24th New York Asian Film Festival

July 11-27, 2025

Photo: © 2025 MEDIACAN, GOLDDOG ENTERTAINMENT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

North American Premiere

Forbidden Fairytale

동화지만 청불입니다

When an aspiring children's author who censors porn crashes into a publishing tycoon's Porsche, her debt payment is delicious irony: write 20 steamy web novels his company desperately needs. The catch? This bookish civil servant's entire romantic history is blank pages. Park Ji-hyun plays Dan-bi, whose "research" includes secretly studying the porn she's paid to censor and mining her bartender friend for bedroom expertise. Her methodically innocent approach to erotica unexpectedly strikes gold. Soon the woman protecting Seoul's youth from corruption becomes the city's hottest adult fiction writer—and realizes she might have finally found where she belongs. With Choi Si-won as the burned-out colleague who rediscovers desire (then love) through her work, this workplace comedy asks the terrifying question: what if your punishment becomes your purpose?

Director: Lee Jong-suk
Cast: Park Ji-hyun, Choi Si-won, Sung Dong-il
Languages: Korean with English subtitles
2024; 120 min.

SCHEDULE:

Sunday July 13, 6:15pm
Film at Lincoln Center

Intro and Q&A with director Lee Jong-suk