Books, blog and other blather
Oh, what the hey. Here is a fast list of the top-10 over the weekend (via KOBIS).
1. Miracle of 1st Street
2. Highway Star
3. A Day for an Affair
4. Voice of a Murderer
5. Master KIMs
6. Bridge to Terabithia
7. Flag of Our Fathers
8. Rocky Balboa
9. Charlotte’s Web
10. The Queen
A couple of small Korean connections at the Berlin Film Festival, which announced its awards over the weekend. The big winner at Berlin was the Chinese film TUYA’S MARRIAGE, about life in Chinese Mongolia. TUYA is not a Korean film, however it is being sold internationally (except in Chinese and French territories and Indonesia) by the very Korean Cineclick Asia. So congratulations to them. This is Cineclick’s first non-Korean title (although they have been working on the latest Siddiq Barmaq film OPIUM WARS for a while).
Park Chan-wook’s I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OKAY also picked up a small award, the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovation.
Btw, movie box office report will be a day late this week, thanks to the Seollal lunar new year holiday.
Btw II, sorry for not posting the January CD sales numbers. I wanted to post them at the same time as the 2006 annual figures were released, but those totals seem to be delayed.
Just a top-nine list this week, at least that’s all Film 2.0 is sharing with us.
Leading the way is A DAY FOR AN AFFAIR, Kim Hye-su’s first film since re-igniting her career with TAZZA last fall. An R-rated sex-comedy about bored housewives looking for a little fun outside of their marriages… Not a bad opening, heading into the big holiday weekend next week, with 685,500 admissions, or about $4.62 million.
Last week’s big hit, VOICE OF A MURDERER, lost some steam in its sophomore weekend, dropping to No. 2 and losing about 50% of its box office. VOICE was the first big hit from the new production company Zip Cine. They are a really good, small production house, and I’m quite happy to see them doing well. Zip’s next release will be the new Hur Jin-ho film, HAPPINESS… coming out some time in the summer or fall (date not set yet, although the filming is done).
Third went to the debut of THE MASTER KIMS, known in Korean by the more elaborate title KIM GWAN-JANG DAE KIM GWAN-JANG DAE KIM GWAN-JANG. CHARLOTTE’S WEB was the other big debut this week, hitting the chart in fourth.
And… nothing too exciting happening in the top-10 this week. YOBI held on, at No. 9, so has a decent shot at getting a little Seollal holiday bounce next weekend.
Oh, and No. 10 was APOCALYPTO, in case you were wondering.
| This Week | Title…………………………………. | Release Date | Screens Nationwide | Weekend Attendance (Seoul only) | Total Attendance |
| 1. | A Day for an Affair | 2.08 | 413 | 166,000 | 685,500 | 2. | Voice of a Murderer | 1.31 | 440 | 131,000 | 2,400,000 | 3. | Master KIMs | 2.08 | 397 | 104,300 | 504,600 | 4. | Charlotte’s Web | 2.08 | 150 | 37,000 | 150,000 | 5. | Click | 2.01 | 151 | 31,000 | 333,300 | 5. | The Perfect Couple | 1.25 | 228 | 27,000 | 1,257,100 | 7. | 200-Pound Beauty | 12.14 | 155 | 21,700 | 6,561,800 | 8. | Curse of the Golden Flower | 1.25 | 162 | 13,900 | 897,400 | 9. | Yobi: The Five-Tailed Fox | 1.25 | 105 | 10,000 | 420,000 |
(Source: Film2.0)
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:
In addition to those big names, Kim is reuniting with his cinematographer from TALE OF TWO SISTERS, Lee Mo-gae.
GBW is still just in the script phase, so be prepared for a bit of a wait still. I think they are aiming for summer 2008 for the release. The movie will probably film in China, probably in the northeast (can we still call that Manchuria?).
Which is kind of funny, considering Jung Woo-sung is in the movie. How many movies has Jung made now, when he has been the long-haired guy in China? One guy at Barunson joked that Jung could be a line producer in China at this point. I’m pleased to see Jung playing “The Bad.” Lee Van Cleef was “the Bad” in IL BUONO, IL BRUTO, IL CATTIVO and one of my favorite movie bad-asses of all time, and I hope Jung will follow in his tradition. But if you are going to be “bad,” please be bad. Don’t be a misunderstood, heart-of-gold “bad.” Be baaad. I know you can do it, Jung.
Amusing sidebar: Apparently GBW will be called “놈, 놈, 놈” (Nom, Nom, Nom) in Korean. Or “Bastard, Bastard, Bastard” (in my bastardized Korean, anyhow). Hah.
UPDATE: Sorry, but I apparently read the news release too quickly. The Korean title will be a much more normal “좋은놈, 나쁜놈, 이상한놈” (Joheun Nom, Nappeun Nom, Isanghan Nom).
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?
There were a couple of good stories in the Chosun Ilbo today (believe it or not, it does happen).
Grapevine Index of Top Film of 2006
1. Radio Star – 10.6
2. 200 Pound Beauty – 8.06
3. Tazza – 7.28
4. The Host – 6.42
Worst Film of 2006
1. Running Wild – 1.7
2. I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Okay – 1.96
3. Bewitching Attraction – 2.1
4. Daisy – 2.14
I was quite surprised RADIO STAR did so well, especially considering all the competition in the period it came out. And BEWITCHING ATTRACTION seems to be more a victim of a misleading ad campaign than its inherent quality. Otherwise, the chart seems unsurprising, if interesting.
According to a survey of 30 North Korean defectors who settled in South Korea, popular songs and dramas from the South are not only all the rage in Pyongyang; they have also found their way to border regions like Kaesong, Nampo and North Hamgyeong Province. South Korean actors like Bae Yong-joon and Jang Dong-gun have many fans there. North Koreans buy South Korean videotapes and CDs from people who frequently travel across the Chinese border, the survey shows.
