Asian Film Fest also Invites FRIEND: THE GREAT LEGACY
The 9th Osaka Asian Film Festival opened its doors on Friday, March 7th and will be screening an eclectic variety of Asian films until next Sunday, March 16th. Among this year’s lineup is a trio of Korean features, including two in the festival’s main competition program.
Competing in Osaka this year is HA Jung-woo’s directorial debut Roller Coaster, which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) last October and is having its international premiere in Japan. Set on an airplane experiencing severe turbulence which is transporting a paranoid movie star back to Korea, Roller Coaster is the filmmaking debut of popular actor HA, star of The Yellow Sea (2010) and The Berlin File.
Also in competition, the romcom Sunshine Love, which is having its international debut in Osaka following its world premiere at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) last summer, is directed by JO Eun-sung. The film depicts a young man who has been trying to enter the Korean civil service, and retreats into his own fantasy world when he fails.
Invited for a special screening is KWAK Kyung-taek’s Friend: The Great Legacy, the sequel to his enormously popular gangster film Friend (2001). The long-gestating follow-up was a solid performer in Korea late last year, pulling in almost three million spectators.