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Korean entertainment company Kakao Entertainment is expanding its global footprint through a new partnership with Japanese content studio Babel Label. The alliance aims to co-produce new dramatic content and adapt Kakao’s IP library for international audiences.

The first collaboration under this partnership will be helmed by Babel Label’s director Fujii Michihito, marking his first project with a Korean company. Fujii won six awards at the 43rd Japan Academy Film Prize for “The Journalist” (2019), which starred Korean actor Shim Eun-kyung and later became a Netflix series distributed in 190 countries. His film “Faceless” (2024) won 13 awards across 12 categories at the 48th Japan Academy Film Prize.

The Japanese director’s work ialso ncludes “The Last 10 Years” (2022), which generated approximately $20.4 million in Japanese box office revenue while attracting 560,000 viewers in Korea. His Japan-Taiwan co-production “18×2 Beyond Youthful Days” (2024) drew 2.8 million viewers across Asia with box office receipts of approximately $19.3 million.

Fujii, who...

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If you are a horror fan, then there is a big chance that you might have heard about the horror streaming service Shudder, and if you have its subscription, you might be wondering what’s in store for you in February 2025. Don’t worry. There is a host of new and old horror movies coming to the service in the upcoming month, and we have listed the 10 best movies coming to Shudder in February 2025.

Unfriended: Dark Web (February 1) Credit – Blumhouse Productions

Unfriended: Dark Web is a screenlife horror thriller film written and directed by Stephen Susco. The 2018 follows a teen who finds a laptop with hidden files. When he and his friends try to investigate, they discover that the previous owner of the laptop had access to the dark web and was watching over them. Unfriended: Dark Web stars Colin Woodell,...

The Killers anthology brings together four renowned Korean directors for a creative examination of the criminal underworld. Released in 2024, the film draws inspiration from Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers” as well as Edward Hopper’s iconic painting “Nighthawks,” both of which depict ominous encounters between hitmen and their targets. Through four distinct short films, Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deok, Jang Hang-jun, and Lee Myung-se put their own singular spin on this pulpy premise.

Kim opens with “Metamorphosis,” throwing viewers into a neo-noir world of blurred reality and vengeance. A down-on-his-luck man awakens in a lavish underground bar owned by an alluring yet mysterious woman who offers a path to retaliation. Roh follows with the dark comedy “Contractors,” skewering outsourcing absurdity through the botched handoff of a murder contract down an incompetent chain of hires.

Shifting tones, Jang’s “Everyone is Waiting for the Man” ratchets tension in a quaint...

Korean genre cinema has become a stable internationally as we witness a plethora of horror, science-fiction and thriller projects being released every year. Considering this wide array of works, Korean directors have offered their takes on popular tropes, themes and characters with the idea of the killer being one of many. Even though the output in mainstream cinema has followed the roots of this type of character more or less quite directly, the anthology feature “The Killers” aims to show the possibilities this concept offers, blending it with elements of horror and even going back to silent cinema. Directors Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deok, Chang Hang-jun and Lee Myung-Se have created the four segments, each of which showcases one facet of the hitman character, while also experimenting with various aesthetic and narrative styles.

The Killers is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival

In the first episode titled “Metamorphosis” we encounter Wan-chul...

Below are the remaining three (3) Korean drama movies gems that were released between 2012 and 2017. (4) Miss Granny (2014) (5) Blood and Ties (2013) (6) Helpless (2012) The first three (3) films listed in Part 1 are: (1) Heart Blackened (2017); (2) Remember You (2016); and (3) The Chronicles of Evil (2015). ♦ (4) Miss Granny (2014) A woman who is 70+ years old has her picture was taken at a mysterious photo studio, and she regains her youthful appearance at age 20. So she changes her name to relive her life. It’s the age-old questions that everybody is asked: What would you do if you had the opportunity to go back to the days of your youth, but with the wisdom you now have as a senior citizen? Would you live your life any differently? If so, what would you do differently? Main Characters: Oh Mal-Soon (played by Na Moon-Hee) Oh Doo-Ri (played by Shim Eun-Kyung) Viewership and Rating: IMDb: 7.2 out

The post Six (6) Korean Drama Movie...

Hansel and Gretel, the two German kids who nearly became somebody’s meal, need little introduction. The characters in this Brothers Grimm classic have been used as a lesson about stranger danger and resilience for years. And while Hansel and Gretel’s ordeal has been put on screen multiple times — both faithfully and loosely — Yim Pil-sung’s 2007 movie is one of the more distinct adaptations. This Korean reimagining retains the essence of the influential fairy tale while also adding its own unique twists.

Hansel and Gretel was one of several movies from the golden age of South Korean Horror — often referred to as “K-Horror” in the West — to be based on fairy or folk tales. While Arang and A Tale of Two Sisters dug into local Korean lore, other movies drew from European narrations. However, much like Cinderella and The Red Shoes, Hansel and Gretel’s interpretation of its basis is rather liberal.

