Author: Mark (Page 69 of 90)

‘Pop Goes Korea’ Gets a Cover (Let the Judging Begin)

December 4, 2007 / Mark / 4 Comments

Work on POP GOES KOREA continues, step by step. Whenever I think I have my work done, my lovely editor likes to think up more things to change or add or whatever. Slowly, however, we are getting the book into shape.

Now, the book is not going to hit store shelves until around June-ish, but I do have the cover already. And I guess this is as good a time as any to present it to the world. So, ladies and gentlemen, here is POP GOES KOREA:

Pretty spiffy, no? Kind of a Roy Lichtenstein look going on there, with the color saturation turned way up. Very eye-catching.

In fact, there is even a page for my book over at Amazon.com. I am a little embarrassed to admit that it feels really good to see my work turning up online already. Feels like I have accomplished something semi-substantial for once.

Now, if I can just make sure that the writing is not terrible…

Add Four Your Music Collection

December 4, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

I was rummaging through a local music shop a couple of days ago and what did I find? Why Shin Joong-hyun’s very first album, when he was in the band ADD 4 (actually “Edeu Hwo,” in the transcribed Korean), from the album called BISOK-UI YEOIN. Pony Canyon was nice enough to reissue the CD just a few weeks ago.

The songs are quite interesting. Not nearly as “psychedelic” as the Shin Joong-hyun’s post-Pearl Sisters stuff. Must more of a pre-Beatles sound (as you would expect in a record coming out in the early 1960s).

Most interesting to me, though, is how many of the songs on this album would turn up later. Including the huge hit of 1968, ONE CUP OF COFFEE (“Keopi Hanjan”), although on this album it bears the name NAESOGEUL TAEUNEUN GURYEO. BADATGA also turned up on a Key Boys album, and Seo Yun-seok would sing SOYA EOSEO GAJA.

Anyhow, it is a piece of history and well worth picking up.

Have I mentioned the Shin Joong-hyun box set that is on the way? If not, I should write about that soon.

Korea Weekend Box Office – Nov. 30-Dec. 2

December 3, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

Not a very exciting box office this week. Although I was rather surprised to see the top spot go to AUGUST RUSH, an odd-looking melodrama out of Hollywood in which CJ Entertainment invested. I guess I was watching the wrong TV channels because I did not see a No. 1 opening coming at all. If I were a better blogger, I would check out Cine 21 or some other movie website to see what kind of feedback the film was getting from audiences… but I’m not, so I won’t.

In case you are curious, RUSH’s box office was about $1.7 million over the weekend, for a total of around $2.1 million.

Just to show how off-based my thinking was, if I were to have guessed from advertising and general stories, I might have predicted a big opening for MY ELEVENTH MOTHER. But it opened only in sixth. Even OUR TOWN opened better.

SEVEN DAYS is continuing to do fairly well, landing in No. 2 this weekend.

Rather amazingly, LUST CAUTION is still in third, after four weeks. Ang Lee’s sexy film just keeps on chugging here in Korea, having earned a little over $10 million. Not bad considering it has made just $4.3 million in the United States (since September). In case you are interested, LUST’s top territory so far has been China, where it has made $15 million, with $6 million in Hong Kong and $4 million in Taiwan.

This Week	Title……………………………………..	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance	Total Attendance
1.	August Rush	11.29	321	242,879	301,625
2.	Seven Days (Korean)	11.14	307	220,615	1,284,500
3.	Lust, Caution	11.08	258	136,383	1,359,072
4.	Le Grand Chef (Sikkaek – Korean	11.01	321	122,490	2,662,777
5.	Our Town (Uri Dongne – Korean)	11.29	276	117,008	147,873
6.	My Eleventh Mother (Yeolhanbeonjjae Eomma – Korean)	11.29	260	89,516	129,503
7.	Hitman	11.29	173	56,841	68,396
8.	Beowulf	11.14	221	40,019	911,148
9.	Michael Clayton	11.29	160	38,190	51,825
10.	Saw 4	11.22	200	18,571	238,051

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Oh, last week I forgot to mention the John Cho film WEST 32ND, which opened Nov. 22. But not really my fault, since the film was on just 22 screens and never even approached the top 10. It opened in 17th, then dropped to 25th this week, for a grant total of about $54,000. Despite some decent talent being attached to the film (including Grace Park in a small role), the movie was remarkably dull… You are not missing a hidden gem.

Weekend Concerts

December 1, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

Sorry this post is late. Meant to write it on Wednesday or so but got distracted.

Anyhow, we are now in December, and like most Decembers in Korea, there are a whole bunch of interesting live shows going on. Linkin Park was last night, for example.

