Park Chan-wook’s DECISION TO LEAVE, winner of Best Director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has been selected as South Korea’s Official Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film. Amazingly, DECISION TO LEAVE is the first of Director Park’s films to represent South Korea.
In DECISION TO LEAVE, A detective (Park Hae-il; THE HOST) falls for a mysterious widow (Tang Weil; LUST, CAUTION) after she becomes the prime suspect in his latest murder investigation.
Born and raised in Seoul, Park Chan-wook is best known for his films JSA- JOINT SECURITY AREA, THRIST, THE HANDMAIDEN and what has become known as THE VENGEANCE TRILOGY, consisting of SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, OLDYBOY and LADY VENGEANCE.
South Korea reached the Oscar shortlist for the first time with director Lee Chang-dong’s BURNING in 2018, and scored its first victory, as well as historic wins for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay the following year in with Bong Joon-ho’s PARASITE.
DECISION TO LEAVE will also screen at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and the 2022 New York Film Festival. MUBI snatched up distribution rights to DECISION TO LEAVE out of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and will release the film theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on October 14, 2022, with a national rollout to follow.
Here’s the trailer of the film.