While most may know Korean television for its aesthetically pleasing and romantic dramas, some of the best horror movies come from South Korea — here are the best South Korean zombie movies, ranked. One of the most anticipated theatrical releases of 2020 was Sang-ho Yeon's zombie film Peninsula, the much-anticipated follow-up to the superb 2016 hit Train to Busan but those aren't the only great South Korean horror movies from recent years, zombie movies included. The zombie genre as a whole hasn't lost popularity as the years have gone on, with TV shows like All of Us are Dead and The Walking Dead keeping zombies on the screen.

It may seem like a fairly niche topic, but audiences are often looking for a definitive list of the best South Korean zombie movies. Considering much of Korean horror is based on mythology and folklore, the best South Korean zombie movies often have a...

Further winners included ‘World War III’ and ‘by the window’.

Spanish-French rural thriller The Beasts has won a hat-trick of awards at Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), including the Tokyo Grand Prix, best director for Rodrigo Sorogoyen and best actor for Denis Menochet.

The winners were announced at the closing ceremony of TIFF’s 35th edition in the Ginza district of Tokyo this evening (November 2).

The Beasts is a psychological thriller starring Ménochet and Marina Foïs as a French couple who settle in a remote Galician village to run an organic farm but whose arrival is seen as a threat...

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In a welcome return to normalcy, the Tokyo International Film Festival rolled out the full red carpet, all 541 feet of it, for the first time since 2019, once again welcoming guests from around the globe to a new venue for its opening ceremony on a brisk autumn evening in the Japanese capital.

The Covid-19 pandemic had kept international visitors away for the last few editions, but the opening of the 35th Tokyo festival felt like old times. More than one hundred overseas guests are joining the proceedings this year — some paying their own way to Tokyo as sky-high airline ticket prices drained the event’s budget — up from just eight at the 2021 edition.

The red carpet, which clocked in at almost two hours, snaked its way from Toho’s famed Godzilla statue in front of Hibiya Midtown to the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater. Once a fixture of Roppongi,...

‘Fragments Of The Last Will’ opened 35th edition.

The 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has launched with its first full-scale red carpet in three years.

At the Takarazuka Theatre in the festival’s new main area of Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza, relocated last year from Roppongi, international competition jury president and US director Julie Taymor spoke from the red carpet: “It’s an incredible time now that – since Covid – you’re able to have many more international guests, which is so critical at a time in the world which is so divisive.”

TIFF was only able to host eight foreign guests last year,...

Tokyo International Film Festival’s 35th edition will include titles from Bui Thac Chuyen, Olivia Wilde and Hiroki Ryuichi.

The 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today unveiled its line-up for its first full-scale physical edition since the pandemic started, with 15 international competition titles including its first from Vietnam - Bui Thac Chuyen’s Glorious Ashes.

Set to make its world premiere at TIFF, the film was a recipient of the Asean Co-production Fund (Acof) launched by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (Fdcp) and the Southeast Asia co-production grant (Scpg) established by the Singapore Film Commission (Sfc), as...

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Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will open with a full red carpet for the first time in three years as the event looks to bounce back from two relatively subdued editions held during the pandemic.

Fest chairman Hiroyasu Ando said at a line-up press conference that he expected around 100 overseas guests and participants to attend. A very limited number of visitors made the trip for the last two events.

Japan’s government has kept tighter restrictions on its borders for longer than most other countries and a daily limit of 50,000 inbound travellers currently remains in place. Further loosening is expected by the time the fest unspools, with a parliamentary discussion on border controls set for tomorrow.

TIFF will also revive the Kurosawa Akira Award, given to filmmakers for contributions to global cinema, after a hiatus of 14 years. Previous recipients include Steven Spielberg, Yamada Yoji and Chen Kaige.

Iranian action drama “World War III,” which won two awards at the recent Venice festival, will feature among the main competition titles at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.

“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”

The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”

Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues,...

Starting from his first acting gig, as a car salesman in the feature “Our Town”, which he also scripted, Mo Hong-jin has shown time and time again his affinity for the thriller genre. Even though it has been one of the most popular genre in his home country, it would take him nine years until the first day of shooting began for “Missing You”. Besides offering the kind of entertainment that goes along with this kind of movie, as a writer he was interested in what turns a person into a “monster”, as Mo explains in interviews about his feature. Especially with regards to the character of Hee-jo, played by actress Shim Eun-kyung, he wanted to know whether she decided to go the same path as the killer she had been following or if she would remain human and a “girl”.

on Amazon by clicking on the...

A home isn’t just four walls and a roof, but a building that has with it many years’ worth of memories for its inhabitants. And for some of the elderly, the home isn’t just where they live, but their life itself. This is the theme of first-time director Yoshihiko Ueda’s loosely-plotted “A Garden of Camelias”.

“A Garden of Camellias” is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

Kinuko (Sumiko Fuji) is recently widowed and taking guests as part of the important forty-ninth day memorial for her late husband. Since the death of her estranged daughter, her granddaughter Nagisa (Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung) has lived with her as she tries to acclimatise herself to Japanese language and culture after her mother left the country. Kinuko now spends her days tending to her generous garden of natural beauty and helping Nagisa with her Japanese. But with problems regarding inheritance tax on the horizon,...

