Take-5: 30th BIFF ’25
the Busan International Film Festival celebrated its 30th anniversary this past September with a modestly star-studded affair… but a heap of films that should be on your radar. Now.
That’s a wrap on another BIFF, which for three decades has thrown money and resources into the festival to become South Korea’s, maybe Asia’s, premier film event. Proof? A new competition section. Whether or not we’ll be referring to the Busan Award in the same breath as the Golden Bear or the Palme d’Or remains to be seen, but for now the 328 features, docs and shorts in this year’s programme made it one of BIFF’s fattest and most diverse ever. It also doubled down on expanding its idea of “theatrical film” by further embracing Netflix content – and let’s not forget that to Netflix this is, indeed, content – but to be fair, there were some worthy inclusions to sample.
To whit our picks for five of this year’s standouts. Some will be coming soon, some will be on Netflix (duh) but all are worth the effort. Honourable mentions go to the obvious: Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, about a downsized paper industry salary man (Lee Byung-hun) who’s willing to kill for a new job (opens here October 16; Guillermo Del Toro’s faithful but totally not faithful adaptation of his life-long lodestar Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi as the sexiest creature ever and Oscar Isaac as the mad doctor in full Marc Bolan regalia; the Sean Baker-produced Left-Handed Girl from Taiwan, director Tsou Shih-ching’s very Baker-ish slice of female urban life; and Busan and New Currents award winner En Route To by Yoo-Jae-in, a sort of Korean 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, with more melodrama but a stellar turn by Lee Ji-won. Your move, 50th HKIFF…
the Resurrected
| Taiwan | Directors: Leste Chen, Hsu Chao-jen | Starring: Shu Qi, Angjelica Lee Sin-jie, Fu Meng-po
Yes, we bitch and moan about Netflix all the time, with good reason, but one thing the streamer does well is give access to series many parts of the world would never get otherwise; think Dark, Katla, Money Heist, Lupin. The latest example of that is The Resurrected | 回魂計, a totally batshit supernatural sci-fi thriller about a pair of grieving, supremely pissed off women who decide the best way to get revenge on the dead (!) fraudster and trafficker that destroyed their daughters was to resurrect his ass. They get help from a shaman, make plans to control the golem and go after his assets. We think. BIFF screened the series’ first two episodes and oh yeah. Bring it. Shu Qi serving marital retribution is everything.
The Secret AGent
| Brazil |Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho | Starring: Wagner Moura, Tânia Maria, Carlos Francisco
Treading similar territory to last year’s Oscar-winning I’m Still Here is The Secret Agent | O Agente Secreto, unfolding during Brazil’s waning dictatorship years – which the right wing says was not a dictatorship. Sure. The routinely fabulous Wagner Moura stars as Marcelo, a tech pro who pisses off a venal oil exec and winds up on the run in his hometown of Recife during Carnival. Pitch black in its comedy and biting in its commentary, The Secret Agent is messy and sprawling but has such a vivid aesthetic – it was shot in anamorphic Panavision for an extra ’70s vibe – and urgent theme it’s hard to care about messy. Plus: capybaras and a murderous leg. Just the leg. Enjoy.
On Your Lap
| Indonesia | Director: Reza Rahadian
| Starring: Claresta Taufan, Fedi Nuril, Christine Hakim
If you got lucky enough to see 24 Hours with Gaspar somewhere on your travels make sure to check out On Your Lap | Pangku, Gaspar star Reza Rahadian’s directorial debut. The film picked up four Vision awards at BIFF for an elegant, frustrating, quietly defiant story of resilience about a single mom and “coffee shop” hostess in a small Indonesian village during the ’97 Asian Economic Crisis. This is not Starbucks. Rahadian demonstrates an incredibly astute eye for how women survive in a world almost purpose-built to screw them over, realised brilliantly by the radiant Claresta Taufan, stepping off her horror path for an empathetic and recognisable dramatic turn. Rahadian needs to get back behind the camera. Fast.
A House of Dynamite
| USA | Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Starring: Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts
A House of Dynamite is just that. Cut from the same cloth as Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, the film is hard to parse. It’s high tension competency porn about the systems and procedures in place for when we finally fuck ourselves royally and one of our too many nukes targets Chicago. It’s a tragedy when you realise all the real life people in the positions held by the film’s educated, informed characters are far from competent. Dynamite sends a different message than it would have had it been released in, oh, 2022, but in any year it’s a smartly structured, precision-engineered pulpy thriller and it’s Bigelow at the top of her game.
The Holy Boy
| Italy | Director: Paolo Strippoli | Starring: Michele Riondino, Giulio Feltri, Paolo Pierobon, Romana Maggiora Vergano
Usually, when you think of Italian horror Mario Bava and Dario Argento come to mind, and that’s about it. Behold The Holy Boy | La valle dei sorrisi, in which a traumatised gym teacher and national judo champ, Sergio, takes a temp gig in Remis, a hill town recovering from its own community trauma. Strange thing is, everyone’s really happy. Like, all the time. The reason for that is Mattero, an ostracised high school student that Remis residents believe is an angel. To say there’s a dark secret behind the town’s serenity is a no-brainer. Paolo Strippoli’s slow burning meditation on the dangers of misplaced grief and collective faith is disquieting and sinister until it explodes. This is classic religious horror with a distinct Italian Catholic spin. And it will make you rethink all those hugs people give out.