Once again in 2024, Korean cinema found itself to be somewhat outside of the cultural spotlight, at least compared to the pre-pandemic years. In cafes and on social media, the general public was much more likely to be talking about what was new on television, rather than the latest release on the big screen. The year also turned up its share of surprising events to divert the public’s attention. In October, novelist Han Kang became the first Korean writer to win a Nobel Prize, sparking widespread celebration and months of frenzied press coverage. Then on December 3, President Yoon Suk-yeol shocked the nation by declaring martial law and attempting to storm the National Assembly with armed soldiers. Popular resistance by citizens, quick action by the National Assembly to rescind the martial law order, and the subsequent impeachment of the president managed to avert a return to authoritarian rule. But over the next four months until Yoon’s permanent removal from office by the Constitutional Court, politics dominated the nation’s attention.
So it’s not too surprising that Korean cinema has struggled to attract viewers to theatres during the past 12 months. Although the late 2023 release 12.12: The Day (screened at last year’s FEFF), about a 1979 military coup, gained sudden new relevance and additional exposure on OTT platforms, in general the film industry was a bit of an afterthought for all but devoted cinema fans. More broadly, many in the industry have reluctantly come to accept the idea that cinema’s position in the culture has shifted. Whereas from the late 1990s up until the peak box office years of 2017-2019, film was located at the very centre of mainstream cultural discourse, it is now slightly off to one side. One wouldn’t go so far as to say that moviegoing has become a niche pastime in Korea. But there has been a bit of movement in that direction.
If we look at the numbers for 2024, box office as a whole saw a 1.6% drop in admissions and a 5.3% drop in revenue compared to 2023. Hollywood releases performed particularly weakly, so if we narrow our focus to just Korean films, there was a slight rise compared to the previous year. That being said, Korean cinema’s numbers for 2024 are boosted by the strong performance of two films from the first part of the year – occult thriller Exhuma and action comedy sequel The Roundup: Punishment, both of which exceeded 10 million admissions (and both of which screened at last year’s FEFF.) From summer onwards, box office figures were considerably weaker. From a long-term perspective, the box office remains well below the level of the pre-pandemic years. Admissions from 2024 stood at 123.1 million, compared to the average yearly admissions of 221 million for 2017-2019.
Casual viewers may not be checking in as often, but committed film fans at least still seem to be active and engaged. Attendance at film festivals across the nation has generally been strong (despite a slash in public funding), including an 84% seat occupancy rate at the nation’s biggest film event, the Busan International Film Festival. International arthouse releases have also been performing well, with The Substance (527,000 admissions), Conclave (245,000), The Zone of Interest (207,000), Monster (179,000), and Perfect Days (139,000) all considerably exceeding expectations. Korean independent films and documentaries have also held steady within the small corner of the market that they occupy. A total of 10,000 admissions is generally considered a respectable performance for an independent film, and more than 30 releases cleared that hurdle in 2024.
On the international festival circuit, there has not been a standout title in the past 12 months, but a few films have managed to attract some attention. Ryoo Seung-wan’s I, the Executioner, a sequel to his 2014 megahit Veteran, screened in the Midnight Section of the Cannes Film Festival. Although it premiered to favorable reviews from international critics, the reception from Korean audiences was more mixed upon its domestic release in September. Woo Min-ho’s assassination drama Harbin premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and sold 4.9 million tickets upon its domestic release in December, though that appeared not to be enough to earn back its massive budget. Low-budget filmmaker Hong Sang-soo meanwhile continued his film festival run with a Best Performance award for Kim Minhee at the Locarno Film Festival for By the Stream, and an invitation to Berlin’s competition section in early 2025 for his latest work What Does That Nature Say to You?
The past 12 months may not have been a particularly memorable stretch for Korean cinema, but one can still pick out many new releases that are well-made and worth watching. Interestingly, one thing that unites many recent Korean films is that they focus on characters who are outsiders in some way: marginalized, perhaps discriminated against, and generally located at the edges of society. It may be too much to suggest that the Korean film industry, feeling pushed to the side by mainstream culture in recent years, is feeling a particular sympathy for characters who pass their time outside of the spotlight. Nonetheless, the heroes of the Korean films in the 2025 Far East Film Festival programme make for a fascinating collection of contemporary South (and North!) Korean outsiders.
One example is director E.oni’s Love in the Big City, which also premiered to strong reviews at the Toronto Film Festival. Based on an acclaimed novel by Park Sang-young, the film centres around a gay man in his 20s named Heung-soo and his roommate Jae-hee, a young woman who openly flaunts the expectations placed on her by society. A sensitive portrayal of the various emotional challenges faced by each character as they try to live the lives that they want to live in the face of social disapproval, Love in the Big City is also one of the best cinematic depictions of friendship in recent memory. Inspired acting by Steve Sanghyun Noh (Pachinko) and Kim Go-eun (Exhuma), combined with the fluid, charged directing of E.oni make for one of the year’s best Korean films.
At the other end of the spectrum, Park Ri-woong’s The Land of Morning Calm centres on the residents of a remote fishing village. Far removed from the economic dynamism of the city, the residents’ lives are turned upside down when a member of their community drowns at sea. The fisherman’s parents and his bereaved Vietnamese wife face a sudden crisis that will develop in wholly unexpected ways. A highly memorable depiction of a small, marginalized fishing community, The Land of Morning Calm has received rapturous reviews, and won the top prize at the Busan International Film Festival last October.
