*Korea*

A young woman and best employee at a call center, is forced to reevaluate her solitary life when her irritating neighbor, who used to attempt to strike up conversations, is found dead. At about the same time her father starts hounding her over her mother’s inheritance and suddenly there are new people in her life, [...]

Violence against women is an issue that has long been neglected in Korean society, due in part to a traditional way of life that supposes that women would always be at home or otherwise under the protection of men they could trust. Kim Mi-jo's “Gull” is not a film about rape itself. Instead, its focus [...]

“Male rage blazes a chilling trail on the Korean border. Sex, envy and pyromania make for a riveting mystery in Lee Chang-dong’s masterfully crafted Murakami adaptation. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning is a superbly shot and sensuously scored movie, a mystery thriller about obsessive love taken from a short story by Haruki Murakami. It’s a psychological drama [...]

“In many ways, The Day After is a quintessential Hong joint. Copious amounts of local spirits are consumed — you just know the eventual box set of his work will be called Fifty Shades of Soju — and people sit around tables and talk, mainly about love, from early morning until well into the night. The [...]