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In the lead up to October 7th, the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia has begun to trickle out portions of the program of its 49th edition. In what has been a strong year for Korean films, many are expected to land at the Catalonian genre event. So far, the festival has invited NA Hong-jin’s horror hit THE WAILING, KIM Seong-hun’s disaster drama The Tunnel, PARK Chan-wook’s lesbian period thriller The Handmaiden and YEON Sang-ho’s zombie blockbuster TRAIN TO BUSAN.

Released back in May, THE WAILING received a raft of extremely positive reviews from its Out of Competition bow at the Cannes Film Festival and was unexpected smash in Korea, garnering 6.88 million admissions (USD 50.36 million). Last week, it won the Best of Bucheon and NH Audience Award from the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan).

Following the critical and commercial success of the dark and comic thriller A Hard Day (2014), director KIM Seong-hun returns with The Tunnel, a disaster film featuring HA Jung-woo and BAE Doo-na. The film will bow in Korea on August 10th and will have its international premiere the following day at the Locarno International Film Festival.

The other two Korean titles from Cannes this year are also booked for Sitges. Both PARK Chan-wook and YEON Sang-ho have featured prominently at the event in the past and audience will be keen to check out their latest films. The Handmaiden, based on the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, is set in the Colonial Era and marks PARK’s return to Korean filmmaking after his English-language debut Stoker (2013). TRAIN TO BUSAN is the first live action film from YEON and is a sequel of sorts to the animation title Seoul Station, which closed BiFan last week.