Longtime attendees of FEFF might remember the 2009 Taiwanese film Hear Me, which is a love story set within the deaf community. The original film left a strong impression on Korean audiences back in 2009, so it’s perhaps not surprising to see this remake emerge 15 years later. Jo Seon-ho’s Hear Me: Our Summer features rising young stars Hong Gyeong and Roh Yoon-seo as two cheerful but struggling twentysomethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives. The fact that their budding relationship is expressed in sign language imparts a distinct tone to the film, while at the same time helping the audience to understand what life feels like as a deaf person in Korea.
The central character in Pilot also gains a new perspective on life, though not necessarily by choice. Jung-woo, played by well-known actor Jo Jung-suk (Exit), is a star pilot with unmatched aviation skills who has achieved widespread fame. However while out drinking one night, he makes a crude joke that gets recorded and shared online, and before he knows it, he has lost both his job and his reputation. Desperate to earn an income and get in the air again, he comes up with a slightly unhinged plan to dress up as a woman and restart his career with a new identity. A remake of the 2012 Swedish film Cockpit, Pilot also shares obvious similarities with Dustin Hoffman’s 1982 classic Tootsie, but director Kim Han-kyul brings a different sensibility to the story. (FEFF audiences may remember Kim for her hard-hitting 2019 debut film Crazy Romance.) Funny and thought-provoking in turn, Pilot was the best-selling Korean film of the summer season.
Gender discrimination also plays a role in one of the first major releases of 2025, Dark Nuns. A sequel of sorts to Jang Jae-hyun’s 2015 debut The Priests, this film comes at a time when Korean occult films are at the height of their popularity. Mega-star Song Hye-kyo plays a Catholic nun trained in exorcism, but blocked by the church because of her gender. When a young boy is possessed by a powerful demon, she enlists the help of a younger nun (Jeon Yeo-been) whom she senses has a powerful, if unacknowledged, spirituality. Directed by Kwon Hyuk-jae (Troubleshooter), Dark Nuns did not replicate the success of the original film, but it did sell enough tickets to break even during its theatrical release.
The protagonists of the above films are all outsiders in various ways, or in the case of Pilot, thrust suddenly into the position of being an outsider. The main character in About Family is a somewhat different case. Moo-ok (played by Kim Yun-seok) is the owner of a highly successful noodle restaurant in the heart of Seoul. He is wealthy and secure in his position, but the one thing he lacks is what he desires most of all: a family line so that he can pass down his business from generation to generation. His only son has rejected the idea of running the business, and become a Buddhist monk. But Moo-ok’s wishes are granted in the most unexpected of ways, when two young children appear at the door of his restaurant claiming to be his grandchildren. Ultimately this too becomes a story of insiders and outsiders, with some choosing outsider status, and others deciding whether to open their arms to people on the outside.
Meanwhile, a particularly unusual film will receive its world premiere at this year’s Far East Film Festival. The Square, by debut director Kim Bo-sol, is an animated feature produced by one of South Korea’s leading film schools, the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). The story, however, takes place in North Korea, centering on a Swedish diplomat posted to Pyongyang. It’s hard to be more of an outsider than the protagonist of this film, held at arm’s length by all around him, and closely monitored by the government. Yet he has secretly fallen in love with a North Korean woman who works as a traffic safety officer. Not wanting to leave her, he has applied to extend his posting to Pyongyang. But the woman knows better than anyone that their love is impossible in a country like North Korea.
The above examples are, of course, just a small sample of the films that were produced in South Korea in the last 12 months. The industry continues to cover a wide range of themes, storylines, and genres. In the past year there have been movies that looked back on famous people or incidents from the past (Harbin, Land of Happiness, Hijack 1971, Firefighters, The Match); films about law enforcement and crime (I, the Executioner, Revolver, Dirty Money – the latter of which is included in this year’s program, and recommended as a well-made, tight thriller); films that explore the extremes of online culture (Drive, Troll Factory); and much more. Remakes of films from other countries also continue to appear with regularity, such as The Plot (a remake of Soi Cheang’s Accident from 2009), or Handsome Guys (a remake of the 2010 Canadian horror-comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil).
There was also, as many readers will be well aware, a new film by Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, though being a studio production from Warner Bros., Mickey 17 is not technically a Korean film. Bong’s latest work was the source of much anticipation in South Korea, and it did become the best-selling release of the first quarter of 2025. Nonetheless the reception from critics and the audience was mixed, and its distributor would have been hoping for more than the 3 million admissions it ultimately grossed.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, the film that stands out most in the upcoming release schedule is No Other Choice, the latest work by Park Chan-wook. Adapted from the novel The Ax by Donald Westlake, the film starring Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin is virtually guaranteed to reach a wide audience across the world. There is also the first of what could be several big-budget films based on the hit web novel Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint. If Park Chan-wook is expected to dominate the autumn festival circuit, Omniscient Reader: The Prophet may well dominate the summer box office in Korea and the rest of Asia.
Production levels are down quite noticeably in South Korea these days, due to the industry’s struggles. Local studios are investing in fewer new films, and so the coming year’s release schedule is likely to look rather sparse. Nonetheless, if one or two ambitious films manage to steal back the spotlight, however briefly, it could give investors a much-needed reminder that the industry is still capable of producing successful films.
Darcy Paquet