The Korea Society’s New York Korean Film Festival returns to New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image on November 3 to 5 for its yearly celebration of the best in Korean cinema. This 15th edition of the Festival includes a wide range of genres, with action thrillers, comedies, romance, documentary, social drama, melodrama, and the madcap science fiction and social critique of Bong Joon-ho. The Festival will screen Hong Sang-soo’s Yourself and Yours; a big-screen showing of Okja followed by a live video call with Bong Joon-ho; Park Kwang-hyun’s sensational action thriller set amidst the world of online gaming, Fabricated City; Zhang Lu’s A Quiet Dream, which was the opening night film of the Busan Film Festival; Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno, the irreverent documentary about the Korean punk band; and Shin Dong-il’s drama Come, Together.

Please see below for the schedule or view online at movingimage.us. Film descriptions (except where noted) were written by Tom Vick, film curator, Freer and Sackler Galleries.

All films are in Korean with English subtitles.

SCHEDULE
All screenings take place in the Redstone Theater at Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Avenue in Astoria, Queens, NY. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $15 (20% discount for TKS members / $11 seniors, students, Standard level members / Free for Museum members at the Film Lover, and Kids Premium levels and above). Advance tickets are available online at movingimage.us.

The closing screening of Okja is followed by a live video call with Director Bong Joon-ho.

OPENING NIGHT
Fabricated City (조작된 도시)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Park Kwang-hyun. 2017, 126 mins. With Ji Chang-wook. In Korean with English subtitles. A paranoid thriller with a high-tech edge, Park Kwang-hyun’s (Welcome to Dongmakgol) latest film pits a team of skilled video gamers against a mysterious underworld organization in a battle that rages through both the physical and digital worlds. When Kwon Yu (Ji Chang-wook), a former tae kwon do star turned video game addict, is framed for murder, his gamer friends come to his aid and in the process uncover a vast, murderous conspiracy. This nonstop thrill ride of a movie mixes jaw-dropping action scenes with pointed commentary about socioeconomic inequality in today’s Korea. Justin Lowe of The Hollywood Reporter calls it “an updated version of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy set in the world of online video games…. Featuring a fast-paced plot and a snappy visual style, Park’s absorbing third feature should appeal equally to high-tech enthusiasts and action film fans.”

A Quiet Dream (춘몽)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 3:00 P.M.
Dir. Zhang Lu. 2016, 98 mins. With Han Ye-ri, Yang Ik-june, Park Jung-bum, Yoon Jong-bin. In Korean with English subtitles. The loveable opening film of the 2016 Busan Film Festival follows three goofballs vying for the affection of the attractive owner (Han Ye-ri) of a dive bar in a scrappy Seoul neighborhood. The three wooers are well-known actor-directors riffing on their own films. Yang Ik-june plays a vagabond gangster (as in Breathless), Park Jung-bum is a defector from North Korea (as in The Journals of Musan), and Yoon Jong-bin’s character is reminiscent of the army private he played in Unforgiven. From this clever conceit, director Zhang Lu spins what Variety’s Maggie Lee called a “whimsical, frequently poetic urban rhapsody buoyed by its deadpan dropout protagonists.”

Yourself and Yours (당신자신과 당신의 것)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 5:00 P.M.
Dir. Hong Sang-soo. 2016, 86 mins. With Kim Joo-hyuk, Lee Yoo-young. In Korean with English subtitles. The prolific Hong Sang-soo boldly and wittily continues his ongoing exploration of the painful caprices of modern romance that was inspired by Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire. Painter Young-soo (Kim Joo-hyuk) hears secondhand that his girlfriend, Min-jung (Lee Yoo-young), has recently had (many) drinks with an unknown man. This leads to a quarrel that seems to end their relationship. The next day, Young-soo sets out in search of Min-jung, while she—or a woman who looks exactly like her and may or may not be her twin—has a series of encounters with strange men, some of whom claim to have met her before. Yourself and Yours is a break-up/make-up comedy unlike any other, suffused with sophisticated modernist mystery. (New York Film Festival).

Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno (밤섬해적단 서울불바다)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Jung Yoon-suk. 2017, 120 min. In Korean with English subtitles. An audience favorite at the recent Rotterdam and New York Asian Film Festivals, Jung Yoon-suk’s appropriately irreverent documentary follows the anarchic exploits of the Bamseom Pirates, a politically outspoken, gleefully nonconformist two-man punk band. Performing mainly at street protests and political rallies, their satirical antics, which include blasting through one hundred songs in ten minutes in their first gig and titling one of their songs “All Hail Kim Jong-il,” take aim at the absurdities, inequality, and corruption of South Korean society. But they learn just how far they can go when their manager is arrested for posting allegedly pro-North Korean tweets.

Come, Together (컴, 투게더)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 4:00 P.M.
Dir. Shin Dong-il. 2016, 122 min. With Im Hyeon-gook, Lee Hye-eun, Chae Bin. In Korean with English subtitles. An “assuredly executed drama with fiery performances” (Maggie Lee, Variety), Shin Dong-il’s engaging film illustrates the toll Korea’s hyper-competitive society can take on an ordinary family. When middle manager Beom-gu (Im Hyeon-gook) is fired from his job after eighteen years, his violent rage throws his family into turmoil. His wife Mi-young (Lee Hye-eun), now the sole breadwinner, starts cutting ethical corners in her job selling credit cards. Meanwhile, their daughter Ha-na (Chae Bin) frets over her college entrance exam. Shin’s psychologically astute film is a well-crafted combination of social critique and tense drama that movingly makes the case for following one’s passions rather than succumbing to societal pressures.

Okja (옥자)
Followed by live video call with Bong Joon-ho
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 7:00 P.M.
Dir. Bong Joon-ho. 2017, 120 mins. With Tilda Swinton, Ahn Seo-hyun, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal. In English and Korean with English subtitles. Hailed visionary Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer, The Host) returns with a typically twisted, vegetarian-friendly blockbuster about the friendship between a young girl named Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn, Monster) and her “super-pig” Okja. In the guise of a family movie, this madcap anti-corporate satire follows the duo’s fight against a villainous corporation—led by the always superb Tilda Swinton, who plays both a hypocrite CEO and her scheming twin sister. En route to freedom, Mija and Okja encounter a plethora of quirky characters, including a cadre of eco-terrorists led by a courteous troublemaker (Paul Dano) and a “Sir Attenborough” from hell (Jake Gyllenhaal).