This year’s Cannes Film Festival will May 16-27 and the official line-up of films has been announced. This year sees a LOT of titles from East Asia.
As with last year, Hollywood is going to be at the croissette with European film royalty and East Asian talents. Ken Loach, Wim Wenders and Pedro Almodovar are bringing their latest works, The Old Oak, Perfect Days and Strange Way of Life respectively. Meanwhile big blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will also be screened. There’s also Martin Scorcese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (my mother has read the book and said it is good).
We’ve got more female filmmakers with Catherine Corsini (Leaving) bringing Le Retour, and Catherine Breillat (who makes thought-provoking but absolutely miserable films about miserable sex) screening L’ete Dernier , and Alice Rohrwacher showing La Chimera. WAIT! There’s also Jessica Hausner (Lourdes) with Club Zero!
Anyway, East Asia!!!! The names included are Vietnam’s Tran Anh Hung (Norwegian Wood, The Scent of Green Papaya), China’s Bi Gan ( Long Day’s Journey Into Night), Wang Bing and Wei Shujun and Singapore’s Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo).
Japan and South Korea provide some heavy hitters and newbie talents. The former nation providing two of the four Ks as Kitano and Kore-eda grace the fest in the big sections while Ryutaro Ninomiya brings his latest work. Meanwhile, Korea dominates as it has provided a slate of films that sees veterans Kim Jee-woon and Hong Sang-so mix it up with lesser-known talents across a range of festival sections.
Main Competition
Kore-eda is once again competing for the Palme d’Or!
Monster 
怪物 「Kaibutsu」
Release Date: June 02nd, 2023
Duration: N/A
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Writer: Yuji Sakamoto (Screenplay),
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Starring: Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Yuko Tanaka, Mitsuki Takahata, Soya Kurokawa, Akihiro Kakuta, Shido Nakamura,
In recent years, Cannes film fest favourite Kore-eda won the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters back in 2018 and returned last year with his Korean-set drama Broker. Those were based on original scripts written by himself.
With Monster, he has gravitated to working with more mainstream names making big moves in the Japanese movie industry. The film is based on a screenplay by Yuji Sakamoto (We Made a Beautiful Bouquet, Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World) and the film is produced by powerhouse screenwriter, producer and director Genki Kawamura (A Hundred Flowers, If Cats Disappeared From the World, Villain). Music was composed by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise) who sadly passed away last month.
Synopsis: The community of a small town with a large lake becomes the focus of the media as two children get into a fight at school and the conflicting claims draw attention from wider society. The people involved include a single mother and her son, a teacher, and others. None could guess how things would escalate as, during a stormy morning, the children disappear…
Un Certain Regard
Hopeless 
화란 「Hwaran」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 11 mins.
Director: Kim Chang-hoon
Writer: Kim Chang-hoon (Screenplay),
Starring: Hong Xa-bin, Song Joong-ki, BIBI, Park Bo-kyung,
This noir film comes from director Kim Chang-hoon. It is his first time at Cannes and he’s in the category dedicated to finding new talents. This film will be up for the Un Certain Regard Award and the Caméra d’Or (Golden Camera) awards. Last year saw Chie Hayakawa’s Plan 75 win the Special Mention award in the Caméra d’Or competition last year.
Synopsis: Yeon-gyoo is an 18-year-old boy living in a dead-end town populated by thugs and no-hopers. With a mother and sister to support, he yearns for a peaceful life but the world keeps troubling him. To improve his lot, Yeon-gyoo works with a thug named Chi-geon, leading him to situations that could make or break him as he seeks to escape from the town…
Midnight Screening
Project Silence 
탈출 「Talchul」
Release Date: May, 2023
Duration: 11 mins.
Director: Kim Tae-gon
Writer: Kim Tae-gon, Kim Yong-hwa, Park Joo-suk (Screenplay),
Starring: Lee Sun-kyun, Ju Ji-hoon, Kim Hee-won, Moon Sung-keun, Ha Do-kwon,
Kim Tae-gon appears to have a taste for horror having made supernatural films The Pot (2008), part of the omnibus film Hwan-sang-geuk-jang (2011). He’s working with screenwriter Park Joo-suk (Train to Busan) and actors Lee Sun-kyun (Our Sun-hi, Petty Romance, R-Point) and Kim Hee-won (The Man from Nowhere).
No trailer
Synopsis: Jeong-won and his daughter are travelling to Incheon Airport via a bridge when a thick fog bank envelopes the structure and causes numerous car crashes. Chaos ensues and so does carnage as a group of mutated military dogs get loose from their transporter and start chowing down on people. Authorities cordon off the bridge and the survivors have to survive the night!
Out of Competition
Cobweb 
거미집 「Geomijip」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 11 mins.
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Writer: Shin Yeon-shick (Screenplay),
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Jun Woo-sung, Jeon Yeo-bin, Im Soo-jung, Krystal Jung, Kim Min-jae,
Kim Jee-woon (The Quiet Family, A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life) n is back and he’s brought old collaborators Song Kang-ho and Jun Woo-sung (both in The Good the Bad the Weird (2008)) to make this self-reflexive film about filmmaking which is billed as a black comedy.
Song Kang-ho won the best actor award at last year’s Cannes for his role in Broker.
Synopsis: It is the 1970s, a time of the military dictatorship, and a veteran director named Kim (Song Kang-ho) becomes obsessed with remaking the ending of his latest film, the titular “Cobweb,” in two days but his efforts are put in jeopardy by government censors as well as an unsupportive cast, and crew, all of whom are causing chaos.
Cannes Premiere
Kubi 
首 「Kubi」
Release Date: May, 2023
Duration: 11 mins.
Director: Takeshi Kitano, Shuta Takahata
Writer: Takeshi Kitano, Takehiko Minato (Screenplay), Takeshi Kitano (Original Book)
Starring: Ken Watanabe, Beat Takeshi, Hidetoshi Nishihima, Ryo Kase, Nao Omori, Shido Nakamura II, Tadanobu Asano, Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Kenta Kiritani, Jun Soejima, Ittoku Kishibe, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Kanji Tsuda,
Six years since his last directorial effort, Kitano is back with a historical film.
This is the 19th film by Takeshi Kitano and it is based on a novel he wrote. For this production, he also wrote the script and edited the footage.
Looking at various notes, it seems that this was conceived 30 years ago, around the same time as Sonatine (1993), his breakthrough hit internationally. It even attracted the attention of Akira Kurosawa who had shown an interest in the work.
Takeshi Natsuno, president and representative director of Kadowkawa studio has said, “It is a rare film, on a scale similar to Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, with a tragicomic quality that feels Shakespearean.” The scale of the story certainly sounds impressive based on the convoluted synopsis based on the real-life incident at Honno-ji of 1582 as the film retells the assassination of Oda Nobunaga in a temple in Kyoto.
The cast is incredible as it features familiar Kitano collaborators and the cream of the crop of acting talent to emerge in the 80s and 90s. It stars Ken Watanabe, Tadanobu Asano (Bright Future), Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live, Drive My Car), Susumu Terajima (Hole in the Sky), and Ryo Kase (Outrage).
Synopsis: As Oda Nobunaga (Ryo Kase) wages his campaign to unify Japan, a general named Murashige Araki (Kenichi Endo) rebels and disappears. Nobunaga summons his generals, Mitsuhide Akechi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Hideyoshi Hashiba (Beat Takeshi), and orders them to search for and capture Murashige. Plotting between generals and a former ninja unable to kill Murashige makes frustrates Nobunaga’s plan and he comes to believe that Tokugawa Ieyasu (Kobayashi Kaoru) is the mastermind behind everything and orders the assassination of Ieyasu. MEANWHILE, peasants take to the battlefields to improve their station in life. All of these characters and storylines converge on Honnoji,
Directors’ Fortnight
In Our Day
우리의 하루 「Uliui Halu」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 99 mins.
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Writer: Hong Sang-soo (Screenplay),
Starring: Ki Joo-bong, Kim Min-hee, Song Sun-mi, Park Mi-so, Ha Seong-guk, Kim Seung-yun
The latest from prolific director Hong Sang-soo, and produced by his wife Kim Min-hee, closes the Directors Fortnight section.
No trailer
Synopsis: A woman in her early 40s and a man in his 70s find their lives and routines overlap because of cats and when each comes into contact with a visitor who has serious questions to ask. Both characters also had ramyun for lunch and did the uncommon thing of adding hot pepper paste to it.
International Critics’ Week
It seems that there is one Korean title here and that is Sleep by Jason Yu while Chinese filmmaker Hui Shu has a short playing.
Sleep 
잠 「Jam」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 99 mins.
Director: Jason Yu
Writer: Jason Yu (Screenplay),
Starring: Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun,
This looks like a supernatural thriller film and it’s up for the Camera d’Or. Jason Yu is apparently a former assistant to Bong Joon-ho.
Synopsis: Hyun-su and Soo-jin are a newlywed couple but something that didn’t occur when they were dating suddenly strikes: Hyun-su starts sleep talking. He says, “Someone’s inside.” His sleep activities escalate and it is as if he becomes someone else. When he wakes up, he has no memories of his behaviour. Soo-jin, pregnant with their child, becomes worried that he will become a threat to their family and starts to lose sleep. They turn to a shaman for help…
Cinéfondation
There are two Korean shorts in the Cinéfondation section, The Hole (Dir: Hwang Hye-in, 24 mins.) and The Lee Families (Dir: Seo Jeong-mi, 25 mins.).
Marche du Film
I don’t normally cover this section due to the sheer amount of films available but news broke that Kenji Iwaisawa is following up his smash-hit hand-drawn animation On-Gaku (Our Sound) with a new film called Hina is Beautiful. It is written by Takamasa Oe, the writer behind Drive My Car.
Ac!d
This is going to be released next month but it plays in the Acid section of Cannes.
Dreaming in Between 
逃げきれた夢 「Nigekireta Yume」
Release Date: June 09th, 2023
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Ryutaro Ninomiya
Writer: Ryutaro Ninomiya (Screenplay),
Starring: Ken Mitsuishi, Miyu Yoshimoto, Haruka Kudo, Maki Sakai, Yutaka Matsushige, Rei Okamoto,
Synopsis: Shuhei Suenaga is a vice principal of a high school and he is becoming forgetful. It becomes obvious when he forgets to pay for a meal in a restaurant where anex-student works. He begins to worry and begins to consider what his life was like before he felt his memories fading. He knows he is on bad terms with his wife Akiko and his daughter Mayu. He has also become distant with his friend Keiji Ishida. He decides to make a change in his life by repairing his relationships.
Here’s past coverage of the film festival:
Round-up – Like Someone in Love
Round-up – 11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate
Round-up – Blade of the Immortal