[From the scene] Eye

This year’s Busan International Film Festival, which kicked off Oct. 4, invited a total of 269 movies -- about 90 fewer than last year due to a cut in government funding. But Asia's largest film festival continues to be a hit with the public, achieving a 90 percent seat occupancy rate as of Monday.

With just days to go before the 28th edition of Asia's largest film festival comes to an end Friday, following is a recap of the first half of the festival.

'Ballerina'

Among the three Special Premiere films of this year’s Korean Cinema Today, a section that introduces mainstream commercial films, are two new Netflix originals: “Ballerina” and “Believer 2.”

“Ballerina,” director Lee Chung-hyeon’s second work with his girlfriend and actor Jun Jong-seo who stars as protagonist Ok-joo, is an action-packed film that tells a story of merciless revenge by Ok-joo on behalf of her friend and ballerina Min-hee (Park Yu-rim). Kim Ji-hoon, known from Netflix hit series “Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area,” stars as Choi Pro, a lieutenant in the gang who is targeted by Ok-joo for having led Min-hee to take her own life. Rapper and composer Gray also took part as the film's music director.

While Jun flawlessly portrays action sequences with a gun, a knife and on a motorbike, the film’s sensuous mise-en-scene employing unexpected hues like pink and red is eye-catching -- a perfect fit for the hip-hop tempo in important scenes by Gray, who said he wanted to break the cliche of movies featuring ballerinas dancing to classical music.

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