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ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Is Corean (Korean) Cinema the New HK Cinema?
t the peak of its Golden Era between the mid-80s and early-90s Hong Kong cinema was defending nearly half its domestic box office turf against Hollywood imports, thanks to an unusual concentration of mega-talents like John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan and Tsui Hark. No other film industry in the world had been able to claim that for a half century. What's more, some HK kung-fu and gangster flicks outdrew Hollywood thrillers in many international markets.
Corean heartthrob Won Bin
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Hollywood's strategy for coping with the HK threat? Simple and devastatingly effective -- buy up the biggest box-office draws. The result has been an epic shift: the top HK talents have been reduced mostly to coolie-ing on Hollywood formulaics while HK cinema has become a parched gulch with bounding tumbleweeds and half-hinged screen doors banging forlornly with every hot gust.
Corean American Shiri star Kim Yoon-jin
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But just as Asian Americans resigned themselves to having screen images hijacked by a remarkably Asian-unfriendly Hollywood, Corean cinema began throwing off heat. Beginning in the early 90s a hardy new generation of Corean filmmakers made themselves fixtures at the award ceremonies of Cannes, Venice and other international film festivals. By the turn of the century Corea's Pusan Film Festival emerged as Asia's premiere celluloid bazaar. But that was small potatoes, not enough to catch the notice of an industry whose real lifeblood is box office.
Then came Shiri (1999), Kang Jae-gyu's lovingly-wrought, haunting thriller about a deadly North Corean female terrorist who falls in love with exactly the wrong guy. It became the first domestic film in history to break the 2 million ticket mark for the Seoul metropolitan area (which accounts for about 25% of the Corean market), and went on to outgross Hollywood blockbusters like The Mummy, The Matrix, Titanic, Star Wars Episode One and Toy Story. Its $5 million budget is less than a tenth of what Hollywood spends at the drop of a dime but was considered a daring gamble. It paid off. Domestic box office receipts ultimately spiked past $60 million, ensuring an unexpected profit for the film's backer Samsung Entertainment -- and more importantly, whetting the appetites of investors for more "big-budget" projects.
Director Kang took pains to point out that Shiri's success was founded on a painstakingly crafted screenplay -- something few Corean directors had bothered with before then.
In 2000 and 2001 alone, two Corean films surpassed Shiri's box office benchmarks: Joint Security Area (DMZ military mystery/drama, 2000) and Friend (male-bonding, 2001). These blockbusters have stimulated a general upsurge of interest in domestic films. Films like Friend and My Sassy Girl (romantic comedy) outgrossed Hollywood megapics like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. They helped make Corea the only market in which domestic films captured over 50% of box office receipts, with Hollywood fare attracting 40%.
As the saga of Hong Kong cinema has shown, nothing yanks Hollywood's chain like being kicked at the box office. Major studios have begun importing Shiri, Musa (co-starring Zhang Zhiyi as a Ming princess rescued by Corean swordsmen) and other Corean films for limited U.S. theatrical release and video distribution. More significantly -- or ominously, depending on your perspective -- they have begun signing Corean talent. One is actress Shin Eun-kyung who starred in the popular comedy My Wife Is a Gangster (2001) which outgrossed Lord of the Rings. Shin will play the female lead opposite Andy Garcia. Miramax even paid $1.1 million for the remake rights to My Wife Is a Gangster.
Is Corean cinema the new Hong Kong cinema? Or will an Asian version of Hollywood ultimately emerge in Corea?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:07:15 PM)
Ka,
I couldnt disagree with you more, the reason for the success of Hong Kong in the mid 80's and early 90's in Asia and with a segement of movie watchers in the United States, such as myself was because they were unlike anything produced by Hollywood. I guess you didnt really read this article or maybe only read certain parts of it.
What drew me to Hong Kong and Asian cinema in general was its uniquely hyperkinetic gleefully over the type style, in took conventional film ideas and turned them inside, upside down and them blew them apart. You wanna know why Crouching, Tiger was so sucessful? The reason is because it was not a Hollywood product it was uniquely Asian,
I couldnt imagine Hollywood even attempting such a product.
One aspect of your comments were true, that the influence of Hollywood and Asian films is a two way street, I have seen some Hong Kong films imitate Hollywood films badly and then I have seen some films take one aspect of a Hollywood film and add a unique insanely
creative twist on it, but now the trend of Hollywood is to try its best to copy the style of Hong Kong films, with none of the substance of creativity, of course they are a few exceptions to the rule and so it seems to be Hollywood is running out of original ideas so it co-opts ideas, steals scenes, and even remakes asian films and pass off the product their own.
Look how american films have done Chow Yun-Fat two gun diving, sliding technique and beat to death John Woo slow mo style shootouts, so that Woo in Hollywood thanks to interference of studio hacks and big ego hollwood producers and stars have become watered down lite versions of his Hong Kong work
, so that some of his material, with the exception of Face/Off looks no different than that of his imitators which are too many to mention here, that far too often dont even acknowldge their inspirations.
Shiri and other Korean films have become successful in their countries because they are well written and addresss cultural issues that the latest empty headed Hollywood blockbuster not only fails to mentions, but most of the time denigrates. Do you think Hollywood would have even made an action film with a purely Korean cast about a South Korean intellingence agent try to stop a North Korean assination plot? Would they have used the symbol of the shiri fish
referred to in the title that only grows in the waters between the DMZ zone, i think not.
Shiri was such a success, because like the Hong Kong best Hong kong action films it combined exciting action with an intellingent story, compelling characters (even the bad guys were 3 dimensional) to make a moving, action packed film (yes its possible) that addresses the Korean peoples yearning for unification of North and South Korea. Refreshingly, the action scenes werent imitations of John Woo's stylistic acrobatic balletic bloodblaths, and were realistic in the way that the characters handled the weapons.
Hollywood is scared of the competition, so it buys it out, like it did John Woo, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li and Hollywoodizing them instead of allowing the style with the substance and context of what made these people superstars.
I am sad to hear that Korean films will be the next victim and that we will see a Korea actress play lead to another Hollywood nonasian male and see Korean films be remade and diluted by the Hollywood assembly line, God forbid Hollywood and US moviegoers should embrace other Asian film free of Hollywood influence.
Another thing that burns me up is the repackaging of Asian films and Korean films are the next causality with Nowhere to Hide dubbed and realeased with 20 mintues missing and the Shiri poster art makes it appear to a tacky erotic direct to video action thriller, showing a faceless body of a long haired of what appears to be asian female in a revealing dress and looks completely different from the poster art in Asian which display the 2 main male characters.
I wish Hollywood would stop repackaging and Hollywoodizing Asian films and make more of them available for distribution in their original state without dubbing (ok i can compromise, subtitles options on the dvd)rescoring, or re-editing them for whatever cockamy reason they have and also to stop attracting Asian talent and then not allowing to do what they did in Asian that make them attract attention in the first place.
chowyunpat
chowyunpat@yahoo.com
Thursday, May 02, 2002 at 03:07:10 (PDT)
??--
I think it's just the opposite. For asian cinema to do really well, they have to imiatate Hollywood. Korean movie Shiri is a turning point in Korean cinema where all previous films were made for arthouse audience with no regards for entertainment value.
Certainly Korean cinema cannot compete against Hollywood even though they say Korean films have a greater market share in Korea (there is strict market control enforced by the government). Nevertheless Korean cinema is clearly emulating the successful formulaic films of Hollywood and even Hong Kong.
Even John Woo's gangster flicks had Hollywood western influence--of course hollywood westerns had inspiration from Akira Kurosawa...
ka
Thursday, April 25, 2002 at 07:58:47 (PDT)
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