Author: Mark (Page 82 of 90)

The 57th Berlin Film Festival is in full swing, with several Korean movies being featured there. One of those films, Park Chan-wook’s I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OKAY, is being featured in the competition section, so The Hollywood Reporter asked me to put together a Q&A with the famous director.

Just for comparison, here is my 2004 interview with Park. Writing for the trade presses can sometimes feel like you are in a bubble, since the audience is so limited compared to a publication like Newsweek or whatever. But that 2004 interview with Park was perhaps my most noticed article for THR, so I remember it fondly.

The production company Barunson just announced the casting for Kim Ji-woon’s next movie, THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD — and it is a hell of a cast:

No secret that I am no fan of the screen quota. But I found this latest bit of agitprop from the Screen Quota Coalition to be pretty amusing. I’m not sure why this image is anti-FTA, but it is certainly striking.

In other news, AP is reporting that last night’s Denial of Service hacker attack on the Internet had a strong Korea connection:

Other experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.

Not a big surprise, given all that has been written lately about Korea’s Internet problems, especially its short-sighted reliance on Microsoft standards and Active-X. Of course, the Korean IT guys are downplaying the significance of Korea being the source of this DoS attack, blaming “zombie computers” that have been taken over by bad, international hackers. But that just begs the question, why are Korean computers so vulnerable to being turned into zombies?

The new Park Jin-pyo film, VOICE OF A MURDERER, came out strong in its opening weekend, despite some so-so reviews, pulling in an impressive 1.4 million admissions from its opening Wednesday evening to Sunday night. That works out to about $9.4 million, and a hair over 40% of the entire box office last weekend. Perhaps most significantly, the film picked up attendance and screens each day it was open, going from 275 screens on Jan. 31, to 397 screens on Feb. 1, to 530 screens on Saturday.

Way back in No. 2 was THE PERFECT COUPLE, with 59,100 admissions in Seoul, bringing its nationwide total to just over 1 million. Last week’s top film CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER fell to third, with 57,200 admissions in Seoul. The Adam Sandler comedy CLICK opened in fourth, with 176,4000 in ticket sales nationwide. Not great, but about what you might expect for a second-rate foreign comedy.

200 POUND BEAUTY is still hanging around at No 5, bringing its two-month total to 6.4 million.

The two local animations YOBI: THE FIVE-TAILED FOX and ROBOT TAEKWON V are still chugging along in the bottom of the top-10, thanks to all the kids on break (and, more importantly, the parents who want them out of the house). If they can stay in the theaters until the Seollal holiday (Feb. 17-19), they might get a pretty good second wind.

Rounding out the top-10 is SCOOP, which pulled in just over 40,000 admissions on 100 screens.

Outside of the top-10, over in the art-house world, PARIS, JE T’AIME opened well, with 26,266 on just a few screens (cannot find the exact number). And SCIENCE OF SLEEP continues to do steady business on its last remaining screens, bringing its total to 48,051. Another week like last one, and it will top 50,000, which would be a nice symbolic number to surpass.

(Source: Film2.0)

Oh, by the way, Film 2.0 is my source for the top-10. But for other chart information, I go to KOFIC’s database website KOBIS. It is a pretty useful site for box office information, but you need to be able to read Korean to use it. It does not report all the theaters in Korea, just the ones that have installed its electronic tracking service, but that number continues to climb, and is now at 91% of Korea’s screens.

And in a totally different vein… A great video of the Charlie Rose Show, with him talking to Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu is here on Google Video. So interesting to hear from the three of them all together. And such a great comparison for Korea. Here are three directors making great films that matter to them, that make some decent money and that are getting recognized in international circles. As much as I admire so many Korean directors, this is a useful way of seeing how much more they still need to learn and improve. As William Blundell once wrote: “There are two kinds of writers in the world: bad writers and improving writers.”

I also find it interesting how much emphasis they put on leaving their home country and becoming part of the wider world. So many Korean journalists like to talk about the Korean Wave, how Korean culture is doing around the world. But it is so much more important to get feedback/inspiration from as many sources as possible. Look at how many directors got their start outside of Korea (Hong Sang-soo in the United States, Song Il-gon in Poland, Kim Ki-duk in France). But how many directors, since completing their studies, are continuing to spend their time in the world? (And I don’t mean spending a week at a film festival).

