INTERNATIONAL FILMS WITH A GENRE BENT

The success of Bong Joon Ho’s thriller Parasite, which won four Oscars, including best international film and best picture in 2020, has opened up the international category — typically the domain of straight-faced drama and period pictures — to more genre-flavored titles. These five global contenders come with their own edge:

CLIFF WALKERS CHINA

Three-time Oscar nominee Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Raise the Red Lantern) is one of the few international talents who has regularly won over Academy voters with genre films. His latest, China’s official contender, is a spy thriller following four Communist Party special agents on a top-secret mission in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU SOUTH KOREA

Ryoo Seung-wan’s action thriller is based on the true story of diplomats at the North and South Korean embassies who were forced to cooperate with one another in order to escape Somalia after the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 1991. Described as “South Korea’s Argo,” the film’s backers hope it will have a similar appeal to Academy voters.

LAMB ICELAND

A critic and audience favorite since its debut in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, Valdimar Jóhannsson’s feature avoids the gore and jump scares of your standard horror film, drawing instead from dark Nordic folk tales with a slow-burn supernatural drama about a farmer couple (Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason) who adopt an unlikely, and eerily uncanny, child.

POST MORTEM HUNGARY

It’s rare to find period horror among the international feature contenders, but director Péter Bergendy’s film has been a hit on the genre festival scene and could be a dark horse candidate for the Oscars. The film, set just after World War I during the Spanish Flu pandemic, follows a postmortem photographer and a young girl stranded in a village who begin to see the ghosts of the dead.

PRECIOUS IS THE NIGHT SINGAPORE

This slick murder mystery from Wayne Peng is set in 1960s Singapore and follows a doctor to the rich who gets entangled in a web of deceit, sex and lies. It was well received at its premiere at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival but could have an uphill battle at the Oscars. This is Singapore’s 15th international feature entry, but the country has yet to be nominated.