de Sica, Orson Welles, Mike De Leon, and much more. After recently making Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going! available for free online, Martin Scorsese is set to narrate and executive produce a documentary about the filmmaking duo. Directed by David Hinton, the documentary follows Scorsese's personal journey with and relationship to Powell & Pressburger's films. David Cronenberg has announced his follow-up to Crimes of the Future: Starring Vincent Cassel and produced by Saïd Ben Saïd, Shrouds is about grieving widower whose technologically innovative (and controversial) cemetery is vandalized. Recommended VIEWINGThe trailer...

Espionage action film marks directorial debut of ‘Squid Game’ star Lee Jung-jae.

South Korea’s Megabox Plus M is launching its Cannes sales slate led by Midnight Screenings title Hunt, directed by Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae in his directorial debut.

Having starred in numerous TV and film titles such as Im Sang-soo’s The Housemaid, selected for Cannes in 2010, the actor will now be eligible for the festival’s Camera d’or with his first feature as a director.

His period espionage action film stars Lee with Jung Woo-sung as two unit chiefs in the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

Apple TV+’s newest drama Pachinko, based on the award-winning book by Min Jin Lee, offers poignant takeaways about family, survival and love. But, viewers should also expect to walk away with The Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live For Today” stuck in their heads.

The psychedelic anthem scores the series’ title sequence, which weaves together a visual tapestry with the past and present of Korea’s sprawling history. (You can watch it below.) As The Grass Roots sing of living and loving for today, age-worn images of Korean women and men in traditional wear lead to baby photos from the late 20th century, which transition into footage of a bustling Shibuya Crossing in Japan. A convergence of old and new, the high-energy opener is just one of the ways Apple TV+’s Pachinko highlights the link between the present and the generations that came before.

“Originally in the script is a different song,...

Im Sang-soo, the director of controversial films such as “A Good Lawyer’s Wife”, “The Housemaid” and of course “The President’s Last Bang” making a life-affirming buddy road movie featuring two unlikely fugitives? Stranger things have happened in the last few years but thankfully, “Heaven: To the Land of Happiness” is among the surprises of the pleasant variety.

“Heaven: To the Land of Happiness” is screening at Asian Pop-up Cinema

Nam-sik works as an orderly at a hospital where he steals expensive medicines for his Fabry’s disease. On the day that he is found out to be stealing, he meets Prisoner 203, an elderly inmate who has been brought to the hospital, where he is told that his brain tumor has worsened and that he has no more than two weeks left. As Nam-sik accompanies 203 to the toilet, he witnesses the inmate attempting an escape and, with his own freedom...

Asian Pop-Up Cinema: Season 14 will present 28 films in downtown Chicago and the north suburbs, with select films available for online streaming. The joint virtual and in-person festival opens March 13 and runs through April 10.

The diverse lineup celebrates the best of Asian cinema from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan. Programming highlights include work from female filmmakers and an in-person special guest appearance from Sunday LEAGUEdirector Yi Sung-il.

Season 14 opens with the Midwest Premiere of Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness (AMC Niles 12) from director Im Sang-soo. Korean stars Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) and Park Hae-il (War of the Arrows) lead this crime comedy as two terminally ill men on one last, unexpected journey of their lives. The international premiere of sports comedy Sunday League will follow, a heartwarming story of a former rising soccer star who reluctantly coaches a ragtag team of amateur players. Writer/director Yi is...

Asian Pop-up Cinema Announces

Opening, Centerpiece, And Closing Films

Bright Star Award Recipient And Special Guest For Season 14

Asian Pop-Up Cinema today announces the spotlight Marquee films scheduled for the 14th Season, March 13- April 10. Additionally announced is, Kai Ko as the recipient of the festival’s Bright Star Award, and the first movie director special guest to attend the festival since the pandemic started during Season 10.

Korean star power from Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) and Park Hae-il (War of The Arrows) will open Season 14 with the Midwest Premiere of Heaven: In The Land Of Happiness from Im Sang-soo, director of The Housemaid (2010) and The President’s Last Bang. ‘Heaven’ is about a journey of two terminally ill men making a heart-throbbing finale of their lives.

Director Sung-il Yi will attend his International debut of Sunday League, a sports comedy about a once-rising high school soccer star reduced to coaching children,...

The inaugural class of Netflix, Tribeca Studios and Gold House’s Future Gold Film Fellowship has been revealed. Directors Lloyd Lee Choi, Erin Lau and Derek Nguyen have been named the program’s first fellows.