Today we have a couple of noteworthy shows. Down in Chungmuro (in the subway station, of all places) at 6pm there is the Never Right Show, with a bunch of fun bands (you can see them listed in the ad below).

And then in Shinchon at 8pm, everybody’s favorite Japanese rocker Sato Yukie is having an acoustic show at Yardbirds.

Next Saturday, the experimental techno folks at Relay will be having a show at Club Hong… which is close to Rolling Hall, on the south side of Hongdae. Show is around 8pm (before the all-night techno fest, I guess).

Korea Weekend Box Office – Nov. 23-25

November 26, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

Quite a jump up for SEVEN DAYS this week, pulling in $2.3 million (up from about $1.8 million last weekend). Not often you see a jump like that (although LE GRAND CHEF did the same just two weeks ago). A good sign people are enjoying Kim Yun-jin’s thriller.

GRAND CHEF and LUST, CAUTION both are continuing to do rather well, off a little but not a lot last weekend. Kind of nifty to see LUST CAUTION breaking the 1 million admissions mark.

SAW 4 and GOLDEN AGE both had fairly tepid openings.

Sorry, not a whole lot of commentary to make this week.

This Week	Title……………………………………..	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance	Total Attendance
1.	Seven Days (Korean)	11.14	332	327,249	866,193
2.	Le Grand Chef (Sikkaek – Korean)	11.01	337	296,588	2,400,304
3.	Lust, Caution	11.08	296	224,655	1,059,333
4.	Beowulf	11.14	305	174,208	808,247
5.	Saw 4	11.21	242	123,353	171,250
6.	Golden Age	11.22	227	83,477	116,831
7.	Scout (Korean)	11.14	285	52,238	268,488
8.	La Vie en Rose	11.21	182	46,482	61,758
9.	Maeulgeumgo Yeonsoe Seupgyeoksageon (Korean)	11.14	162	15,920	108,997
10.	Going by the Book (Bareuge Salja – Korean)	10.18	100	12,575	2,148,639

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Awards, Memoirs, and Ass-kicking

November 23, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

Just wasted an evening watching the 28th Blue Dragon Awards on KBS. Very exciting. A lot of distressing fashion choices there tonight. Granted, I’m no George Clooney, but Kim Tae-hee’s outfit was pretty hideous.

This was my first awards show with HD, and as unfortunate as some of those dresses were, my friends were even more shocked by lines and bad makeup on many of the stars. HD really is pretty cruel to some celebrities.

Anyhow, as for the awards themselves, no single film dominated this year. No real terrible decisions, either.

Best Film – THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Best Director – Hur Jin-ho, HAPPINESS

Best Actor – Song Kang-ho, THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Best Actress – Jeon Do-yeon

Best Supporting Actor – Kim Sang-ho, THE HAPPY LIFE

Best Supporting Actress – Na Moon-hee, CRUEL WINTER BLUES

Best Screenplay – Kim Nam-min, PARADISE MURDERED

Best Cinematography – Yoon Nam-ju, EPITAPH

Best Lighting – HWANG JIN-YI

Best Art Design – EPITAPH

Best Effects – THE RESTLESS

Best New Director – Kim Nam-min, PARADISE MURDERED

Best New Actor – Daniel Henney, MY FATHER

Best New Actress – Jeong Reo-won, THE TWO FACES OF MY GIRLFRIEND

I probably missed a couple of awards, but I cannot think of them right now… and do not care enough to double-check.
—–

Btw, the great actress Choi Eun-hee has just written an autobiography. You can read a summary of it here.

—–

And now, for no particular reason, here is a picture from Jun Ji-hyun’s coming film BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE. I think it is a pretty good teaser. Enjoy.

Awards, Memoirs, and Ass-kicking

November 23, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

Anyhow, as for the awards themselves, no single film dominated this year. No real terrible decisions, either.

Best Film – THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Best Director – Hur Jin-ho, HAPPINESS

Best Actor – Song Kang-ho, THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Best Actress – Jeon Do-yeon

Best Supporting Actor – Kim Sang-ho, THE HAPPY LIFE

Best Supporting Actress – Na Moon-hee, CRUEL WINTER BLUES

Best Screenplay – Kim Nam-min, PARADISE MURDERED

Best Cinematography – Yoon Nam-ju, EPITAPH

Best Lighting – HWANG JIN-YI

Best Art Design – EPITAPH

Best Effects – THE RESTLESS

Best New Director – Kim Nam-min, PARADISE MURDERED

Best New Actor – Daniel Henney, MY FATHER

Best New Actress – Jeong Reo-won, THE TWO FACES OF MY GIRLFRIEND

I probably missed a couple of awards, but I cannot think of them right now… and do not care enough to double-check.
—–

Btw, the great actress Choi Eun-hee has just written an autobiography. You can read a summary of it here.

