•  The Hankyoreh, with yet another really good story, has a look at laws in Korea that discriminate against people with physical and mental handicaps. Points out that things have gotten a lot better than a few years ago, but there is still a lot of prejudice and sloppily written laws.
  • Hong Sang-soo won the director prize at the Locarno Film Festival (Chosun Ilbo)
  • Prostitution and drug abuse rising in North Korea as the government loses control of areas. (Chosun Ilbo). As with all North Korea stories, please read with a bit of skepticism. But this line did amuse me:
Virginity is a prerequisite for the song-and-dance troupes who entertain the North Korean dictator, and the defector said officials had a hard time finding any virgins.
  • Japan’s movie box office is about twice as big as Korea’s, but the health of its local movie scene is quite different. Take a look at the top four domestic movies in each country for the first half of 2013.

Japan 2013 (via Film Business Asia):

  1. One Piece Film Z — ¥6.85 billion (US$69.6 million)
  2. Doraemon: Nobita’s Secret Gadget Museum — ¥3.96 billion yen (US$40.4 million)
  3. Detective Conan Private Eye — ¥3.61 billion (US$36.8 million)
  4. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods — ¥3 billion (US$30.6 million)

Korea 2013 (via KOBIS):

  1. Miracle in Cell 7 — 91.4 billion won (US$82 million)
  2. The Berlin File — 52.4 billion won (US$46.8 million)
  3. Secretly, Greatly — 48.7 billion won (US$43.5 million)
  4. The New World — 34.9 billion won (US$31.1 million)

In Japan, the top four are all animated movies, and all films geared toward children. In Korea, the top four are all live-action, geared toward young adults and adults.