‘Decision to Leave’ wins best picture at Daejong Film Awards

December 9, 2022

Park Chan-wook’s Cannes-winning romantic thriller “Decision to Leave” won best picture at this year’s Daejong International Film Awards, one of the major film awards in South Korea, on Friday.

The movie also landed the best actor award for Park Hae-il, and best screenplay award for director Park and Jeong Seok-kyeong, who co-wrote the script.

It is about a detective who suspects a mysterious Chinese widow is the culprit of a murder case and later falls in love with her after days of stakeout and interrogations. It brought home the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film also swept six trophies in best film, director, actor, actress, screenplay and music categories at this year’s Blue Dragon Awards, one of South Korea’s top film honors.

“Decision to Leave” has been chosen as South Korea’s entry for the best international feature film category of the 94th Academy Awards slated for March.

Yum Jung-ah won the trophy for best actress for her leading role in “Life is Beautiful,” a jukebox musical film featuring Korean songs from the 1970s to 2000s.

Byun Sung-hyun received the best director award for “Kingmaker,” a political drama film starring Sol Kyung-gu and Lee Sun-kyun.