The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre’s unprecedented 9th annual Toronto Japanese Film Festival will be held online from Saturday, October 3 to Thursday, October 22 and features 22 films using the SHIFT72 festival platform. For the first time, Tjff is expanding its reach beyond Toronto to audiences across all of Canada, maintaining the festival’s sense of community while promoting friendship, understanding, and exchange between the Japanese and broader Canadian community. The festival has grown into one of the largest film events of its kind in the world and is recognized by the Japanese film industry as a vital conduit for bringing Japanese film to international audiences.

Tjff 2020 also presents major award winners for their Canadian premieres: Mitsuhito Fujii’s The Journalist which won the Japanese Academy Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Tori Matsuzaka) and Best Actress (Eun-kyung Shim); Hirohiko Arai’s intense erotic odyssey It Feels So Good (Kinema Junpo Awards...

North America’s largest festival of contemporary Japanese cinema presents a diverse slate of 42 films, with over 20 guest filmmakers and talent in person for daily post-screening Q&As, including Cut Above awardee Shinya Tsukamoto.

Premiering 26 features and 16 short films, the summer festival offers a deep dive into one of the world’s most vital film cultures with a diverse selection across its Feature Slate, Classics: Rediscoveries and Restorations, Documentary Focus, Experimental Spotlight and Shorts Showcase sections. This year’s lineup features 19 first-time filmmakers and 14 female directors (the most in the festival’s history), including 10 International Premieres, 16 North American Premieres, 4 U.S. Premieres, 4 East Coast Premieres and 6 New York Premieres. In addition, over 20 guest filmmakers and talent from Japan will join the festival to participate in post-screening Q&As and parties.

“This 13th edition of Japan Cuts provides testament to the continued vitality of contemporary Japanese cinema with a wide array...

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A Wrinkle in Time [IMDb] pictured

Ava DuVernay directs and Jennifer Lee cowrites the tale of a girl (Storm Reid) who travels into space to find her missing father, with the help of three mysterious aliens (Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling).

Strangers: Prey at Night [IMDb]

Christina Hendricks and Bailee Madison costar as members of a family terrorized by psychopaths. (male writers and director)

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The Homeless Chorus Speaks [official site]

Documentarian Susan Polis Schutz profiles the members of a San Diego choir of homeless men and women.

Itzhak [IMDb]

Documentarian Alison Chernick profiles a legendary (male) violinist.

Viva Kino! [La Times review]

Filmmaker Lia Beltrami pays documentary tribute to a Jesuit priest who founded missions in the 17th century in what is today the American southwest.

Girls vs Gangsters [IMDb]

Zhenzhen Huang directs and cowrites this comedy about a bachelorette party gone wrong, starring Junning Zhang, Yihan Chen, Kaiqi Xue, and Tiantian Fan.

Psychokinesis Trailer Sang-ho Yeon‘s Psychokinesis / Yeom-lyeok (2018) movie trailer stars Yu-mi Jung, Do-yoon Kim, Seung-ryong Ryu, Eun-kyung Shim, and Yeong-gi Jeong. Psychokinesis‘ plot synopsis: “A father sets out to save his troubled daughter with superpowers that he discovers he possesses. Suk-Hun (Seung-ryong Ryu) happens to gain a supernatural power. He tries to [...]

Continue reading: Psychokinesis (2018) Movie Trailer: The Director of Train To Busan’s Supernatural Film...

"Suddenly... you have a supernatural power!" An international trailer has arrived online for a new Korean action film titled Psychokinesis, the latest feature from the director of the acclaimed zombie feature Train to Busan. Sang-ho Yeon directs this new dark comedy film about a father who ties to save his daughter after discovering he has superpowers. The cast includes Seung-ryong Ryu as the father, and Eun-kyung Shim as his daughter Roo-mi, along with Yu-mi Jung, Do-yoon Kim, and Yeong-gi Jeong. This is just the first trailer, but it does have some cool footage in it. I quite like the mix of comedy and action, seems like it's going to be very fun to watch. Hopefully it arrives over here sooner than later, as I want to see this already. Here's the first teaser trailer (+ poster) for Sang-ho Yeon's Psychokinesis, direct from YouTube (via Tfs): A father sets out to...

Fabricated City Review Fabricated City (2017) Film Review from the 16th Annual New York Asian Film Festival, a movie directed by Kwang-Hyun Park, and starring Chang-wook Ji, Sang-Ho Kim, Eun-Kyung Shim, Jeong-Se Oh, Jae-Hong Ahn, Min-Jung Bae, Ha-Nui Lee, Min-gyo Kim, Seul-gi Kim, Won-cheol Shim, and Ho-jung Kim. Fabricated City opened with a bang, and ended with a bang; but was at [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Fabricated City: Trippy Journey, Comedown Destination [Nyaff 2017]...