We continue with our list of feature films you shouldn’t miss at the Busan International Film Festival which will take place from October 4 – 13, 2023 in Busan, Korea.

To see the first part of this article please go HERE.
To see our short film recommendations for this festival please go HERE.

Ms. Apocalypse by Lim Sun-ae – Korea | 2023 – 116 minutes
In 1999, Young-mi (Lee You-young), cruelly nicknamed “Ms. Apocalypse,” develops a crush on a married man who is imprisoned for embezzlement. Young-mi ends us imprisoned for aiding his crime. When she is released, her crush’s wife Yu-jin (Lim Sun-woo) visits, offering to pay off her husband’s debt. Yet, because Yu-jin is physically disabled, Young-mi feels uneasy about taking her money. The two women eventually begins to live together. Their story is poignant, yet consistently cheery, enlivening, and energetic. Lim Sun-woo delivers a performance that oscillates between neurotic and amiable, and Lee You-young demonstrates an intricate and nuanced acting. The result is a chemistry that leaves the audience in awe. Ms. Apocalypse is the second feature film by Lim Sun-ae, whose debut film, An Old Lady, earned her the New Currents Award at BIFF 2019. (HONG Eunmi | Busan2023)

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Oasis of Now by Chia Chee Sum – Malaysia, Singapore, France | 2023 – 90 minutes | World Premiere
A mother and a daughter secretly meet once every few weeks on a secluded staircase in an old apartment building. The mother, an undocumented Vietnamese in Malaysia, believes that her daughter’s best future lies in living with a Malay family, separated from her. Despite living in the same neighborhood, they pass each other as strangers every day. The mother takes on various odd jobs in the neighborhood to make a living and seeks refuge in the home of an unfamiliar elderly person to avoid the reach of immigration crackdowns. The old building and the characters within it bring a palpable weight to the narrative. However, amidst scenes that seem like mundane everyday life, significant secrets and decisions that can alter the course of life are concealed. (PARK Sungho | Busan2023)

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Raging Grace by Paris Zarcilla – UK | 2023 – 100 minutes
A bold coming-of-rage story, Raging Grace details the life of Joy, an undocumented Filipina immigrant who is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter, Grace, when she secures the perfect job; taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new position pays well and guarantees a roof over their heads but very soon, Joy and her daughter Grace start to realize everything is not as it seems. Something is festering beneath the surface, threatening all they have worked for. Deeply personal, Raging Grace is a nightmarish fever dream from an exciting new voice—a horrifying Gothic thriller directed by the British-born Filipino writer-director Paris Zarcilla. Raging Grace premiered at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Award. Even more impressive is that this nightmarish thriller is Zarcilla’s feature debut. (Busan2023)

Rather be Ashes by Alan Lau – Hong Kong, UK, Canada | 2023 – 114 minutes | World Premiere
Alan Lau, a journalist and documentary director, lived very near the site of the 2019 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. He witnessed numerous events, captured every moment on film, and… left Hong Kong for good. Rather be Ashes Than Dust is a memoir of his four-year journey centered on the Hong Kong protests. Narrated in the first-person voiceover, the film is rich with reflections and contemplations, most of which are intertwined with feelings of guilt. The dilemma he repeatedly faces, between the journalist’s objectivity and ethical considerations, amid the particularly violent scenes have burdened him with remorse. Nevertheless, the strength of this film ultimately lies in the meticulous documentation through his camera lens. Rather be Ashes Than Dust is a poignant farewell to the intense and impassioned days on the streets in 2019—it is a sorrowful eulogy for the Hong Kong that has lost its soul. (KANG Sowon | Busan2023)

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Remembering Every Night by Kiyohara Yui – Japan | 2022 – 116 minutes
Remembering Every Night follows three women in one spring day in Tama, a satellite city of Tokyo. Chizu, forty-four, receives a postcard from an old friend inviting her to come visit as she has moved to the neighborhood. Unemployed after quitting her job at a kimono shop, Chizu visits a job center. She suddenly realizes it is her birthday and sets out to find her old friend’s house. Sanae, thirty-three, works as a gas meter reader and stumbles upon an elderly man with dementia who has gone missing. Natsu, twenty-two, on her friend’s death anniversary, visits the friend’s mother to deliver a roll of film she left behind. What the three women have in common is that they are all carrying deep pain in their hearts. In their own ways, they deal with their grief and move on with their lives. Instead of screaming or getting angry because they are hurt, they go out of their way to find a friend, help a lost old man, or simply to dance. The gentle sadness and strong will to live quietly seeps in without the audience realizing it. This is the second feature by Kiyohara Yui, who made her debut with Our House (2017). (NAM Dong-chul | Busan2023)