—–

And now, for no particular reason, here is a picture from Jun Ji-hyun’s coming film BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE. I think it is a pretty good teaser. Enjoy.

Music, Manners and Mammaries

November 20, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

I usually try not to just link to other people’s stories when I do not have much of my own to add, but there were a bunch of interesting articles in today’s Chosun Ilbo. And they all made the English edition, so that is even more convenient.

First up, there was an article about Seo Taiji’s latest, a new CD set and other events to commemorate the singer’s 15th year anniversary of stardom. Funny old photos of Seo, too. Say what you will about the quality of his music, it is great to know there was a time when someone off the radar appeared and genuinely transformed a country with his songs (and dancing and whatnot).

Very amusing story about Korean audiences’ “bad manners.” Usually I am not a big fan of those self-flagellating, aren’t-we-Koreans-terrible story (or their silly opposite, the boastful, aren’t-we-Koreans-amazing stories), but this one seemed a little more interesting than most.

The article lists the usual litany of social faux-pas, like bringing very young children to classical music concerts (or anywhere, in my humble opinion), snoring at the movies, not turning off cell phones at the movies, talking on cell phones at the movies, taking endless pictures of golfers with cell phones at tournaments (I seem to notice a theme to theme complaints…). But in addition to just complaining, it added a little analysis toward the end:

The lack of manners is probably due to the small number of concert-goers here, most of whom have little education in the etiquette. According to a 2006 survey on Koreans’ culture and art-related activities, only 6.8 went to museums and 3.6 percent to classical concerts.

Really? Do more Chicagoans or Torontonians go to classical concerts? I guess it depends if we are talking about “going in a year” or “going ever in their lifetimes.” But I think the article finally got at a more interesting, local aspect of the problem here:

Another big problem is the mass giveaway of concert tickets.

Bingo. The whole live music scene here (classical and contemporary) has some rather odd economics. People love to complain that shows are “too expensive,” but somehow corporations have the money to sponsor these shows and then give away scads of tickets to anyone and everyone.

Although the article cited a lot of problematic behaviours, personally my biggest complaint about audiences here is the applauding of utter crap. It’s like a competition to see who can shout encore first and loudest. And the multiple curtain calls to some off-key warbler at the opera or wherever is just plain annoying. I prefer the Italian example, where people feel free to boo a lousy performance, like it were a sporting event.

I think that ties into the free tickets… people are going who are not really fans of the performance and who do not know much about it, and are instead just acting out some misconceived idea of what a classical concert should be.

Then again, I have been repeatedly watching Carrie Underwood singing the Heart song “Alone” on American Idol (via Youtube), so maybe I should keep my bitchy comments about people’s bad taste to myself.

Finally (and best of all) was the Chosun’s article about photographer Kim Yong-ho. Kim got into trouble recently when he published some topless photos of ballerina Kim Ju-won in the local VOGUE magazine. Or, rather, the ballerina got into trouble (women tend to get blamed for moral outrages in Korea).

Some of Kim’s other photos are currently on display at the Daelim Contemporary Art Museum in Seoul, in an exhibit called BODY (or mom, in Korean). As Kim says in the article:

I wanted to get attention from all sectors of society; that was the main objective of my exhibition. But all I got was the realization that our reality does not tolerate diversity. We had a fine response from the readers of Vogue magazine. But what happens to the model? She’s criticized and disciplined. Those are in a way the different faces of our society.

It looks like a good show. You should check it out if you get the chance.

Korea Weekend Box Office – Nov. 16-18

November 19, 2007 / Mark / 0 Comments

For the third weekend in a row, LE GRAND CHEF was the biggest film in land, adding another $2.7 million to bring its total boxoffice to around $14 million.

BEOWULF followed closely No. 2, with around $2.6 million, or $3.7 million including previews. Once again, the folks in Hollywood screwed up their numbers, though, as for some reason the international trades are reporting BEOWULF was on 159 screens in Korea (not the actual 359, giving the movie an insane per-screen average).

Hrm, just got a call from Warner. They claim the film was on 276 screens. Wonderfully confusing.

I was surprised that the Kim Yun-jin thriller SEVEN DAYS did not do better. I thought it had a strong marketing push and pretty good reviews. Despite that, it only opened in third.

LUST, CAUTION is still doing well, at fourth. Apparently the movie is a big hit with women, who make up 70% of tickets sold (much higher than the usual male/female split, which is closer to 50/50).

SCOUT did remarkably poorly, for a film showing on over 400 screens.

