Yoon Ga-eun’s The World of Love opens in Japan on 11 December through the distributor Bitters End, under the Japanese title Ju-in Doesn’t Like Apples, according to the distributor’s official site. The release begins in Tokyo, at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho and Bunkamura Le Cinéma Shibuya Miyashita, before expanding nationwide.
Updated 07:08 CET, 26 October 2026: adds the 14 October poster and trailer, the Korean admissions and awards, the cast, and a cross-link to the Red Sea festival prize.
Key facts
- The World of Love opens in Japan on 11 December as Ju-in Doesn’t Like Apples, released by Bitters End.
- It starts at two Tokyo cinemas before a wider roll-out.
- The film drew more than 200,000 admissions in Korea (KOBIZ records 207,617).
- Bitters End released a Japanese poster and trailer on 14 October, carrying praise from Bong Joon-ho and Greta Lee.
- Lead actress Seo Su-bin won new-actress prizes at the Baeksang Arts Awards and best actress at the Red Sea festival.
A new title is a new way in, and that is the story here rather than a fresh acquisition. The Japanese release was first announced in September; this is the follow-through, now with a date, venues and a campaign. Where the international title points at an idea, the Japanese title, Ju-in Doesn’t Like Apples, names a character and an odd, specific detail, offering local audiences a hook rather than an abstraction. The sales story has become a marketing story.
Bitters End has something to sell with. The film drew more than 200,000 admissions in Korea, with KOBIZ recording 207,617, a solid figure for a small drama from the director of The World of Us. It also arrives carrying prizes: Yoon Ga-eun took the film-director award and Seo Su-bin the new-actress award at the 62nd Baeksang Arts Awards, and Seo added best actress at the Red Sea festival as well as other new-actress honours. On 14 October the distributor released a Japanese poster and trailer quoting Bong Joon-ho, who called the film a “masterpiece,” and the actor Greta Lee, the kind of endorsement that travels in the arthouse market.
The cast is led by Seo Su-bin, with Jang Hye-jin, Kim Jung-sik, Kang Chae-yoon, Lee Jae-hee and Kim Ye-chan. Yoon’s earlier feature, The World of Us, played in the Berlinale’s Generation strand and won prizes at Tokyo FILMeX, which gives the new film a built-in audience among Japanese festival-goers who followed that film.
The cross-links are worth noting. Seo Su-bin’s best-actress win came at the Red Sea festival, whose fund we covered in Red Sea Fund backs 30 projects from 916 submissions; the film’s home market is the same one examined in Korea’s 73% week; and the broader question of who actually carries a film to its audience runs through our analysis of the week’s deals.
Our reading
For a buyer tracking Asian arthouse titles, the signal is in the packaging, not the acquisition. A local distributor is not only buying availability; it is choosing a title, a poster and a set of endorsements calibrated for its own market, which is how a modest Korean drama earns a theatrical life abroad. The evidence to watch is the Tokyo opening and whether the two-cinema start widens as planned, the first real test of whether the renamed campaign lands with audiences who have not already heard of Yoon.