November at the cinema: Korean science fiction and the Hunger Games prequel

On November 5, ‘Hope’ arrives in Italian theaters, a science fiction film directed by South Korean director Na Hong-jin, with an international cast including Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Hwang Jung-min. This is reported by KissKiss.it and Libero Magazine, both of which cite the film’s distributors as their source.

Also on November 5, ‘Se domani non torno’ debuts in theaters, an Italian film directed by Paola Randi, already previewed at the Festa del Cinema di Roma ahead of its theatrical release scheduled for the same date. The Italian title thus shares its release day with the South Korean production, offering audiences two very different proposals in terms of origin and genre within the same week.

November 19 is the turn of ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’, based on the novels by Suzanne Collins and centered on the youth of Haymitch Abernathy, a character already familiar to audiences of the film saga based on the American author’s books. The film fits into the trend of prequels that in recent years have expanded the narrative universe of the dystopian saga, shifting the focus to a generation preceding the protagonists of the original installments.

The month of November thus opens with a calendar that alternates Asian productions, Hollywood titles based on established literary properties, and Italian auteur cinema, confirming the variety of origins that characterizes the film offerings of the period. The combination of genres — from Korean auteur science fiction to the dystopian tale for a mass audience, to Italian cinema presented at national festivals — outlines a landscape of releases spread across several weeks of the month.

The two dates of November 5 and 19 thus mark the first two main appointments of the month for Italian audiences, with productions coming from three distinct production contexts: South Korea, the United States and Italy.