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.
| This Week | Title…………………………………. | Release Date | Screens Nationwide | Weekend Attendance (Seoul only) | Total Attendance |
| 1. | Voice of a Murderer | 1.31 | 530 | 247,000 | 1,408,000 | 2. | The Perfect Couple | 1.25 | 279 | 59,100 | 1,004,200 | 3. | Curse of the Golden Flower | 1.25 | 255 | 57,200 | 801,900 | 4. | Click | 2.01 | 152 | 53,300 | 176,400 | 5. | Apocalypto | 1.31 | 157 | 45,100 | 170,700 | 3. | 200-Pound Beauty | 12.14 | 210 | 40,500 | 6,433,700 | 7. | Miss Potter | 1.25 | 154 | 21,900 | 293,600 | 8. | Robot Taekwon V | 1.18 | 162 | 20,100 | 616,100 | 9. | Yobi: The Five-Tailed Fox | 1.25 | 105 | 20,000 | 352,000 | 10. | Scoop | 2.01 | 100 | 17,100 | 40,100 |
(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).
I notice lately some blogs and newspapers, et cetera, have been talking about the “rise of Japanese culture” in Korea. Ampontan’s new blog had a post about it. The Korea Herald had this story about Japanese novels in Korea (via the Brunei Times because the Korea Herald thinks people will pay money for its old stories). Not a terrible story, although since the author never mentions how well titles from the US or other parts of the world are selling in Korea, it is impossible to get a proper sense of how significant the sales of Japanese books really is, or how sales have figured over the long run.
Anyhow, in a similar vein, the Japan Times had a story about the movie “Anata wo Wasurenai” (“We Will Not Forget You”), the story of Lee Soo-hyun, the South Korean guy who died while trying to save a drunk Japanese businessman on the Tokyo subway in 2001. The Japanese Emperor and Empress attended the preview screening and spoke to Lee’s parents. Truly an Oprah moment.
So, what does it all mean? Are we in a new renaissance of Korea-Japan relations? Has the media gotten it wrong all these years?
Hell if I know. I cannot speak for the 200 million people who reside in the two countries (including North Korea). But from what I have seen, I think there is far less emnity than many would like to believe. Sure there are freaks full of hatred. Both countries have their John Birchers. And Internet warriors (ugh). But from what I have seen in my time in Asia, especially in the arts (and even more so with women), I think there is a lot of affinity between the two cultures.
When I first came to Seoul, many years ago, the selection of movies on TV or at the video store was a lot more limited than today. And Japanese pop culture was totally banned. But we did use to have “video cafes,” where the proprietor would play movies on the big screen for whoever wanted to see. At first I used to go to them (especially Joy of Kino in Shinchon) to see movies like BRAZIL or FULL METAL JACKET. But I quickly realized that Western movies were in the minority at most cafes. I would say 60-70% of the films were Japanese. Mostly anime, but a lot of other good stuff, too. Similarly, any trip to the black markets in Yongsan Electronics Mart would turn up a huge amount of Japanese titles.
Because of my various jobs in Seoul, I have spent a lot of time with designers, who I have found to be perhaps the most receptive to things Japanese. But artists and musicians in general have long flown over, whether for vacations or to live for a while. One of Korea’s most interesting indie performers, Yoonki, could barely move a CD here, but in Japan he sold over 10,000 copies of his first album, toured a bunch, and did quite well for himself.
In Japan, I have met no shortage of filmmakers who enjoy Korean films, who come here as often as they can, and who have plenty of friends in Korea. Seigo Tono, of the Short Shorts Film Festival, travels here a lot (and is a hell of a good guy). The musician Sato Yukie is a one-man cultural embassy for Japan (he is back in Japan now, but should be returning to Korea before too long).
I do think there was a year (2005) when Japanese distributors were getting far too excited about Korean films and TV shows, and getting into needless and silly bidding wars for projects that were not even started yet. Business has cooled since then, but there is still a lot of dealing going on between the two countries. Not so high profile. Smarter. But still significant. Japanese TV shows, while not ratings juggernauts, are still common on Korean cable TV. In short, I think we are seeing a more mature, healthy relationship developing between the entertainment businesses between the two countries.
So when politicians and other politically minded dolts try to get people riled up about this or that alleged problem between the two countries, I would not worry about it much. But in the deeper, more important ways, the two countries are growing closer. The most popular film in Korean history, THE HOST was made with Japanese money (about 1/3 of the film’s budget). CJ Entertainment and Kadokawa have a pretty serious relationship. The Pusan Film Festival got started, in part, because of the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival. It’s not all smiles and sunshine. It’s not all nationalist anger. It’s a far more complicated and intertwined relationship.
(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.)
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.
Pop Goes Korea: Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music and Internet Culture (2nd edition) is the only English-language book to examine the whole of Korea's entertainment industry and how it became such a powerhouse over the past 20 years. With profiles of many of Korea's top stars (including Lee Byung-hun and Rain), Pop Goes Korea features chapters on movies, music, television, comic books, the Internet, and more.
On sale now at:
Amazon.com
Kobo eBooks
And hopefully more ebooks stores very soon.
The original edition of Pop Goes Korea is now out of print.
K-Pop Now! takes a fun look at Korea’s high-energy pop music, and is written for its growing legions of fans. It features all the famous groups and singers, and takes an insider’s look at how they have made it to the top.
You can buy at:
Amazon.com
Chapters Indigo
Tuttle (my publisher)
Kyobo Books (in Korea)
Goodreads (not for buying, but still a good link)
© 2024 Mark James Russell
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