Korean Film Festival at SM City Cebu Oct. 4-6

CEBU, Philippines - SM City Cebu supports the declaration of the Cebu City government in making the first Saturday of October as Korean Day. The Cebu City government wants to celebrate contributions of Korean settlers to the city, and promote cultural exchange between Filipinos and Koreans.

SM Cinemas together with the Embassy of Korea, Korean Cultural Center in the Philippines, will bring back the Korean Film Festival beginning Oct. 4 to 6 at SM Cinema 2.

Banking on the strength of the Korean Wave in the Philippines, the Korean Cultural Center in the Philippines will be featuring six popular Korean films that will highlight family-friendly films in varied genres such as action, comedy, drama, horror, and fantasy. Movies included in this year’s line-up are A Werewolf Boy, Deranged, Sunny, Green Days, Masquerade and Dancing Queen.

The animated film “Green Days,” voiced by actors Park Shin-hye, Song Chang-eui and Oh Yeon-soo, is a coming-of-age story of Yi-Rang, a track runner, Soo-Min, a pretty transfer student from Seoul and Chul-soo, as they work towards their dreams.

Topbilling the period film “Masquerade” are Lee Byung-hun of the G.I Joe fame and Han Hyo-joo as their respective characters tackle the intricacies of court life during the Joseon dynasty. In a turn of events, King Gwang-hae was poisoned and a court jester who looks remarkably like the king, Ha-sun, fills in the role of the king until the true king recovers fully. Ha-sun’s vastly different personality incites change in the morale among the people in the castle for the better.

Third in the roster is the critically-acclaimed film “Sunny” that retells the story of seven girls whose friendship stretches far back in high school through the journey of Na-mi, one of the seven girls. Chun-hwa, one of the girls, is presently terminally ill and asks Na-mi to get together the old members of Sunny for the last time before she dies.

Popular actors Song Joong-ki and Park Bo-young grace the fantasy-romance flick “A Werewolf Boy” about the young “wolf boy” and a girl who had just moved to the small rural village as these two strangers find affection from each other against a cold world that shuns them both.

In “Deranged,” panic grows across the country as an epidemic of suicides occur where the victims jump into the river. The alarmed government declares a state of emergency. Medical supplies salesman Jae-hyuk suspects his family is showing symptoms of the drowning victims and through his brother, Detective Jae-pil, they search for the antidote to such.

In “Dancing Queen,” the wife of the Seoul mayoral candidate was a Dancing Queen, formerly a popular talent whose chase for her dreams came to an abrupt stop when her husband, Jung-min, decided to run for office. The movie goes through the journey of Jung-hwa as she balances her life as a wife of a political candidate and as a leader of the Dancing Queen.

The 2013 Korean Film Festival is in cooperation with the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), the Korea Tourism Organization – Manila (KTO), the Korea Copyright Commission, SM Cinema, SM Cinema Megamall, SM Cinema Lanang and LG. (FREEMAN)