Celebrated director Park Chan-wook’s star-studded murder comedy No Other Choice opened Asia’s biggest film festival on Wednesday, which is launching its first fully-fledged competition line-up as South Korea projects its soft power worldwide.
The 30th edition of Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) arrives after the global success of critical works exploring Korean culture and experiences, such as Squid Game, Parasite and this year’s megahit KPop Demon Hunters.
Stars and film-makers − including K-pop megastar Lisa of Blackpink and director Park − walked the red carpet under dazzling lights for the opening ceremony, as excited Busan citizens cheered.
The festival, which has long focused on emerging talents in the region, is undergoing a revamp this year, launching its first major competition section featuring 14 titles − including four South Korean pictures.
Seasoned Chinese director Zhang Lu’s Gloaming In Luomu and Taiwan’s megastar Shu Qi’s directorial debut Girl are in also competition and will be judged by juries headed by South Korean film-maker Na Hong-jin.
The latest edition “sought not only to further expand its long-standing role as a platform for discovering emerging Asian talent, but also to effectively showcase the works of acclaimed Asian masters”, festival director Jung Han-seok said.
Programme director Karen Park said the line-up was designed to honour Asian cinema in the way it wishes to be understood.
“I believe it is meaningful that an Asian film festival, which understands Asian culture and its linguistic and historical contexts, evaluates Asian films and offers its own perspectives on them,” she said.
‘Staking my life on it’
Auteur Park Chan-wook − best known for Old Boy which thrust him into the international spotlight in 2004 − returned to Busan with No Other Choice, which won acclaim at the Venice Film Festival.
Based on American writer Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, the film follows a desperate laid-off worker in the paper manufacturing industry who decides to kill off potential competitors for a new job.
Park said he could relate to the protagonist, even though he has little knowledge of the industry.
“People don’t usually think of papermaking as something immensely important or extraordinary, but the protagonists say it is their very life itself,” Park told reporters ahead of the opening ceremony.
“Films can be seen as something that do not necessarily provide any great practical help in life − they might be just two hours of entertainment. And yet, like them, I pour everything I have into this work, staking my entire life on it.”
It stars South Korea’s top actors − Squid Game star Lee Byung-hun and Crash Landing on You actress Son Ye-jin − in the lead.
The opening film marks a shift from last year’s choice of Netflix’s period war drama Uprising, which drew criticism in South Korea’s cinema community given BIFF’s tradition of championing theatrical films.
Park said his film also touches on contemporary anxieties over AI, reflecting its broader theme of the job market, while actor Lee − the sole MC of the opening ceremony − noted that theatres as a space are “facing even greater challenges” than film-making itself.
Future of Asian cinema
This year’s edition features 241 official entries from 64 countries, including 90 world premieres.
Among them is Hana Korea, a North Korean refugee drama with Pachinko star Kim Min-ha, and The People Upstairs, from South Korean actor-director Ha Jung-woo, which centres on the issue of noisy neighbours.
At the opening ceremony, Taiwanese actress-film-maker Sylvia Chang received the Camellia Award, which honours remarkable women in film, while Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi was named Asian Film-maker of the Year.
Life as a working mother can be “very hard for women,” a visibly emotional Chang, 72, told the audience.
“But I was more involved with writing scripts, directing and producing, and the challenges became my drive.”
As for emerging talent, there has been a “wave of exciting new voices emerging” in Asia, “especially in short films where sensitive themes are tackled with remarkable freedom”, said Park Sung-ho, one of BIFF’s programmers.
“In much of Asia, freedom of expression is still not widely guaranteed, yet within shorts young directors have revealed their individuality in striking ways, offering reasons to feel optimistic about the future of Asian cinema,” he said.
Asia’s celebrated auteurs Bong Joon-ho and Jia Zhangke were also among the guests, along with French actress Juliette Binoche, American star Milla Jovovich, KPop Demon Hunters director Maggie Kang and Hollywood auteur Michael Mann.
