Yeon Sang-ho's 'Paradise Lost' Has Sold to 118 Countries

The new psychological thriller from Yeon Sang-ho, the director of Train to Busan, has sold to 118 countries, according to Variety, which interviewed him about the film on November 11, 2026.

Paradise Lost is set in Musan City, a fictional small town in decline that exists only on screen. Its story follows a grieving mother, Ryu So-young, who uses augmented reality glasses, which overlay digital images on the real world, to spend time with her 10-year-old son. He vanished nine years earlier when a camp bus disappeared.

Kim Hyun-joo plays Ryu So-young. She has worked with Yeon before, on both seasons of the series Hellbound and on the animated film Jung_E. Bae Hyeon-seong plays Sun-woo, the returning son, in his first leading role on the big screen.

Yeon wrote the screenplay with Ryu Yong-jae. The story grows out of an original idea that Oh Seong-eun developed into the novel Black Inferno. The title borrows from John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, according to Variety.

Wowpoint produced the film. CJ ENM presents it with Wowpoint and handles its distribution in South Korea. In North America, Well Go USA is the distributor, and the film opened there on November 6.

The film had a modest budget by feature standards. Variety reports that it was made for 500 million South Korean won, about $374,000 in US dollars, across 14 shooting sessions. Yeon's earlier film The Ugly was shot for 200 million won, about $150,000.

Festival audiences have also seen it. Paradise Lost screened in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival and as a Gala Presentation at the Busan International Film Festival. Variety reports that both screenings sold out.

Yeon's previous film Colony premiered in the Midnight Screenings section at Cannes earlier this year. Festival premieres like that one are where sales agents, who sell a film to buyers in different countries, usually begin their work. The 118-country figure is the clearest sign so far of how far the film's sales have travelled.

For viewers, the film is now a title that can reach screens in many countries, with the timing of each release set by the local distributor.