MUMBAI: The Korean Film Festival in China 2010went underway in Beijing on Thursday with the screening of films by directors like Kim Ki-duk and Park Chan-wook.

It is the largest retrospective of Korean cinema ever held in China and coincides with mounting tensions between Beijing and Seoul over North Korea.

The most unusual title at the festival for China‘s usually middle-of-the-road cinema fare is probably the Lee Young Ae-starrer Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. The film made in 2005 is about a woman taking up a torturous revenge after she‘s released from prison for a murder she did not commit.

The Korean film retrospective‘s earliest title is director Han Hyung-mo‘s 1956 drama Madame Freedom and Kim Sung-oo‘s Chinese film My Ex-wife‘s Wedding that premiered at the Pusan International Film Festival in October.

Kim will also host a master class for Chinese festival-goers.