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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, 06:07:14 PM)
Very interesting-- I agree with you that much of Hong Kong movie were 'original'. But when I see most South Korean movies today, they are either not well written or too experimental.
Take Shiri for example. It has probably done well in places like China or Japan, because the Chinese and the Japanese understand the cultural context of the film. (the chinese would even understand what it's like to have a nation devided by politics) But it has not exactly played in multi-plexes in the United States, because the average Americans knows very little about korean culture, history, and politics, and thus would be alienated by the very premise of the movie. Korean movies do well in Korea, because Korean people want to watch film that reflect their reality in context of Korean culture--this is similiar enough to other asian cultures that it does well there too--but it does not do well in Europe or America.
But if you take a look at Hollywood films like Star Wars or Terminator 2, it is devoid of those cultural facets, it is accessible to a Chinese or to a Hindu. The point is, even Hong Kong films have their limitations.
The problem with overly experimental films is that when people watch too much of it, they simply get turned off the next time, and assume it will be an unentertaining art film.
I think that Korea can definitely learn about cutting it's film down to match the ever-lessening global attention span of human being, and also in taking out some political, religious, rhetoric that some "inspired artist" like to put into their films.
Case in point--"Peppermint Candy" was an excellent movie--but it did very poorly in Korean box office as the Korean people were getting sick of movies made about korean politics during the 1980's.
(By the way, i think hollywood, i.e. George Lucas, definitely copied some asian themes(wuxia) when he made Star Wars.)
ka
Friday, May 03, 2002 at 09:46:47 (PDT)
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