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Ripples by Ogigami Naoko – Japan | 2023 – 120 minutes
“Japan’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap index is 116th out of 146 countries. We remain a male-dominated society. Many households still uphold the old traditions where the men go out to work and the women stay home.” Director Ogigami Naoko once cited that she made Ripples to challenge the male-dominated society. The protagonist, Yoriko, a woman in her fifties, is immersed in a cult that worships the green water of life. Unable to find a place for herself after her husband abandoned the family, Yoriko turns to a strange religion and begins each day by making waves in her sandy front yard. One day, her husband returns home to tell her he has cancer and asks her to let him stay, and her young son brings home an older, deaf girlfriend. A big ripple runs through Yoriko’s heart. “I find it stifling to be a woman in this country. But I’ve made this movie in the hopes that I can do something to change that. And I’ve given it plenty of dark humor,” says the director. (NAM Dong-chul | Busan2023)

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Ryuichi Sakamoto｜Opus by Sora Neo – Japan | 2023 – 103 minutes
On March 28, 2023, world-renowned composer Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away. He continued to produce numerous works despite battling cancer for years, and orchestrated the final concert of his life. Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is a concert film containing twenty of his compositions that span his entire life, from his time in Yellow Magic Orchestra to his last album 12. This film is also the ultimate gift from the gifted musician—a world where only he exists with the piano. Devoid of subtitles or narration, a 103-minute-long performance unfolds against a backdrop of vivid monochromatic visuals. The entirety of a day’s cycle, from pitch black night through early morning and afternoon and back to night again, is condensed in this film. Within lies a collection of twenty dramatic narratives, woven together by the breathtakingly beautiful and boundless universe born from the maestro’s fingertips. (KANG Sowon | Busan2023)

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Sara by Ismail Basbeth – Indonesia | 2023 – 99 minutes | World Premiere
After many years of living in the city, a transgender woman has to go back to her remote hometown to attend her father’s funeral. She finds the village has changed greatly, and that the villagers have become extremely religious. Sara also discovers that her mother suffers from dementia and treats her like a complete stranger. Basbeth carefully analyzes the subtle emotions of all his characters. Sara ia a film about sacrifice, childhood trauma, family and reconciliation. The issue of religious fanaticism, rather than being presented in irrefutably good or bad terms, is depicted as a shifting cultural space. No one chooses the family that they are born into but Sara can choose her own life the way she wants it. The film features Oscar Lawalata, a famous fashion designer in the title role. Sara’s mother is played by world renowned actress Christine Hakim. (John BADALU | Busan2023)

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Soulmate by Min Yong-keun – Korea | 2020 – 124 minutes
In 1998, Mi-so (Kim Da-mi) transfers to Jeju Island and meets Ha-eun (Jeon So-nee). Despite their very different personalities, they become intimate, as if each has met a soulmate. But even this seemingly perfect pair cannot avoid a fateful rift. A remake of Director Zeng Guoxiang’s SoulMate (2017), Soulmate retains the charm of the original but shines with subtly different colors. Director Min Yong-keun builds a solid female narrative, focusing less on the love triangle and more on Mi-so and Ha-eun’s fate. Like the original, where the actors stood out, Soulmate naturally creates situations that allow Kim Da-mi and Jeon So-nee to showcase their charms to the fullest. The camera captures nuanced emotions that are difficult to convey in a few words, and the connection between the two women through the medium of painting blossoms into a connection that goes beyond words. (SONG Kyung-won | Busan2023)

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That Summer’s Lie by Sohn Hyun-lok – Korea | 2023 – 138 minutes | World Premiere
First-year high school student Da-young is required to write about her summer vacation as an assignment. She chooses to write about her relationship and conflicts with her boyfriend, Byung-hoon, who is in the same grade. When she hands in the assignment, her homeroom teacher questions her about the shocking details, and she is forced to write a letter of apology, the contents of which make up the action of the film. This is not a typical by-the-numbers coming-of-age movie. As events and structures emerge and build up unpredictably, secret emotions appear, and the clash between the severity of the characters’ situation and the immaturity of their solutions sends the audience into a state of panic. Is what we see really what Da-young wrote in the letter? Several layers of questions and secrets lurk in-between and make this movie very compelling. (JUNG Hanseok | Busan2023)

