Lee Chang-dong has had an unusual career path. A well-regarded novelist, he decided to take up film directing in his 40s, and made a string of audacious, commercially successful, and critically acclaimed movies: Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy (1999), and finally Oasis (2002), which attracted international attention just as South Korean cinema was about to break through in the West in a big way. But instead of following it up with another film, Lee became South Korea’s Minister Of Culture. After leaving his cabinet position, he made a comeback with Secret Sunshine (2007), his finest film and one of our favorite movies of the decade, eventually followed by Poetry (2010), which brought him his greatest international acclaim. And since then, nothing.
Via The Playlist comes news that Lee might finally be getting around to making another movie. According to a panel the writer-director participated in yesterday at the Busan International Film Festival, the project is set to start shooting next month. Lee previously announced a serial-killer movie in 2014 that was set to star Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi and the notoriously picky Won Bin (Mother, The Man From Nowhere). This one appears to be a different project; it’s described as a “mystery thriller revolving around a woman whose life is intertwined with two men” by the South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo.