Books, blog and other blather

Category: Korean culture (Page 3 of 3)

Kim Il Passes Away

One of Korea’s greatest professional wrestlers, Kim Il has passed away. Kim, who was better known in Japan as Kintaro Ohki, was the man most responsible for bringing pro graps from Japan over to Korea in the 1960s.

Trained by Rikidozan (Kim Shin-rak) in the late 1950s, Kim Il made his debut around the same time as Antonio Inoki (handing Inoki a loss in Inoki’s debut match) and the Giant Baba, although he never acheived the heights of fame and popularity that either of those men did.

While professional wrestling was for many years extremely popular in Korea, it never quite reached the insane levels it did in Japan. And then in the early 1990s, when the local TV stations revealed how wrestling is “fake”, the sport’s popularity plummeted and never really recovered. Now, the WWE does okay when it swings by here once or twice a year, but there is very little local wrestling (despite what THE FOUL KING might have you believe).

I find it incredibly interesting now Korean audiences were never able to come to grips with the unreality of professional wrestling, in a way that never seemed to bother Japanese audiences (or how acknowledging pro wrestling’s scripted side only made the WWE more popular in the late 1990s). Why does that bother some people so much? Who gets upset when they learn that Arnold Schwarzenegger is not really a robot or that the actors playing Romeo and Juliet are not really dead at the end of the play?

(This is not an exclusively Korean problem, of course. In the late Middle Ages/Early Modern era in Europe, when Morality Plays were first catching on, the Church objected to plays largely on the grounds that people would not be able to tell the difference between the story and reality. It is a concern that lives on, from THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST to THE DA VINCI CODE, from THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG to DEATH OF A PRESIDENT). (End of digression).

Professional wrestling, at its best, is extra-large pantomime… telling stories for thousands of people without using any words. Plays might feature a duel or sword fight or whatever to advance their stories, but pro wrestling is basically making the entire play out of the duel, stripping away the words. Sure, it can be vulgar and simplistic and have the air of the Roman Colosseum; but at its best, pro wrestling is fantastic theater.

Anyhow, a Youtube clip of Kim Il versus the Giant Baba, featuring plenty of Kim Il’s famous headbutts. Sweet. Not so sweet, however, is how that Youtube match ends.

(PS: Sorry for the lack of posts, but in this case it is a good thing — the book has been going well. And the book always trumps all over tasks.)

Chuseok Is Coming…

Well, it looks like Chuseok (Korea’s fall harvest festival) is going to be rather unusual this year. Since it is a holiday determined by the lunar calendar, it moves around each year, and this year it falls on Oct. 5-7. But Oct. 3 is Korea’s National Foundation Day, to celebrate the founding of Korea by Dangun, the son of a god and a bear-woman, in 2333 BC (could have happened).

Anyhow, with Tuesday, Thursday and Friday already holidays, a good chunk of Korea is taking Monday and Wednesday off, too, and basically having a big vacation from Sept. 29 to Oct. 8. A nice eight or nine days off.

The reason I mention this is that Chuseok is also usually the biggest movie-going season in Korea. And they do not just go to any old movie — usually this is one of the strongest seasons for local movies. Last year, when Chuseok was a more normal five days, 3.5 million people went to the movies (assuming no one went more than once). With a big 10 days off, the movie industry is practically giddy at the thought of how many tickets they might be able to sell. 10 million? 11 million? 12? Considering that Korea is on track to sell around 160 million tickets this year, conceivably around 8% of the year’s box office could be decided over this 10-day stretch.

Which is why so many movies are coming out right now. You have RADIO STAR, the new movie by Lee Joon-ik (the guy who made THE KING AND THE CLOWN, the surprise hit of last winter which was until recently the most successful Korean film of all time). This story, starring two of the biggest names from the 1990s, Park Joong-hoon and Ahn Sung-gi, about a washed up rock star becoming a radio deejay out in the countryside, seemed pretty dubious to me. A real retro, Chungmuro story, the kind of thing that the Korean film industry would have made 10 years ago.

However, the film has been getting great buzz from its preview screenings. So who knows?

Another big film will be WAR OF FLOWERS (which I think CJ Entertainment has renamed, but I cannot find the new name, if it exists), a crime-noir thriller sort of thing about some card sharks. WAR OF FLOWERS is based on a popular newspaper comic strip from the 1990s, and it is directed by Choi Dong-hoon, the guy behind THE BIG SWINDLE, a film that did well among critics, even though it kind of flailed at the box office.

WAR OF FLOWERS is getting pretty good buzz, but more importantly, it is being distributed by CJ Entertainment. Why is that important? Because with so many films coming out right now, getting access to screens is incredibly competitive. And since CJE runs the CJ CGV, the biggest multiplex chain in Korea, that gives their movies an instant leg up.

Other films? Well, MARRYING THE MAFIA 3 and MAUNDY THURSDAY are both still doing well, and will fight to keep their screens. And there is some sort of Kim Jung-eun “comedy” called JAL SALABOSE (“Let’s Get Better,” a very famous song from the Saemaeul movement in the 1970s). There is also THE FOX FAMILY, a comedy-horror based on Korea’s folktale of the nine-tailed foxes.

Buena Vista Korea is distributing the new Jackie Chan film ROB-B-HOOD. While I am not a huge fan of Mr. Chan’s recent films, nor of films revolving around cute babies, Jackie often does okay in Korea, and BV has got around 165 screens for the film, so who knows, it could do well (I’m told they are tracking 400,000 or so over this opening weekend).

And believe it or not, there is more. Altogether, around 11 movies make their debuts over this weekend.

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