Action, Disaster and Horror to Crowd Theaters 

Though the pandemic is already well into its second year, the local film industry was hit particularly hard in 2021, as successive waves of COVID infections soared higher and dragged on longer than last year. The result has been that though local cinemas remained open, the main titles to hit screens have by and large been foreign films, as many international territories have moved to open up their markets.

However, despite Korea enacting the toughened Level 4 social distancing restrictions earlier this summer, local distributors have finally resumed releasing their titles as viewers thirst for local content. The first of them was Showbox, which launched the Thai-Korean co-produced horror film The Medium, produced by Na Hongjin and based on his idea, which managed to briefly unseat Black Widow from the top of the charts and has so far welcomed 800,000 viewers.

Now that we’ve reached the high point of summer, when extreme heat and humidity, not to mention school holidays, drive viewers into multiplexes, the rest of the industry is following suit as studios have scheduled some of the biggest tentpoles to be seen in Korean cinemas since summer last year, when Peninsula and DELIVER US FROM EVIL went on release. 

Escape from Mogadishu 

Release Date : July 28

Cast : Kim Yunseok, Zo Insung, Huh Joonho, Koo Kyohwan

Sales Contact : Lotte Cultureworks

Tel : +82 2 3470 3400 

Fax : +82 2 3470 3549 

Email : international@lotte.net

Four years after his previous blockbuster The Battleship Island (2017), director Ryoo Seungwan returns with another ambitious film, this one shot on location in Morocco. Partially based on real events, Escape from Mogadishu follows South Korean diplomats stationed in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, who try to help the Korean president score an invitation for Korea to enter the United Nations. Among the things blocking their path are officials at the North Korean embassy.

However, these political tensions have to go on the back burner when Mogadishu erupts into conflict as rebels look to take over. With diplomats all over the city in peril, the rival Korean embassy workers must become unlikely temporary allies. 

Known for his kinetic hits The Unjust (2011) and Veteran (2015), Ryoo teams for the first time with Kim Yunseok (The Priests, 2015), who plays the South Korean ambassador, and Zo Insung (The King, 2017), who appears as a counselor for the embassy. Meanwhile, the North Korean ambassador is played by Huh Joonho (Default, 2018), while Koo Kyohwan (Peninsula, 2020) plays a lawyer for the North Koreans.

The film was a joint production between Ryoo’s own company Filmmaker R & K, which recently made EXIT (2019), and Dexter Studios, the company behind ASHFALL (2019). Escape from Mogadishu will have its international premiere as the opening film of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) on August 6.

The Cursed: Dead Man’s Prey 

Release Date : July 28

Cast : Uhm Jiwon, Jung Jiso

Sales Contact : CJ Entertainment

Tel : +82-2-371-5500 

Fax : +82-2-371-6340 

Email : filmsales@cj.net

After storming theaters with Peninsula last summer, director Yeon Sangho is back in cinemas with a new project he wrote. The Cursed: Dead Man’s Prey, a feature film follow-up to the occult-themed tvN drama series The Cursed, which aired on small screens last year, is directed by Kim Yongwan, who previously made the sports comedy-drama Champion with Don Lee (aka Ma Dongseok) in 2018. Kim returns after having helmed the original series, which was also written by Yeon.

Uhm Jiwon returns as Im Jinhee, a gritty reporter investigating a case involving Forest, a shady corporation with occult ties, with the help of the young girl Sojin (Jung Jiso), who possesses a supernatural ability. In the series, the pair went up against Forest. However, viewers unfamiliar with the series need not fear as this feature-film continuation explores a new story involving a case of serial murders committed by corpses that have been raised from the dead by some unknown foe. Uhm was recently seen in The Silenced (2015) and The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale (2019), while Jung is known for her role as the rich family’s daughter in Parasite (2019).

Sinkhole 

Release Date : August 11

Cast : Kim Sungkyun, Cha Seungwon, Lee Kwangsoo

Sales Contact : Showbox

Tel : +82 2 3218 5500 

Fax : +82 2 3444 6688 

Email : sales@showbox.co.kr

The popular disaster genre gets a new entry in August with the release of Sinkhole, the latest film from studio Showbox. From director Kim Jihoon, the disaster film specialist known for the Gwangju Uprising saga May 18 (2007), the creature feature Sector 7 (2011) and inferno drama The Tower (2012), Sinkhole will have its international premiere at a special outdoor gala screening at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival.

Kim Sungkyun leads the film as Dongwon, a hard-working family man who, after slaving away for 11 years, finally succeeds in buying a home for his family. Overjoyed at achieving his dream, Dongwon invites his work colleagues over for a housewarming, but during the party, disaster strikes. Torrential rain weakens the ground beneath their feet, and a gigantic sinkhole appears, swallowing the building whole. Hundreds of meters below ground level, Dongwon, his neighbor Mansu (Cha Seungwon), and the other unfortunate survivors attempt to find their way out. But as rain begins to fill up the sinkhole, they are quickly running out of time.

Hostage: Missing Celebrity 

Release Date : August 18

Cast : Hwang Jungmin

Sales Contact : Contents Panda

Tel : +82 2 3490 9300 

Fax : +82 2 6902 0286 

Email : webmaster@its-new.co.kr

Box office magnet Hwang Jungmin, who led DELIVER US FROM EVIL last year and is known for major hits such as Ode to My Father (2014), Veteran (2015), A Violent Prosecutor (2016), and The Battleship Island (2017), lends his star persona to the kidnap thriller Hostage: Missing Celebrity, in which he plays himself. In the film, top star Hwang is kidnapped after a film premiere in Seoul. Initially, the star believes it’s a stunt, but when his captors show how serious they are, he begins to realize just how serious a situation he finds himself in. While the kidnappers demand a massive ransom to be paid out within 24 hours, the star attempts to find a way out of his predicament. As he makes his daring escape, he discovers that real action isn’t like it is in the movies.

Hostage: Missing Celebrity is the debut of director Pil Gamsung and is one of two titles this summer from Filmmaker R & K, the production company run by partners Ryoo Seungwan and Kang Hyejung, following Ryoo’s Escape from Mogadishu.

GUIMOON: The Lightless Door 

Cast : Kim Kangwoo, Kim Sohye

Release Date : August 18

Sales Contact : Finecut

Tel : +82 2 569 8777 

Fax : +82 2 569 6662 

Email : cineinfo@finecut.co.kr

A janitor goes on a murderous rampage in a training center in the town of Guisari in 1990, and since then, on each anniversary of the brutal event, death or suicide occurs on the grounds, leading the complex to be shuttered for good. Rumors abound of a ‘guimoon’, a door for ghosts, in the building that should anyone enter through, they will never be able to leave the building. In the present, Dojin (Kim Kangwoo), the director of a psychic research institute and the son of a shaman who died during an exorcism ritual at the center, travels to Guisari for answers, as do a trio of students look to film a video about the haunted building.  

GUIMOON: The Lightless Door is the feature-length debut of director Shim Deokgeun, and the project has the distinction of being the first-ever film to be developed simultaneously for 4DX and Screen X, as well as traditional 2D venues. Kim Kangwoo, known for The Taste of Money (2012), leads the cast while Moonlit Winter (2018) actress Kim Sohye appears as one of the students.