Family Holiday Welcomes Variety of Local Content 

Kids are back in school, and the first autumnal winds are cutting into the late summer heat, which means the Chuseok holiday is just around the corner. Along with the Lunar New Year, Chuseok is one of the two main times of the year when families gather to pay respect to their ancestors and spend time with one another.

As with all major holidays that have taken place during the pandemic, families are being advised to keep gatherings to a minimum this year, but the spirit of the family will remain in evidence in the country’s cinema, as Chuseok is a time when family-themed films often thrive at the box office. Last year gave us the heart-warming family comedy-drama Pawn, while the family comedy CHEER UP, MR. LEE was on offer the year before that.

Yet the season also welcomes a broad array of films encompassing many genres, but by and large local films tend to command attention. Among the top-selling Chuseok titles over the years have been the period drama Masquerade (2012) and the spy thriller The Age of Shadows (2016).

With a high COVID-19 case number and a sense of optimism that the economy will be able to open up soon after the holidays following successful inoculation drives, the cinema lineup for this year’s Chuseok holidays are on the light side, but nonetheless, a pair of major commercial titles are hitting screens and viewers will also be able to choose from a range of independent films, not to mention some major local offerings, with Netflix dropping one of its bigger series of the year just before the holidays, just as it did last year.

Miracle: Letters to the President 

This year’s big family draw for the holidays will be the heart-warming drama Miracle: Letters to the President. The film is the sophomore feature of director Lee Janghoon, who debuted with the fantasy romance Be With You in 2018. Starring Son Yejin and So Jisub, that film was both a critical and commercial hit, and expectations have been high for Lee’s new film. 

Park Jungmin and Lim Yoona of Girl’s Generation lead the cast in this story, which takes place in a small provincial town lacking a train stop, though a railway does pass through it. Park of Keys to the Heart (2018) plays Joonkyung, a young maths prodigy who has been petitioning the president to build a station in his town through countless letters, and eventually settles on a new plan when the competition takes place in his school to earn a special President’s Award, which would come with a face-to-face meeting with the president. EXIT (2019) star Lim plays the friend who believes in him, while Lee Sookyung (The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale, 2019) appears as his younger sister and actor Lee Sungmin (The Man Standing Next, 2020) plays Joonkyung’s father, who is the conductor of the train that passes through their town. Together, the people in the town join hands to build Korea’s first private station.

On the Line 

Satisfying the other end of the spectrum this holiday season will be the thriller On the Line with Byun Yohan and Kim Muyeol. The film is the latest from sibling filmmakers Kim Gok and Kim Sun, who first made waves through their idiosyncratic and experimental indie horror films, such as Anti Gas Skin (2010). They later ventured into the commercial realm with the K-pop-themed K-horror White: The Melody of the Curse (2011) and have since contributed thrilling segments to the Horror Stories anthology films. 

Hot from his role in the critically acclaimed The Book of Fish, Byun stars as Seojoon, a former detective now making his living heading a field operation team on a construction site down in Busan. He finds himself the victim of a voice phishing scam, along with other colleagues and his family members. Going through official channels to find justice doesn’t get him anywhere, so he decides to take matters into his own hands to track down the crime ring behind the scam. That search brings him to a shady call center in China, where he discovers a network masterminded by Pro Kwak, played by Kim Muyeol (Intruder, 2020). Though he’s identified the source of his woes, taking a large organization down is another matter entirely.

Squid Game 

Netflix has been a big presence in Korea throughout the pandemic, and this Chuseok, the global streamer will present one of its most ambitious local productions yet, the game show action-thriller Squid Game. The visually spectacular eight-episode series marks the small-screen debut of director Hwang Donghyuk, already known for his acclaimed commercial hits such as the child abuse drama Silenced (2011), the fantasy family comedy Miss Granny (2014), and the austere period drama The Fortress (2017).

The show concerns a group of 456 people, each with their own financial struggles, who are all invited to participate in a mysterious survival competition known as the ‘Squid Game’. The participants must all take part in traditional children’s games, but each of the events is spiked with a deadly twist. Only one person can prevail and win the KRW 45.6 billion (USD 40 million) up for grabs, which eventually pits everyone against one another.

Leading the cast as one of the competitors is Lee Jungjae (DELIVER US FROM EVIL, 2020), who joins the Squid Game along with another struggling friend, played by Park Haesoo (Time to Hunt, 2020).

Good Person 

Beyond the mainstream, late September will also welcome a range of award-winning indie films that have previously been showcased at the country’s largest film festivals. Among those are Park Hongmin’s artful mystery films Beyond You, Jung Wook’s Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) graduation feature Good Person with Kim Taehun, and the youth drama Short Vacation from directors Kwon Minpyo and Seo Hansol, all of which debuted in the Korean Cinema Today-Vision section of the Busan International Film Festival last year.

Beyond You finds Alone (2015) director Park once again blending reality and dreams, and time and memory, while Good Person presents us a parable of a teacher having his notions of being a good person challenged, and Short Vacation, which also screened at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, follows four school girls who go on a short trip to complete a photography class project. 

Finally, Kim Eunkyung’s debut film Show Me the Ghost concerns two friends who are thrilled to find a cheap home to live in, until they meet the ghost haunting it. The film premiered at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) this year, where it earned the Best Actor award in the Korean Fantastic Features competition.