Synopsis
An aspiring writer goes to the airport to pick up a high school friend returning from a trip to Africa but is disheartened to see her with another man.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Yoo Ah-inLee Jong-su
- Steven YeunBen
- Jun Jong-seoShin Hae-mi
- Kim Soo-kyungYeon-ju
- Choi Seung-hoLee Yong-seok
- Moon Sung-keunLawyer
- Min Bok-giJudge
- Ban Hye-raJong-su's Mother
- Cha Mi-kyungHae-mi's Mother
- Lee Bong-ryeonHae-mi's Sister
- 100
Screen Daily
Once again, Lee has crafted a film of wondrous complexity and inscrutability. The more we see in Burning, the less sure we are of what we are watching. - 100
The Telegraph
This is Lee’s closest ever film to a thriller, but it defies expectations, offering multiple, murky solutions to a set of mysteries at once. - 100
Los Angeles Times
Burning is a character study that morphs, with masterly patience, subtlety and nary a single wasted minute, into a teasing mystery and eventually a full-blown thriller. - 91
IndieWire
Burning keeps twisting back on itself, charting the path of a man waking up to the world, only to find that it won’t stop messing with him. - 91
The A.V. Club
Burning simmers. For nearly two-and-a-half perfectly measured hours, it turns up the heat without boiling over: a drama becoming a thriller in slow motion, intensifying little by little minute by minute, until finally it reaches a shocking, powerful crescendo. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
This is a beautifully crafted film loaded with glancing insights and observations into an understated triangular relationship, one rife with subtle perceptions about class privilege, reverberating family legacies, creative confidence, self-invention, sexual jealousy, justice and revenge. - 90
Variety
The degree to which Burning succeeds will depend largely on one’s capacity to identify with the unspoken but strongly conveyed sense of jealousy and frustration its lower-class protagonist feels, coupled with a need to impose some sense of order on events beyond our control. - 83
The Film Stage
Burning might not have a huge amount going on below its gorgeous surface, but it drags the viewer along with all the seductive intrigue of a frothy page-turner.