And ONCE is still holding on to 10th, nearly two months after its release. In fact, ONCE’s soundtrack is the best-selling foreign CD in the land at the moment,

This Week	Title……………………………………..	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance	Total Attendance
1.	Le Grand Chef (Sikkaek – Korean)	11.01	472	379,566	1,915,622
2.	Beowulf	11.14	359	365,619	501,734
3.	Seven Days (Korean)	11.14	373	252,313	346,747
4.	Lust, Caution	11.08	297	220,343	644,057
5.	Scout (Korean)	11.14	403	129,490	167,940
6.	Going by the Book (Bareuge Salja – Korean)	10.18	243	64,589	2,108,789
7.	Maeulgeumgo Yeonsoe Seupgyeoksageon (Korean)	11.14	226	57,446	75,174
8.	The Butterfly	11.08	212	20,173	175,445
9.	Lost Lines	11.08	176	17,583	143,280
10.	Once	9.20	19	9,740	158,285

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Korean Music Charts – October 2007

November 18, 2007 / Mark / 5 Comments

Back when I started this blog, I included the Music Industry Association of Korea’s month music sales chart as part of my regular comments, but after a few months I stopped. It was just too depressing. Sales were miserable and the quality of music in the charts was even more miserable. I did not want to spend all my time complaining and being negative, so I decided not to write about it.

But I found myself curious about how the music biz has been doing this year, so I checked out the latest MIAK charts.

The most immediate thing I noticed is that only one album released in 2007 has sold over 100,000 albums. Pretty shocking, really, considering just a few years ago top stars would move 1 or 2 million. But these days, SG Wannabe can become the biggest selling artist of the year with just 190,000 albums sold.

The second thing I noticed was the dominance of ballads in October. The top five albums are all ballad oriented!

It also looks like that brute-force marketing is less and less useful. Super Junior’s latest has already fallen to 11th, after being released on Sept. 20. Wondergirls have dropped all the way to 17th, and have sold just 18,000 copies of their first album since it was released on Sept. 13. TELL ME might be catchy and might even be a hit at the karaoke rooms, but Wondergirl fans are not buying CDs at all.

Other notes:

Lee Sang-eun’s 13th album made its debut in 25th.

Hey, Shim Soo-bong has a new album! It’s her 11th, and it hit the stores on Oct. 25. Not so many Shim fans left apparently, as it opened in 34th. Not that time or that person anymore, I guess.

With foreign music selling so miserably, classical music is growing ever bigger, at least on a proportional basis.

Even Paul Potts (the musical equivalent of the Nixon-Kennedy debate) is selling in Korea. And Andrea Bocelli. I’m not sure whose success I find more distressing. Do yourself a favor — check out their stories on Wikipedia or Youtube or wherever, cry, emote do whatever you feel compelled to do. Then head directly to a music store and completely IGNORE their CDs. Buy something by Jussi Bjorling instead. Your ears will thank you.

This Month	Artist	Album Name	Release Date	This Month’s Sales	Total Sales
1.	Eru	Vol. 3 – Eru Returns	9.19	30,978	42,228
2.	Brown-Eyed Soul	Vol 2	10.31	30,095	30,095
3.	FT Island	FT Island	6.08	28,746	76,097
4.	See Ya	Vol. 2	5.25	27,807	81,393
5.	SG Wannabe	Vol. 4	4.06	19,050	190,125
6.	Jo PD	Vol. 6	10.22	17,364	17,364
7.	Cho Shin-seong	Vol. 1	10.25	15,405	15,405
8.	Lee Soo-young	Vol. 8 – Set It Down	9.12	15,027	51,035
9.	Lee Seung-chul	Vol. 9 – The Secret of Color 2	10.18	14,604	14,604
10.	Taewangsasingi OST	Taewangsasingi OST	10.17	13,841	13,841

(source: MIAK)

And here is the foreign sales chart:

This Month	Artist	Album Name	Release Date	This Month’s Sales	Total Sales
1.	Once OST	Once OST	8.14	12,160	13,138
2.	BoA	Complete Clips 2004-2006	3.21	12,000	13,258
3.	Richard Yongjae O’Neill	Winter Journey	9.11	9,968	9,968
4.	Luciano Pavarotti	Pavarotti Forever	9.20	3,730	5,606
5.	Orchestra de Nodame	Orchestra de Nodame Live	8.23	3,552	12,074
6.	Richard Yongjae O’Neill	Lachrymae	2006.9.07	3,222	30,703
7.	BoA	Love Letter	10.04	3,189	3,189
8.	Andrea Bocelli	Best of Andrea Bocelli	10.25	3,063	3,063
9.	Ennio Morricone	Gold Edition	10.02	2,445	2,445
10.	Paul Potts	One Chance	8.02	2,113	2,113