in our korea special, we'll be hearing from celine song, the korean—canadian director whose film pastot partly here in seoul, earned a coveted best picture oscar nomination, putting her on the map as a major new voice in world cinema. we'll also be looking at a disconcerting documentary which explores the plight of north koreans trying to defect. and how technology is changing the way that films are being viewed and made in south korea. the phenomenal international success of streaming shows like squid game or films like parasite have conveyed the impression that all is rosy with the media landscape in south korea. it was hoped that the awards success of the historic oscar winner parasite in 2020 would take the cinema industry here to new levels of success around the globe. but it hasn't quite worked out like that. seoul—based film critic darcy paquet has been writing about korean cinema for almost 25 years. he also did the english language translations for the oscar—winning parasite. covid seemed to change everything, and i, for one, thought that, you know, things would return to nor

the film is very much inspired by the life of its writer and director, celine song, who was born here5. alan moloney went to meet her. there is a word in korean — inyeon. it means providence or fate. past lives focuses on two childhood friends over a 24—year period. we first meet them as children in seouljust before nora moves with her family to canada. the story picks up 12 years later on separate continents as they reunite over social media before again dropping in on them 12 years later. it's a film about relationships and identity, delicately told by playwright and first—time director celine song. she's been widely praised for the confidence she displays in her direction. how did you finally kind of make thatjump and be able to kind of take this on, then? well, i can really talk about it as falling in love, because i think a few weeks into my making the movie, i think i had this feeling that i was like, ha, i'vejust met the love of my life and it is film—making, and i know i'm going to do this till i'm 95 _ i'm going to do this forever. i'm going to do this till i die. celine song

celine dion, toni braxton. >> and of course, the beatles and elvis presley. >> how many songs in your repertoire? around how many? >> thousands already? >> and if you don't know it, you pretty much can fake it real quick. >> yeah, yeah. >> five years from now, where would you like to be? where would you like to be playing? >> that's a good question. >> like, my biggest dream is to play in las vegas. in the u.s.. this is my dream. >> when we get to the dream, you know, playing at las vegas, we want to play first. >> when we got there. we are the champions. if we get there. >> i want to be the greatest player that i could possibly become. hurry. hurry, hurry. >> i just. >> need to make exceptional the standard in the all new buick enclave experience. truly effortless driving that invites you to let go, and stunning technology that's in a class of its own, with quiet tuning that comes standard and room to bring everything along for the ride. the enclave puts you at the center of it all. buick exceptional by design. >> your parents have given you some amazing gifts. celebrate the ones you inherited w

celine dion ballad. >> jimmy: really? peabo bryson! >> like when disney did ballads. >> jimmy: really. >> and then the other thing was like i remember reading online someone saying, "lin doesn't write villain songs kids? >> they do. they really -- i mean, it's funny. my kids, the sweetest thing my 6-year-old said, actually, when "warriors" came out. the day "warriors" came out, frankie said to me, "can i sing it at school now?" because they know that they're not allowed to sing the songs out in the world until the things are released. >> jimmy: we don't talk about bruno! we don't! you know the rules. it's the name of the song. >> also, there's so much cursing in "warriors" that i was just like, "yeah, buddy, go sing that to your first grade class." [ laughter ] >> jimmy: yeah, please don't do that. they're the cutest kids. but i saw one of the lists of the songs, it was like, i always wanted a brother or something. >> yeah, so that was a line of dialogue in the script and then i wrote, i was like that's a a great lyric. that's the name of the song and i wrote to that lyric. and then when i saw my kids singing, "i always wanted a a brother" to each other, i was like, "got 'em." they're like my be

song. that's very rare. it was really a lot of fun. >> rebecca: when we think of disney balads, there are some great ones. elton john, celine dion.rcle of life, be prepared, just can't wait to be king, can you feel the love tonight. every single one of them. the fun of this is, what are the songs you need to tell the story? and the balance really exciting. we haven't had a balad in a disney movie in a long time. it's been a minute. there's one "i know it's you" around the third act of this movie. i'm proud of it as anything i have ever been in. >> whit: let's look at a clip. ♪ ♪ let's go let's go let's go ♪ ♪ >> whit: i love watching the new movie. >> i'm getting to see this kind of for the first time right now. you see lots of story boards along the way. but, yeah, that song is called "i always wanted a brother." i knew i was going to be okay when i heard my kids singing i always wanted a brother. all right. the beta testers like it. >> whit: i was going to say, beyonce is reprizing her role as nala in the film. i understand you always wanted to write a song for her? >> any songwriter alive wants to write a song for her. >> whit