The Gold Film Fellowship, which was designed to elevated experienced directors from Asian Pacific Islander (Api) communities, will see the selected directors created scripted short films that explore themes of family love, persistence and loss. The trio of directors will receive full funding, creative feedback and mentorship from executives at Tribeca Studios and Netflix and production expertise from he former. They will also have access to the Gold House Network and a seat in Gold House Futures. Their short films will also be considered to premiere at Tribeca Film Festival in June.

The three directors selected for the program where vetted by Tribeca Studios and a panel of industry leaders including Aneesh Chaganty, Jon M. Chu,...

Exclusive: Derek Nguyen, the award-winning writer, director and producer behind horror-romance The Housemaid (Cô Hầu Gái), has signed with Cinetic Media for management.

The Vietnamese American multihyphenate’s first feature follows an orphaned Vietnamese girl who is hired to be a housemaid at a haunted rubber plantation in French Indochina during the 1950s. IFC Films released it in theaters in 2016.

Nguyen also is producing an American adaptation of The Housemaid called Grave Hill from director Deon Taylor, which is slated for production this year, having penned the script with Oscar winner Geoffrey Fletcher. He exec produced the Tribeca-premiering thriller Catch the Fair One with Darren Aronofsky and has served as an associate producer on titles including The Long Dumb Road, The Tale, Buster’s Mal Heart, Lovesong and Addicted to Fresno. He is also a partner at the production company The Population with Mynette Louie.

Nguyen was a fellow at...

By Ella Hermonio

A marital plot with a psycho vibe and a Romeo and Juliet twist, “The Housemaid” tells a classic domestic tale with a strong undercurrent about the postcolonial Korea which bore it.

This article is part of the Asian Cinema Education Film Criticism Course 2021

This 1960 Kim Ki-Young masterpiece features the home of a lovesome piano teacher’s family of four who is about to move to their new and bigger house. As their life gets better with their hard work, his wife unfortunately becomes sickly and in need of additional help to manage the household. As they try to sustain their new lifestyle, their peaceful family gets disrupted, little by little, with the arrival of their new housemaid, a docile yet quite cunning woman.

The new helper, played by Lee Eun-sim, shows at the onset a contrasting personality from the urbane family she works for. Obedient yet rough in manners,...

Well Go USA has snapped up all North American rights to the anticipated South Korean disaster film Emergency Declaration, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last summer. The distributor will open the film theatrically in U.S. and Canadian theaters in 2022 following its domestic release in Korea.

Directed by Han Jae-rim (The Show Must Go On, The Face Reader), stars a trio of Korea’s biggest name stars: local legend Song Kang-ho in his first role since Parasite; leading man Lee Byung-hun following some recent global exposure in Squid Game; and Cannes best actress winner Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine, The Housemaid). The ...

Well Go USA has snapped up all North American rights to the anticipated South Korean disaster film Emergency Declaration, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last summer. The distributor will open the film theatrically in U.S. and Canadian theaters in 2022 following its domestic release in Korea.

Directed by Han Jae-rim (The Show Must Go On, The Face Reader), stars a trio of Korea’s biggest name stars: local legend Song Kang-ho in his first role since Parasite; leading man Lee Byung-hun following some recent global exposure in Squid Game; and Cannes best actress winner Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine, The Housemaid). The ...

Top South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae is thoroughly enjoying the extra burnish to his already distinguished career that has come from the global success of “Squid Game,” Netflix’s hit survival game TV series. However, he says that the phone is not ringing off the hook with new offers from Hollywood.

“No proposals or requests have come my way,” he told Variety. “But, if the right one came along, I’d be happy to be in an overseas production. It could be fun.”

Lee plays Gi-hun, a penniless wastrel who gambles too much, steals from his family, gets beaten up by loan sharks and accepts a mysterious invitation to become contender #456 in the deadly competition. His affability and carefully crafted backstory make him an easy-to-like protagonist who faces an evil organization that its literally playing with people’s lives.

It was a role that Lee accepted with relish after a more than two-decade career,...

A terminally ill prisoner and a despondent hospital worker steal a hearse stuffed with mob money in “Heaven: To the Land of Happiness.” This combination of odd-couple road movie and crime comedy moves along nicely for about half the running time but loses momentum when sentimentality and drawn-out male bonding take precedence over the film’s more playful components. Well served by the casting of A-list performers Choi Min-sik (“Old Boy”) and Park Hae-il (“The Host”) as the unlikely allies, “Heaven” should be warmly welcomed by local audiences but the latest offering from distinguished South Korean filmmaker Im Sang-soo is unlikely to enjoy the same international exposure as his best-known works, such as “The Housemaid.”

