Korean Film Festival in Australia 2017

Overview

Recognised as one of the most exciting film industries in Asia, the Korean cinema scene has been knocking it out of the park for years now — without it, we wouldn't have Bong Joon-ho's Okja and Snowpiercer, or Park Chan-wook's Stoker and The Handmaiden, for example. And the fact that neither directors have made the bill at the 2017 Korean Film Festival in Australia shows just how much talent the country has to choose from. Basically, there's plenty of other filmmaking greats where they came from.

This year's KOFFIA, the festival's eighth, features straight-from-Cannes flicks, cinematic masters delivering their newest hits and many a movie in between. Boasting 24 films on its national lineup, the festival will kick off its Sydney leg on August 17 with The World of Us, a thoughtful drama about bullying and friendship, before coming to a close on August 26 with crime-thriller The Queen of Crime.

Other highlights include Hong Sang-soo's fourth film in less than a year, The Day After, plus martial arts-filled assassin flick The Villainess, which has earned comparisons to Kill Bill. Also on the program animated zombie onslaught Seoul Station, the companion piece to last year's kinetic live-action effort Train to Busan, The Net, the latest from divisive auteur Kim Ki-duk, and a serial killer stalking down an amateur singing haunt in Karaoke Crazies.