The newly released U.S. blockbuster “Iron Man 3” easily outpaced its rivals to lead the local box office this weekend.“Iron Man 3,” featuring Marvel Comics characters, drew more than 890,000 moviegoers on 1,368 screens nationwide on Saturday alone, according to the Korean Film Council. The film, released on Thursday, is expected to surpass the 2 million mark of total ticket sales on Sunday -- even faster than last year’s box office hit “The Avengers,” which also featured Iron Man series’ hero To

Helter SkelterOpening May 2Drama. Thriller. Directed by Ninagawa Mika.The story is based on Kyoko Okazaki’s comic book “Helter Skelter,” published in 2003. Top star Ririko (Erika Sawajiri) has had so many plastic surgeries that every part of her body has been touched up except her eyeballs and nails. As she grows more popular, she becomes more obsessed with her beauty. Ririko becomes the icon of beauty but her reign does not last forever. As the new super rookie gets popular, she becomes preoccu

The cinema’s leading purveyor of Southern Gothic, Jeff Nichols, hands Matthew McConaughey his latest tour de force turn in “Mud,” a down and dirty if entirely-too-long mythic melodrama in the “Tobacco Road” tradition.Nichols (“Shotgun Stories,” “Take Shelter”) has cooked up an exotic stew that includes obsessive love, a woman unworthy of it, a criminal on the run and a Huck Finn coming of age tale set against a dying way of life in backwaters Arkansas.Ellis (Tye Sheridan, terrific) is a poor kid

NEW YORK (AP) ― The Laos adventure “The Rocket” and the Afghanistan War documentary “The Kill Team” have taken top honors at the Tribeca Film Festival.In an awards ceremony Thursday evening in New York, festival jurors selected Kim Mordaunt’s “The Rocket” for best narrative film. Its 10-year-old star won best actor. The young Sitthiphon Disamoe stars as Aholo, who enters a rocket festival to help save his poverty-stricken family that’s been uprooted for the construction of a dam.Taking best docu

North Korean actress Han Jong-sim will take part in a film festival held in Italy to promote the movie “Comrade Kim Goes Flying,” U.S.-based news outlet Asia Free Radio reported on Wednesday. Han reportedly held a signing event in Beijing on Monday before flying to join the Udine Far East Film Festival, one of the biggest film events in Europe to showcase Asian movies. Han’s participation surprised many, since the visit can be interpreted as the reclusive country’s move to participate in an inte

French writer-director Jacques Audiard’s acclaimed drama about two utterly unhappy individuals forming an unlikely but genuine relationship arrives in local theaters next month.Based on short stories by Canadian writer Craig Davidson, the movie, “Rust and Bone,” stars Marion Cotillard (“Midnight in Paris,” “The Dark Knight Rises”) as Stephanie, a beautiful, self-assured killer whale trainer who works at a marine park in Antibes, a resort town in southern France. One night she runs into Ali (Matt

Why sex crime scenes in ‘Norigae’ are problematic

A film school student won the top prize at the third Olleh International Smartphone Film Festival on Sunday for his smartphone-made short “After 24 Months.” Kim Chan-nyeon, who is currently on leave of absence from Dongguk University’s film program, won the competition by creating a work that features a dystopian world where everyone communicates through smart devices. His protagonist is the only human being in the world who tries to make human-to-human eye contact. The 24-year-old also won the

CJ Entertainment’s latest Chinese-language film topped the Chinese box office in the first week of its release, becoming the first-ever Korea-China joint production film to gross 100 million yuan ($16.2 billion) in the country.“A Wedding Invitation,” directed by Korean filmmaker Oh Ki-hwan (“Last Present,” 2001, “Art of Seduction,” 2005), features Chinese stars Eddie Peng and Bai Bah-he as the leads. It tells the story of two former lovers who run into each other after being separated for five y

Kim Dong-ho, the founding director of Busan International Film Festival and its current honorary chief, received a lifetime achievement award at the opening ceremony of Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy on Friday.Kim is considered a pioneering figure in the Korean film history. He was BIFF’s founding director for 15 years, and retired from the position in 2010. Though BIFF started small in 1996, Kim’s well-known leadership and networking skills turned it into the largest film festival in Asi

Green Film Festival, International Women’s Film Festival, and Jeonju International Film Festival arrive in April and May

A Song for YouOpened April 18Comedy. Drama. Music. Directed by Paul Andrew WilliamsShy, grumpy pensioner Arthur (Terence Stamp) gets dragged into an unconventional local choir by his cancer patient wife Marion (Vanessa Redgrave). Marion is eager to perform at a choir competition but she dies before the contest, asking her husband and friends to perform for her. After Marion’s death, Arthur is lost in grief but the charismatic choir director Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton) persuades him that he can le

The dystopian thriller “Oblivion” is a breathtaking collage of welcome originality and references to a huge common cultural bank of fantasy images and themes. It’s grandiose in scope and scale, attentive to important details like character and tone, and unafraid to tackle mature themes like love and loss, personal identity and redemption. If there’s a better science-fiction blockbuster this year, I’ll count us lucky.The film stars an intensely focused Tom Cruise as Jack Harper, a futuristic repa

After ticket sales pass 100,000 mark, indie film about 1948 Jeju Massacre gets wider release