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The Berefts by Jeong Beom, Hur Jang – Korea | 2023 – 89 minutes | World Premiere
An old man and a young woman in shabby clothes enter an abandoned motel in a deserted town. It is only after a while that we realize that they are a father and his developmentally disabled daughter, and that the two of them live their lives searching for empty houses where they can stay. In The Berefts, the situation always comes first and the facts second. When the father and daughter are sitting across from a young man in a humble office, the nature of their conspiracy and relationship is also revealed only after a while. We get lost between the events that come first and the facts that come later only to sink in heartbreaking sadness. The doubts, questions, and twists in the intervals are not an elaborate narrative technique, but a reflection of the characters’ fate. The audience is kept on the edge of their seats throughout the movie, and yet the movie is calm and solemn to the end. (JUNG Hanseok | Busan2023)

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The Daughters of that Day by Koh Hoon – Korea | 2023 – 94 minutes | World Premiere
After a face-to-face conversation, Yang Kyungin, who wrote a book on the Jeju Uprising, and Regine-pacis, a Rwandan student studying abroad in Korea, set off together on a journey. Despite the differences in their age, nationality, and occupation, they share one thing in common—they are daughters of massacre survivors. The Daughters of That Day does more than illustrate the similarities between the tragedies of Jeju Uprising and the Rwandan genocide. The healing journey, which gazes into the past and looks to the future, moves from Jeju to Rwanda, and back to Jeju. An old woman who took in a complete stranger of a three-year-old girl; Maria who forgave a murderer to raise her children; Franco, the perpetrator who seeks repentance from Maria. The miraculous journey from silence and avoidance to forgiveness and repentance embraces “the daughters of those days” in unwakeable nightmares and in magnanimity that brings tears to our eyes. (KANG Sowon | Busan2023)

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The Deal by Lee Jung-gon – Korea | 2023 – 118 minutes | World Premiere
Junsung (Yoo Seung-ho) and Jaehyo (Kim Dong-hwi) reunite with their high schoolmate Minwoo (Yoo Su-bin) and the three spend the night drinking together. The next morning, Jaehyo calls Minwoo’s mother and says, “I have your son. Prepare one billion won.” The Deal is an ironic kidnapping drama that unfolds between characters in dire situations. Jaehyo, a medical school student, faces being expelled for cheating, while Junsung is burdened with overwhelming debt from loan sharks before his military enlistment—situations that drive the two to crime. Meanwhile, Suan (Lee Joo-young), a police academy student living next door, becomes suspicious and begins to investigate. Yesterday’s friends become today’s kidnappers and tomorrow’s accomplices, as the gripping narrative keeps audience members on the edge of their seats. (SONG Kyung-won | Busan2023)

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The Monk and the Gun by Pawo Choyning Dorji – Bhutan, USA, France, Taiwan | 2023 – 107 minutes
In 2006, television and internet have finally arrived in Bhutan, and the nation, which has been a monarchy, is gearing up for its first-ever election in history. The upcoming election sets people at odds with each other, as some struggle to understand why elections are necessary when they have a king. Faced with the need to educate its people about democracy, the government decides to conduct a mock election first. Then rumors spread that a respected elderly monk is looking to obtain firearms. This beautifully innocent film delves into the various misunderstandings surrounding the very first election in Bhutan, where religion holds more sway than politics, and the “Bhutanese solutions” to these issues. The Monk and the Gun is the second film by director Pawo Choyning Dorji, whose debut film Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2022. (PARK Sun Young | Busan2023)

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The Voices of the Silenced by Park Soo-nam, Park Maeui – Korea, Japan | 2023 – 137 minutes | World Premiere
Park Soo-nam, a second-generation Zainichi director, discovered that she was losing her sight just as she set out to digitally restore her 16 mm films with the assistance of her daughter, director Park Maeui. The footage, shot over fifty years, is indelibly marked with the blood, tears, and countless corpses of Zainichi Koreans. It isn’t just the voices of forced laborers, atomic bomb survivors, and “comfort women” that are resurrected from the deteriorating, 100,000-feet-long film reels—it is also the voice of Park Soo-nam, herself, fearlessly fighting alongside a Korean boy on death row, storming out during the first-day-of-school ceremony to protest the singing of the Japanese national anthem, singing “Garden Balsam” at a massacre site, and attempting to find a hopeful future from the 100-year history of Koreans in Japan. The Voice of the Silenced is an archive of Zainichi Koreans’ resistance and struggle and a remarkable autobiography of a woman who knows no defeat. (KANG Sowon | Busan2023)