Originally selected for Cannes 2020 but unable to screen owing to the pandemic, Im’s film instead received its world premiere as the opening-night attraction at Busan 2021. A very different proposition from his emotionally spiky and...

The Busan International Film Festival kicked off in South Korea’s bustling southern port city Wednesday night with the world premiere of Heaven: To the Land of Happiness from veteran director Im Sang-soo (The Housemaid).

Despite a smaller scale (with theaters at 50 percent capacity) and a mask mandate for all visitors, about 1,200 audience members filled the seats of the outdoor theater of the Busan Cinema Center, the festival’s main screening venue. The event was hosted by South Korean stars Song Joong-ki (Vincenzo) and Park So-dam (Parasite), giving the country its first red carpet ceremony since the coronavirus pandemic began....

Youn Yuh-jung, who won the Oscar for best supporting actress in “Minari” earlier this year, will be the subject of a special focus this year at the London Korean Film Festival. The festival will be held as an in-person event Nov. 4-19, 2021.

Youn was this week named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2021.

The festival’s special focus on her will include the European premiere of a digitally restoration of Youn’s first role in 1970’s “Woman of Fire,” by iconic filmmaker Kim Ki-young. Also presented in a new 4K restoration and being shown for the first time outside of Korea, is “Angel, Become an Evil Woman,” also directed by Kim, and originally released in 1990.

The festival includes two of Youn’s more recent collaborations with director Im Sang-soo, screening his “A Good Lawyer’s Wife” and “The Housemaid,” which played in competition in Cannes in...

The film was selected for the Cannes 2020 label.

Im Sang-soo’s Cannes 2020 label title Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness is set to make its world premiere as Opening Film at the 26th Busan International Film Festival (Biff).

A regular at Cannes with films such as The Housemaid and The President’s Last Bang, Im saw his latest film selected to the French festival’s The Faithful category last year but, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, unable to screen anywhere.

He continued to work on post-production for Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness into this year while waiting for a release date.

“Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness,” directed by leading South Korean filmmaker Im Sang-soo, has been set at the opening night title of next month’s Busan International Film Festival

The film was previously selected by the Cannes festival for the 2020 edition that was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The screening on native soil will therefore represent its theatrical premiere.

Structured as a road movie, “Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness” is the story of two men, one an escaped prisoner, who accidentally get their hands on a large amount of money and embark on a journey, dreaming of a comfortable ending to their lives.

Festival organizers described the film as “festive and pastoral” and said that “the harmony created from Im Sang-soo’s outstanding directorial power and excellent acting by Choi Min-sik and Park Hae-il ultimately turns the film into an inquiry about happiness that is warm and beautiful like no other.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced the 395 artists and executives that have been invited to join this year — about half the number of last year’s class. The 2021 class is comprised of 46% women, 39% underrepresented ethnic/racial communities and 53% international from 49 countries outside the United States. Of the 395 invitees, 89 are former Oscar nominees, including 25 winners.

Eight individuals have been invited to join by multiple branches and must select one branch upon acceptance. They include Leslie Odom Jr, Kaouther Ben Hania, Craig Brewer, Lee Isaac Chung, Emerald Fennell, Shaka King, Alexander Nanau, Florian Zeller.

Other big names among the newly invited include Walt Disney CEO Bob Chapek, “Promising Young Woman” original screenplay winner Emerald Fennell and “Minari” stars Steven Yeun, Ye-ri Han and recently crowned supporting actress Yuh-Jung Youn.

In the directing category, new invitees include Janicza Bravo, Nia DaCosta, Cathy Yan, Darius Marder, Michael Almereyda, Lizzie Borden,...

Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn, who took Supporting Actress in April for Minari, along with a number of her recent fellow acting nominees including Maria Bakalova, Andra Day, Vanessa Kirby, Leslie Odom Jr., Paul Raci, and Steven Yeun, are among the new class of 395 artists and executives who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. A number of other recent winners and nominees including both of the latest screenwriting victors, Emerald Fennell and Florian Zeller, Music Score winner Jon Batiste, and all three writers of Oscar winning song “Fight For You” including H.E.R. are also on the list from the 17 branches of the Academy. Overall, there are 89 Oscar nominees, including 25 winners, among the new class. 46% are women, 39% underrepresented ethnic/racial communities, and 53% coming from countries outside of the U.S. this time around.

Although receiving an Oscar and/or a nomination is a big plus,...