Korean Films ‘Hopeless’ And ‘Cobweb’ Head To 76th Cannes Film Festival

The Korean films Hopeless and Cobweb, have been invited to screen at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 16 to 27. Hopeless aka Hwaran will screen in the Un Certain Regard section and Cobweb will be screening Out of Competition.

Hopeless will be the first time that director Kim Chang-hoon screens a film at Cannes. The film stars Song Joong-ki playing a mobster who rescues a teen, played by Hong Sa-bin, from the hellish reality of his violent neighborhood. The UN Certain Regard section of the festival is a competition focused on arthouse films.

Cobweb is a noir comedy about a film director who is obsessed with re-shooting the end of his completed film Cobweb. He calls the cast and crew back to re-film the ending which creates all kinds of chaos. Not only must he deal with the complaints of his actors, who don’t understand his new ending, but he must cope with interference from censors.

The film is directed by Kim Jee-woon and stars Song Kang-ho. Kim has referred to Song as his trustworthy companion, because the actor has starred in several of his previous films: The Good, The Bad and The Weird, The Age of Shadows, The Quiet Family and The Foul King. Kim also previously directed the hit films I Saw The Devil and Bittersweet Life, as well as Apple TV’s first Korean language series Dr. Brain, starring Lee Sun-kyun.

In Cobweb, Song plays the obsessed director, while Im Soo-jung plays a veteran actress and Oh Jung-se plays her playboy actor husband. Jeon Yeo-been plays the financial director of the film’s production company and f(x)’s Krystal Jung plays a rising star.

This will be Song Kang-ho’s eighth appearance at Cannes. Last year he became the first Korean actor to win Best Actor at Cannes for his role in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film Broker, which also starred Gang Dong-won and IU. Broker was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or and also won an Ecumenical Jury Award. Song is also known for his many memorable roles in films such as Parasite, Memories of Murder and The Attorney.

Also appearing in the Out of Competition section is the HBO series The Idol, which stars Jennie Kim, a member of the popular k-pop group Blackpink. The series is a romance story between a pop singer and an LA club owner who is also a secret cult leader. The film was created by Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian pop star known as the Weeknd, Sam Levison and Reza Fahim. The Idol also stars Tesfaye, Lily-Rose Depp and Troye Sivan.