Kim Ki-Duk's 시간 (Time): Karlovy Vary Yes, Korea No?

Although anyone familiar with Kim Ki-Duk's 'touchy' relationship with the Korean press could have expected this, it looks like his 13th film 시간 (Time) will pretty much ignore the domestic market, to focus on the Festival circuit instead.

While 해변의 연인 (Woman on The Beach) will receive the widest release of Hong Sang-Soo's career (around 200 screens nationwide), there's actually a very good chance Time won't even release in Korean theaters. The film stars Sung Hyun-Ah and Ha Jung-Woo, and has already been confirmed as the opening film of the upcoming Karlovy Vary Festival. But not only Kim will not stage a regular press screening (he'll stage a special screening for a selected few) -- just like what happened for 활 (The Bow) -- he's already thinking of negotiating broadcast rights with a few TV stations, which essentially means he's not going to release the film in theaters. While we see Korean indie films (even ones by acclaimed directors) under-performing on a regular basis, this just re-enforces Kim's 'victim' status against the Korean press, and will further alienate Korean viewers from his works. Maybe that's the point. After all, people like Bong Joon-Ho and Ryu Seung-Wan get non-competitive slots (when they're lucky), while Mr. Kim gets invitations to Major Festivals left and right even for things like The Bow. We seem to have different taste in films...

But one positive coming out of this might be a quicker DVD release, although nothing is for sure with Kim, as always.

[Maxmovie, Cine21]