The face of Hwanhee is the second feature film by director Lee Jeahan, who previously directed the tender and delicate debut film, Sophie’s World (2021). Composed of four chapters— House of a writer, The Visitors, To the never never land, and The face of Hwanhee—the film unfolds like a collection of short stories, and can be experienced as such. In this narrative, Hwanhee is neither anyone nor nobody. The four stories, which feature a student visiting a teacher, an unwelcome guest at a restaurant, a man contemplating studying abroad and his girlfriend and his mother, and a novelist and a reader, each contain stories within stories. They traverse freely between night and day, fact and truth, narrative and image, within and outside the frame, dream and reality, actors and characters, the singular and the plural, and chance and fate, stimulating all the senses. The face of Hwanhee presents four curious adventures of Hwanhee and Hwanhee’s neighbors, where structure creates mood and mood shapes the world, making for a fascinating journey. (JUNG Hanseok)

In Suintrah, Jor and his son move to a remote village due to financial difficulties. The villagers are extremely quiet and have superhuman hearing abilities. What is the source of their fear? (PARK Sungho)

This is the latest work by Iranian master Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who has long been interested in the political issues of Afghanistan. To examine the deteriorating relations between Palestine and Israel following the Hamas attack on October 7, the director walks into the heart of Jerusalem, a city that has been a holy site for Judaism, Islam, and Christianity for centuries, where tension and hatred have become a daily reality. Even though Jews and Muslims live in the same building, they do not communicate with each other and occasionally attack one another. However, the residents, from their respective positions and perspectives, ponder solutions for coexistence and peace between Muslims and Jews. The film captures the grim atmosphere of the city and the voices of its inhabitants without exaggeration, while also showing that the future of the city lies with the bright-eyed children who currently cannot play together. It is a fine piece that affirms the power and role of the camera in capturing reality. (JO Ji-hoon)

Marianne is a single independent woman who does not believe marriage is the answer to her happily-ever-after. Her co-worker Tor is an easy-going gay man who prefers casual encounters on a dating app over serious commitment. They refuse to conform to social norms and choose to explore unconventional options, while navigating the ups and downs in a quest for that intangible thing called love.
Love, the second installment of Dag Johan Haugerud’s ambitious trilogy, is unexpectedly romantic and endearingly heartfelt. Summertime in the city of Oslo turns out to be the perfect setting for discussions of sexual freedom and reflections on intimate relationships. Do not worry if you missed Sex or may not have a chance to catch up on Dreams, as each feature can be seen as a stand-alone film. (Karen PARK)

Eighteen-year-old rural boy Totone lost his father in a traffic accident. Now, the boy must take care of his seven-year-old sister on his own and find a way to support them. One day, he hears about a cheese-making competition offering a prize of €30,000 and decides to enter the contest on a whim. The protagonist of Holy Cow, Totone, evokes the image of a young cowboy who has become an orphaned rancher. The vibrant energy and charm of amateur actor Clément Paabo draw viewers to root for Totone throughout. Director Louise Courvoisier returns to her hometown of Jura, which she left at fifteen, to make her debut feature. While confronting the reality of a French dairy industry struggling with a lack of youth employment, Courvoisier brings warmth and affection to her characters, turning Totone’s adventure in Holy Cow into a lively and heartwarming comedy. (SEO Seunghee)

The protagonist of Dying, a Berlin Film Festival award-winning screenplay, says: “Not everyone has the talent to be happy.” Matthias Glasner’s characters choose pain and unhappiness over lukewarm love or the pursuit of happiness. Over the course of six chapters - Lissy, Tom, Ellen, Thin Line, Love, and Life - the nearly three-hour epic explores the life issues faced by humanity. The film deals with themes such as illness, death, family, and work, and it seems to be the director’s intention not to touch the emotional lines. He doesn’t force beautiful relationships or ideal ways of living. As indicated by the fact that the music performed within the film shares its title, Dying centers on how each person’s depths are portrayed from an artistic standpoint. The dilemma from Glasner’s representative work, The Free Will (2006), is repeated at the climax of Dying, and the film surprisingly responds with a controversial development. Art is not about suggesting the best answers. (LEE Yong Cheol)

A couple who have broken up and reunited experience intimate yet unfamiliar moments. The tattoo on the man’s back keeps changing, and in moments where it becomes difficult to tell whether we are in a dream, a fantasy, or reality, the film subtly questions, “How well do we really know each other?” This unpredictable narrative unfolds into a unique romantic fantasy that has never been seen before. (KANG Sowon)