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Ten Years Myanmar by Thaiddhi, Nay Wunn Ni, Myo Thar Khin, Aung Min, Lamin Oo – Myanmar | 2023 – 104 minutes | World Premiere
Ten Years Myanmar, an omnibus film, envisions a dystopian future ten years into the future. Following its debut in Hong Kong in 2015, the Ten Years series evolved into an international project, spanning across Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. This series, which combines social imagination and cinematic creativity, has consistently sparked discussions. Ten Years Myanmar presents five directors, each offering a distinct story. While previous installments were known for their straightforward and clear messages, Ten Years Myanmar exercises more restraint, requiring the audience’s greater imagination. Nevertheless, the keywords highlighted in each episode – mysterious deaths, political prisoners, resistance movements, violence, censorship, and more – serve as stark reminders of Myanmar’s grim reality since the military coup in 2021. With the support of creators from the earlier series, including those from Hong Kong, this completed work stands as a testament to the revival of the ‘Milk Tea Alliance’ among Asian nations striving for democracy, uniting within the realm of the film industry. (BOO Kyunghwan | Busan2023)

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Vigilante by Choi Jeongyeol – Korea | 2023 – 130 minutes | World Premiere
Kim Jiyong (Nam Joohyuk) is a diligent and brilliant student at the police academy. However, during weekends, he assumes the role of a vigilante to apprehend wrongdoers who evade the reach of the law. His moves, which were given the name Vigilante by the broadcaster reporter Choi Miryeo (Kim Sojin), garnered the attention and cheers of the public, and Jo Gang-ok (Lee Junhyuk) appears, a big fan and second-generation heir of a conglomerates. In response, Jo Heon (Yoo Jitae), the leader of the Metropolitan Investigation Squad, initiates a pursuit of Vigilante. Adapted from the popular webtoon of the same name, Vigilante is directed by Choi Jeongyeol, known for directing the webtoon adaptation Start-Up. As the movie unfolds into an epic narrative, it maintains its focus by introducing significant villains at every turn. The actors portraying the beloved characters from the original webtoon particularly stand out. Yet another fantastic Korean dark hero drama series is on the horizon. (JUNG Hanseok | Busan2023)

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Watercolors by Lee Inhoon, Kim Namsuk, Kim Hyunsoo – Korea | 2023 – 88 minutes | World Premiere
Watercolors is an omnibus documentary that explores the journeys of indie musicians as they carve out new paths and build their own musical worlds. In the lively and rhythmic film pig&frog, Lee Inhoon captures the roller-coaster journey and passionate endeavors of the project group “pigfrog” as they embark on a journey to the United States in pursuit of musical inspiration for their upcoming album. Kim Namsuk’s YOUNG GENIUS illuminates the distinct talent and charm of Xin Seha through interviews and scenes from music videos, providing a multifaceted view of his musical evolution. Lastly, The Farthest Gate, directed by Kim Hyunsoo, provides a delicate portrayal of the family band TENGGER’s European tour and the world of ambient music. The film is armed with captivating stories and charms, leaving audiences eager to further indulge in the music of these talented musicians after the curtain goes up. (HONG Eunmi | Busan2023)

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Whispering Mountains by Jagath Manuwarna – Sri Lanka | 2022 – 86 minutes
A virus sweeps across Sri Lanka, triggering a wave of suicides among young people. The government proclaims that only ancient healing rituals can eliminate the virus. As parents desperately wait for their missing children to return home, the military begins a ruthless process of disposing of infected bodies. A bold debut film by Jagath Manuwarna, Whispering Mountains employs the pandemic as a metaphor to indirectly address the suppressed memories of struggles and civil war in Sri Lanka. The film weaves together diverse perspectives on the landscape of resistance, through the young people who are pushed to the brink of death, the grieving parents, the monks who are sprouting seeds of doubt, and the absurd actions of the suppression troops. The film’s long takes, in which close-up shots that unveil the authoritative government’s false news and concealed truths gradually expand to long shots, create an impressive visual narrative. (HONG Soin | Busan2023)

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Youth (Spring) by Wang Bing – France, Luxembourg, Netherlands | 2023 – 215 minutes
Located 150 kilometers outside of Shanghai, Zhili is the heart of China’s textile industry and attracts youths from rural regions along the Yangzi River. Wang Bing, one of the greatest filmmakers of our time, steps into this world of young laborers in contemporary China through Youth (Spring), a documentary that captures an intimate portrait of youths who work fifteen hours a day in textile workshops. In their late teens, these young laborers work their sewing machines in windowless rooms while listening to pop music, yet their vibrant, youthful energy remains undiminished. Wang Bing spent six years with them, capturing their romance, friendships, temptations, and struggles on film. As indicated by the title, which alludes to a certain phase of life and season, Youth (Spring) is the first in a ten-hour-long series that marks the beginning of a monumental cinematic endeavor, following West of the Tracks (2003) and Dead Souls (2018). (KANG Sowon | Busan2023)

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To see the first part of this article please go HERE.
To see our short film recommendations for this festival please go HERE.

For more information, please visit: https://www.biff.kr/eng