• Just got word that THE HOST will be making its US debut on 60-70 screens in March. Originally, there was talk that it would open on well over 100 screens, but apparently THE HOST’s poor showing in European markets has spooked Magnolia a little, so now they will open the film more conservatively.
• THE HOST just came out on DVD here in Korea. I already have my copy of the uber-fancy, super-special edition, and I must say it is a nifty package (even if it is a strange shape that fits awkwardly in my DVD cabinet. The menus inside the DVD are a little awkward, too, with odd English, and few of the extras are subtitled. But overall, I still quite like it. There is a monster gag reel, featuring the creators at the Orphanage screwing around with the special effects. And Bong Joon-ho’s short film that was kind of his test for shooting around the Han River was pretty amusing. Most importantly, though, is the movie itself, which looks gorgeous. They blues and greens of the Han riverside in the rain just pop off the screen, and the whole movie is so richly textured. I think I like it more after looking at it at home that I did the first time around in the theaters.
• THE HOST has a first printing (is that the right term for DVDs?) of 33,000 copies in Korea, including rentals. Plus another 20,000 on VHS. Which might not sound great, but that is pretty spiffy for Korea these days. THE KING AND THE CLOWN had just 30,000 (plus 24,000 on VHS). No word on how it is doing in Japan yet.
• Oh, in my box office report a couple of days ago, I forgot to mention BORAT. BORAT opened in just 15th, with 7,271 admissions. No idea how many screens it was on, sorry.
• Big congratulations to Japan for a great year in movies. EIREN (Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan) announced that Japanese films accounted for 53% of the box office in 2006. First time Japanese movies have taken a majority of the box office in 21 years.

  (UPDATE: Jason Grey has a good post about the year’s box office here. Then he proudly says he will not talk about box office for the rest of the year, concentrating on content instead. But I am not intimidated by someone daring to talk about art instead of commerce. No, I’m not. Really. And a couple of posts earlier, he talks about the year ahead.)

• On the other hand, admissions were up just 2.4% from 2005, reaching 164 million — nearly the same number Korea had last year, despite having just 40% of Japan’s population. But since tickets in Japan cost double what they do in Korea, Japan remains a much bigger market.
• As I indicated in the comments section of another post, still no word when CHILDREN OF MEN will hit the screens in Korea. But now that the Universal Pictures Korea office has been reorganized, hopefully they will get their act together and bring it sooner rather than later.
• Just ran across Brian Yecies’ article FILM CENSORSHIP AS A GOOD BUSINESS IN COLONIAL KOREA. Great stuff. Download it and read it yourself for a fascinating look at the early days of cinema in Korea. One of the many money quotes:
  

  During this time [1934-36], Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros — First National, Universal, independent agent J.H. Morris and others who represented Columbia, MGM, RKO, and United Artists — had direct distribution offices in Seoul. Korea was unquestionably a key territory for Hollywood distributors. There was no better market in Asia for Hollywood films than colonial Korea.

• A follow-up to my post on the new Daniel Gordon movie, CROSSING THE LINE. CBS’s 60 Minutes had a segment on the movie last Sunday. And, to be honest, it was a little weak. The producers basically just repeated the documentary in (very) short form, with no additional insights or analysis. You can see it for yourself here. Or, better yet, see the original documentary for yourself. The actual film is much more in-depth and interesting than the 60 Minutes abbreviation. For those of you reading from the US, it sounds like the odds are good that the film is going to get distribution in the United States. Hopefully you will not have to wait long to see it.

Zhang Yimou takes the top spot this week with his latest costumed, schmuck-foo drama, CURSING THE GOLDEN, FLYING DAGGER FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES (or something like that), taking in a healthy 461,000 in admissions, or about $3.1 million. Someone should force Zhang and Hong Sang-soo to swap their next projects (two extremely talents directors who have both gone to the same well too often).

Once again showing us the Seoul/jibang effect, THE PERFECT COUPLE came in No. 2 in Seoul with 88,100 in attendance (24% behind GOLDEN FLOWER), even though it was No. 1 nationwide with 520,600 in attendance (13% ahead).

Huzzah. 200 POUND BEAUTY just passed MY BOSS, MY TEACHER to become the top comedy of all time in Korea (not to mention the ninth-biggest box office draw). With 6.16 million in attendance and still at No. 3 on the weekend chart, BEAUTY is certain to pass by SHIRI to become the eighth-biggest film ever in Korea. Next in line after SHIRI would be TAZZA, at around 6.8 million in attendance.

Korean animation continues its tepid run with the opening of Lee Sung-gang’s YOBI: THE FIVE-TAILED FOX in No. 7, with 186,000 in attendance. While not a great opening, it already has beaten most Korean animation, though. AATCHI & SSIPAK pulled in just 107,154 in its run last year, EMPRESS CHUNG with 75,957, OSEAM with 60,000 (approx.) and HAMMERBOY with 47,502. WONDERFUL DAYS did around 400,000 or so back in 2003, but I am trying to track down the exact number. So there is still a chance that YOBI could become the biggest Korean animated film ever, or at least in recent memory, especially with the Seollal holidays still to come.

In the meantime, it looks like the biggest animated Korean film is the re-release of the 30-year-old ROBOT TAEKWON V, with 473,8000 in admissions this go-around alone.
(Btw, something I did not know, but apparently the Korean golden age movie great Yu Hyun-mok produced the film… kind of cool). I wish I knew how TAEKWON V did in its original release, but alas I do not.

(Source: Film2.0)