The first UK theatrical release of this year stars Ma Dong-seok in a customary action role, supported by Girls Generation member Seohyun (Seo Ju-hyun – Love and Leashes) and Lee David (Svaha: The Sixth Finger), as the three of them tackle demons and devil-worshippers. Holy Night: Demon Hunters (거룩한 밤: 데몬 헌터스) opens in Seoul … [Read More]
On Screen: Film and TV
Welcome to LKL’s Film & TV section. Here you can find our film reviews, general film news and articles about TV shows, as well as news of film screenings. You can find an index of our film reviews here. If you’re interested in Classic film, we’ve compiled an index of the free-to-view Korean Film Archive YouTube Channel here. LKL’s top 10 movies of the first decade of this century can be found here, and a poll of polls here. We’re still working on the lists for the second decade, but I’m guessing Parasite will feature prominently…
Jason Verney’s SEWOL: Sealed Eternally With Our Love screens at Kingston Int’l Film Fest
Three years after his short film Reparation screened at the Kingston International Film Festival, Jason Verney’s debut feature film will be at this year’s festival. Having been on the ‘frontline’ as an activist for the Sewol Ferry cause since that tragedy in 2014 and having visited Korea on many occasions over the last decade, film … [Read More]
Ilrhan Kim’s “Edhi Alice” closes 2025 Queer East festival
In Edhi Alice (에디 앨리스, 2024), director and queer activist Ilrhan Kim interrogates how documentaries about trans communities are made: the creative decisions, relationships, and ethical questions involved. The subject of the documentary is Edhi, who works as a counsellor for LGBTQ+ teens in Seoul, and has decided to undertake gender reassignment surgery. Edhi’s story intertwines … [Read More]
Lear Screening + Q&A with Director Jung Young-doo
To celebrate Director Jung Young-Doo‘s Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, a special screening of the National Changgeuk Company‘s Lear will be held. Changgeuk, a traditional form of Korean musical theatre, blends music, dance, and drama to create a captivating experience. Following its successful world premiere at the Barbican Centre in 2024, this screening of the full-length … [Read More]
Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet – the perfect opening to BFI Flare 2025
BFI Flare launched yesterday with a humdinger of an opening movie: Andrew Ahn’s reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 The Wedding Banquet. Ahn’s partner in creating this update, James Schamus, also co-wrote Ang Lee’s version. While the original film features a single gay couple and a marriage of convenience, the reboot has two gay couples, which … [Read More]
Power and Paradox: Bong Joon-ho season at BFI Southbank
This retrospective of Bong Joon Ho, spanning an award-winning early short through to a series of internationally acclaimed features, charts the ascendancy of Korea’s most successful filmmaker, writes programmer Eunji Lee Korean cinema can be divided into two eras: before and after the emergence of director Bong Joon Ho. The advent of the 21st century … [Read More]
Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 – Theatrical release
From the Academy Award-winning writer and director of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, Mickey 17. The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living. So Mickey, known … [Read More]
KCC screening: A Resistance
Though set almost entirely within the confines of the notorious Seodaemun Prison, this mostly monochrome feature from writer/director Joe Min-ho (A Million, 2009) uses the incarceration of real-life freedom fighter Yu Gwan-sun (Ko A-sung) to crystallise the ordeals of Korea’s occupation by the Japanese. Arrested, along with 47,000 others, for participating in a non-violent national … [Read More]
Korean films at BFI Flare 2025
This year at BFI Flare we have three films by Korean directors and one by a Korean American. The latter – The Wedding Banquet by director Andrew Ahn – has been chosen to open the festival and includes Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung among the cast. Londoners were introduced to Andrew Ahn’s work at Queer East last … [Read More]
2024 in review part 3 – the film festivals and other screenings
In a somewhat disappointing filmic year in Korea, in London we could nevertheless celebrate the fact that a handful of the latest big-budget Korean movies continue to have limited-scope theatrical releases. In 2024 we got director Heo Myung-haeng’s contribution to the Roundup franchise, and the final instalment of Kim Han-min’s Yi Sun-shin trilogy, plus Jang … [Read More]
Documentary screening: K-Family Affairs
The recent political history of South Korea is interwoven with the family life of filmmaker Arum Nam, whose parents are part of the proud 386 generation, which played a significant role in achieving democratisation. Eager to pass on a better world to their children, Arum’s father became a public servant, and her mother a feminist … [Read More]
Squid Game Season 2: preview screening
Three years after the huge global success of Squid Game we are delighted to unveil the first episode of the second series following a screening of Series 1’s gripping finale ‘One Lucky Day’. Player 456 remains determined to find the people behind the game and put an end to their vicious sport. Using this fortune … [Read More]
Two Koryo Saram documentary screenings
In collaboration with Misha Zakharov, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick and curator at Screening Rights Film Festival, and Goethe-Institut UK, the London Migration Film Festival is hosting a special event on Koryo Saram (or Koryoin), the (post-)Soviet Koreans. In 1937, Koryo Saram were forcibly displaced from the Far East of Soviet Russia to Central … [Read More]
The Human Comedy – the cinema of Hong Sangsoo, at the ICA
Since the last UK retrospective of his work in 2010, South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo has made an astonishing twenty-two feature films and several shorts. With his incisive and humorous explorations of infidelity, artistic endeavour, and communication (or lack thereof), Hong’s narratively concise and formally radical work has marked him out as not only contemporary … [Read More]
From Escape to Hope: Escape in Search of a United Korea
Spend an afternoon exploring the courageous journeys of North Koreans as they escape in search of one united Korea. “One Korea: Escape in Search of a United Korea” will take you through personal stories of struggle and hope, giving voice to the resilience of the North Korean people. The event features the screening of Dotori, … [Read More]
Documentary screening: The Last of the Sea Women
In The Last of the Sea Women, an extraordinary band of feisty grandmother warriors wage a spirited battle against vast oceanic threats. Often called real-life mermaids, the haenyeo divers of South Korea’s Jeju Island are renowned for centuries of diving to the ocean floor – without oxygen – to harvest seafood for their livelihood. Today, … [Read More]