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Over the last 15 years, the Cannes Film Festival has become increasingly familiar with Korean cinema, with films from the country selected almost every year, many of which have walked home with awards, whether from the official competition, one of the sidebars or the short film selections. Yet 2016 has proven to be a particularly strong year, with three films being invited to the official selection, one each in Competition, Out of Competition and Midnight Screenings, all of which were met with a big response. This is partly due to the return of some big names, but also because Cannes attendees were excited to see a group of Korean films building on the successes of past fan favorites, as the films each pushed the Korean thriller in new directions.

 

If we look back at all the Korean films that have been featured at the Cannes Film Festival, one can draw a relatively clean line down the middle. One the one hand are the prestige dramas of IM Kwon-taek (Best Director winner for Chihwaseon in 2002) and LEE Chang-dong (Best Screenplay winner for Poetry in 2010), and on the other, the popular dark thrillers, from the likes of PARK Chan-wook, BONG Joon-ho and NA Hong-jin, the first and last of whom are back with The Handmaiden and THE WAILING. Joining them this year is animation director YEON Sang-ho with his live action debut TRAIN TO BUSAN, effectively turning the Korean lineup at Cannes this year into a showcase of dark but variegated thrillers.

 

 

With his competition invite for The Handmaiden, PARK Chan-wook has now vied for the Palme d’Or three times, sharing that distinction with Korean filmmaker HONG Sang-soo. In 2004, he became a global star when his seminal cult classic Old Boy earned the festival’s second place prize, the Grand Prix. Shocking audiences with its stylistic and violent narrative and surprising plot twists, Old Boy set the gold standard for Korean thrillers and launched a wave of international interest in Korean genre titles.

 

He returned in 2009 with his vampire thriller Thirst, which earned him the third place Jury Prize, and has remained one of the top names in global cinema. Following Thirst PARK has returned to Korean filmmaking (after 2013’s Stoker) with The Handmaiden, an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith. Joining him in Cannes were his cast members KIM Min-hee (Right Now, Wrong Then, 2015), HA Jung-woo (The Yellow Sea, 2010), CHO Jin-woong (A Hard Day, 2014) and newcomer KIM Tae-ri, whose big screen debut draw much acclaim.

 

Ultimately, The Handmaiden marked the first time that PARK walked away from the Croisette empty-handed, yet the film still triumphed by picking up the Vulcan Award for Technical Achievement, an independent prize, which went to its production designer RYU Seong-hee. It was the first time the award went to a Korean film, but also the first time it has been bestowed to a production designer, celebrating the intricate set design of a film that has received unanimous praise for its stylistic achievements.

 

Beyond its visual merits, The Handmaiden received a mixed but generally positive reception from critics. Many English-language reviews as well as the Korean critics in town for the event (it doesn’t open in Korea until June 1st) gave it high marks but the reaction, while still generally favorable, was more muted from French reviewers.

 

Screen Daily opined that “the film manages the tricky feat of both staying true to Waters' breathless, page-turning prose, and creating a wholly persuasive new milieu for the story.” Meanwhile, Variety felt that PARK “slides back into his own febrile cinematic universe of eroticized torture and misogyny, rather submerging Waters’ theme of female rebellion and liberation.” The Hollywood Reporter was also taken by PARK’s latest, calling it an “amusingly kinky erotic thriller and love story that brims with delicious surprises, making its two-and-a-half hours fly by.”

 

 

 

After screening his debut feature The King of Pigs in the Directors’ Fortnight section in 2012, YEON launched his name as an accomplished director of gritty independent animated features. Yet just four years later, following his equally acclaimed The Fake (2013) and more recently Seoul Station, which debuted on the festival circuit just last month, the director has made the transition to big-budget live action filmmaking with the zombie thriller TRAIN TO BUSAN, which met with a terrific response after its Midnight Screenings slot on May 13th.

 

Following the events of Seoul Station, which chronicles the zombie outbreak of the previous night, TRAIN TO BUSAN features a small group of characters fighting for their lives on an express train racing down from Seoul to Busan as the zombie apocalypse rapidly spreads across the land. Melding commercial thrills, appealing stars and a wealth of ironic social commentary, the film was a surprise delight for many unsuspecting viewers. 

 

Reviews were very positive for the big-budget release which will open in Korea in July. Variety praised the film’s energy, referring to its “relentless locomotive momentum” while The Hollywood Reporter singled out the film’s technical specs, writing that “the film establishes spatial relationships exceptionally well.”

 

 

 

THE WAILING, the new film from thriller auteur NA Hong-jin, and his third at the festival following The Chaser’s Midnight Screenings slot in 2008 and The Yellow Sea’s Un Certain Regard invitation in 2011, had a great success story at Cannes this year.

 

Starring KWAK Do-won as a policeman in a country town swept by a string of bizarre deaths, THE WAILING combined elements of procedural thriller with psychological and supernatural horror to create a uniquely involving style of terror that left many breathless. Screen Daily’s Chief Film Critic tweeted that she “couldn't sleep last night after Cannes 2016 THE WAILING. No, really. Korean thriller from NA Hong-jin is a must-see.”  

 

The film benefitted from some buzz ahead of its screening, as it received almost unanimous praise from film critics in Korea (where it opened on May 11th), a very rare feat. A pair of English reviews also surfaced a few days ahead of its Cannes bow, with Screen Daily calling it a work of “sheer intensity,” which “could well be regarded as one of the best films to emerge from Korea in recent years.”

 

This sensation of an unknowable fear was shared among other critics, including Variety, which led of its review with “There’s nothing scarier than not knowing what you should be scared of.” The trade went on to say that director NA’s “masterful use of suspense and gore will have audiences on tenterhooks for the entirety of its 156-minute duration.” After garnering 4.54 million tickets (USD 31.45 million) in just 11 days in Korea, the film goes on release in North America on June 6th.