Ko-pick: Upcoming Korean Films of 2025

Last year the box office saw mix results as a clearer picture is emerging of where the industry is heading. Total admissions hit 123.13 million in 2024, a 1.6 percent drop on the previous year while box office revenue declined by 5.6 percent compared to 2023 w...

Ko-pick: Plight of South Korea’s Democracy through Cinema

The news of Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed attempt at instigating martial law shocked the world. With live news feeds on outlets including the BBC, it dominated the global news cycle as South Koreans tried to make sense of what had happened. Ultimately, it was short l...

Ko-pick: Introducing Squid Game’s New Faces

The second season of Squid Game directed and written by Hwang Dong-hyuk has unsurprisingly performed very well for Netflix becoming its third most-watched season ever with 152.5 million views. It was also the streaming platform’s biggest TV debut ever with 68 ...

Ko-pick: Introducing Hallyu Stars Through Korean Cinema

The Korean wave known as Hallyu has spread far and wide across the whole world. In the late 1990s and early 2000s in the first stages of Hallyu it was primarily countries in East Asia; chiefly China and Japan but also other territories including Taiwan. It the...

Ko-pick: Recommended Korean Remakes of Foreign Films

Remaking Korean films for overseas markets has often seen poor results with titles such as Spike Lee’s Oldboy (2013) and the US remake of My Sassy Girl (2001). When it comes to Korean films that are remakes of foreign titles, however, it’s a different story. A...

Ko-pick: Traditional Korean Culture & Games in K-Content

One of the recent crazes has been Rosé and Bruno Mars’ song Apt. It topped the Billboard Global 200 Chart for several weeks, and also entered the top ten of the US Billboard Hot 100 as well as the UK singles chart in what is yet a further sign of the globalisa...

Ko-pick: Ramyeon and Korean Cinema

Few people who have been to Korea or watched much Korean content are unfamiliar with the instant noodle known as ramyeon. It comes in different brands, and many have their own particular preferences when it comes to eating it. For some it’s adding an egg and/o...

Ko-pick: Korean Omnibus Films

The omnibus film The Killers (2023) was released in Korea in October after screening at festivals in Europe, North America and Asia. It was invited to Fantasia International Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival after pr...

Ko-pick: Young Female Directors Creating A New Wave in Content Industry

While the Korean film industry continues to struggle to bounce back to pre-covid levels it has seen eight commercial films break-even so far this year, which is two more than the whole of 2023. It is also telling that it’s not blockbusters– once the driving fo...

Ko-pick: Introducing Korea’s Poster Designer Studios

Film posters have dated back to the early days of cinema giving audiences a glimpse of a title. They have been crucial in enticing audiences into the multiplexes to watch films and while today’s media ecosystem means that advertising is different to what it wa...