Once the top horsemen, friends Saina and Hasa now perform in traditional horse shows to make a living. Unlike Hasa who sells all his horses and sheep after deciding to move to the city, Saina tries to hold on to his beloved horses, shuttling between his farm and the performance arena. But this winter, which came late due to global warming, feels unusually harsh following a drought. With his father’s gambling debts and drinking problem, as well as his separation from his wife, nothing seems to be going Saina’s way. Director Jiang Xiaoxuan, born and raised in Inner Mongolia, cast her friend who was a horseman for her film, which depicts the lives of Mongolians pushed out from the grasslands to the cities and from the cities to tourist spots. The plaintive image of him riding a white horse with a bottle of liquor in hand, straddling the yellow centerline of a road filled with cars, lingers long in memory. (CHOI Eun)

Kai, a 27-year-old who recently got a job at an advertising company, dyes his hair blue and sets out to start anew. But following him, as they have since the day he was born, are aliens carrying cameras and lights. Just as they begin to complain about the monotony of Kai’s life, a woman named Xiaole, who shares her home with Kai, appears. Will the aliens get what they want and see Kai find happiness with Xiaole? Land of Broken Hearts, the second feature film by Wen Shipei, who was invited to Cannes with his debut film Are You Lonesome Tonight? (2021), offers small comfort to those questioning a life dictated by a script and dreaming of their own ‘Buenos Aires’. The film suggests that when life gets too hard, you should take off your shoes and feel the energy of the land that comforts broken hearts. (CHOI Eun)

Una and her secret lover excitedly whisper about their future together. All of those promises disappear in flames, leaving heartbroken Una to cope with the unexpected loss by herself. Una cannot bear the unfairness of having to be sidelined when she is entitled to grieve as much as, if not more than, anyone else. When the Light Breaks could have easily turned into an over-the-top melodrama, but Rúnar Rúnarsson has carefully crafted a sensitive and poignant coming of age story. In the wake of the devastating tragedy, there are no screams or wailings. Deliberate choices to distance the camera emphasize Una’s loneliness and displacement. The sparse dialogue yields to Jóhann Jóhannsson’s haunting chords yet no minute nuance is missed. Despite its relative short runtime at 82 minutes, there is so much tenderness and empathy. (Karen PARK)

Can one imagine 2012 without Tabu and Holy Motors? Tabu was a blessing for cinephiles and remains one of the greatest films since the 21st century In Lisbon, Aurora, near death, dreams of reuniting with her old lover Gian Luca again. However, Luca arrives too late and tells her friend of their forbidden love, which took place 50 years ago in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The Portuguese colonizers live in a small community in luxurious villas, enjoying hunting and ‘60s pop music. They seem oblivious of the independence struggle brewing in Mozambique. Miguel gomes films a seemingly eternal and dreamlike melodrama, as Aurora leaves her husband and the settler community to flee with Luca into the African jungle. As in Murnau’s movies, the lovers break taboos, and their love is cursed. The tragedy that they face is not only connected to the lovers, but also to the era itself, as revolutionaries would soon drive the Portuguese colonizers away from their land. Tabu borrows the form of a silent film to tell a love story, but director Miguel Gomes knows all too well that no nostalgia is possible in the face of the march of history. (SEO Seunghee)

Ernest Hemingway’s influential short story The Killers (1927), has been adapted to film by Robert Siodmak and Andrei Tarkovsky, while Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks (1942) is also said to have been inspired by the story. The Killers, an omnibus film comprised of four-shorts, takes motifs from these two classics and borrows some of their imagery as mise-en-scène. The 4 directors unfold the noir world of death and waiting with different senses and sensibilities. Kim Jong-kwan’s Metamorphosis, which depicts the awakening and manifestation of power following bloodsucking; Roh Deok’s Contractors, a pyramid of contract killings and subcontracted labor; Chang Hang-jun’s Everyone is Waiting for the Man, which tracks down a ghostly figure called a mysterious killer; and Lee Myung-Se’s Silent Cinema, an allegory of his longtime dream of cinema and the world. Notably, Actor Shim Eun-kyung appears in all four films, each time in a completely different role, adding to the delight. It’s an unconventional collection of emotional, psychological, and action-oriented films. (JEONG Jihye)