Category: Korean movies (Page 29 of 31)

Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED took top spot this past weekend in Korea… at least in Seoul. In yet another sign of the city/country split going on in Korea, SUNFLOWER actually did better nationally (thanks in part to its additional 124 screens), while THE DEPARTED was easily the more popular film in Seoul.

A similar split was going on at Nos. 3 and 4, with STEP UP winning in Seoul and the Aardman animation FLUSHED AWAY winning nationally.

Screen averages were especially amusing this week. For example,THE PRESTIGE played on just 44 screens, but easily beat SEXY TEACHER, which was on 230. Hah! I bet the theater managers with the 230 prints of SEXY TEACHER are pretty unhappy at the moment.

(Source: Film2.0)

So, of course I saw THE DEPARTED this weekend. And… once again, Scorsese is pretty mediocre. I was actually bored for most of the film, although it did pick up in the last 30 minutes or so. Yet again, here was a Scorsese movie that felt like a photocopy of a Scorsese movie (looks pretty much the same, but with some bad resolution). I really think MS needs to sit down with some digital cameras and some fresh, unknown actors, are re-teach himself all the things that made him great once upon a time.

And, in a random digression, I just re-watched Yim Pil-sung’s ANTARCTIC JOURNAL, and found myself feeling very similarly about it as I did about DEPARTED — both are bad movies made by very talented filmmakers. In Yim’s case, ANTARCTIC was his first feature-length movie, and it is so silly and poorly plotted, it is hard to believe (not to mention having one of the most blatant disregards for basic physics I have ever come across in the movies). No doubt about it, AJ was a bad film. However, it was also clear that director Yim has some serious talent. A good producer and another year of pre-production could totally have turned that movie around.

Luckily, Yim is getting another chance to show what he can do, with the horror film HANSEL & GRETEL, being produced by Barunson. Much like AJ, H&G is about historical parallels and notebooks… but let’s hope someone kicks his butt until the plotting makes sense.

Yim is also doing a short zombie film as part of the triptych DOOMSDAY BOOK, due out next year, too.

With the Christmas and Seollal (lunar new year) holidays approaching, expect a surge in major releases. Both big Korean movies and Hollywood blockbusters. The first “big” movie of the season will probably be Park Chan-wook’s I’M A CYBORG BUT THAT’S OKAY (I’ll try to review it after the press screening next week).

In the meantime, Darcy Paquet at Koreanfilm.org has a very good write-up about the current state of Korean cinema. I’m not sure how much of his thoughts on the rise of independent cinema is real or just wishful thinking… But even wishful thinking can become real if enough people wish the same thing.

The rising interest in Japanese movies is quite interesting. Japanese culture was pretty much banned in Korea from the Korean War until 1998. Then the local market slowly opened. First, three award-winning Japanese films were allowed in. Then award-winning films in general were allowed. Then in January 2004, almost all Japanese pohttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifp culture was allowed.

(Although, strangely, Japanese animation was still quite regulated. Strange, I say, because Japanese animation has long been the most ubiquitous form of Japanese culture in Korea. Some of it was dubbed into Korean (and sometimes even presented as Korean), and others were available on the black market and in Japanese culture cafes. EVANGELION has been hugely popular for years. Everybody knows GATCHAMAN (BATTLE OF THE PLANETS in America, and EAGLE 5 in Korea). And Japanese comic books were widely available in translation since I first came to Korea. Yet another one of Korea’s non-ban bans.)

(Parantheses 2: I tried linking to the Wikipedia article on Evangelion, the first choice in that Google search I linked to, but it seemed to crash my Firefox brower every time. I have no idea why. Feel free to let me know if you have any theories/solutions.)

Anyhow, so Japanese movies and TV shows were allowed into Korea en masse, beginning January 2004. At first, a lot of people were worried that they would overwhelm local programming, revealing how much Korean media has cribbed from Japan. But then, surprise surprise, nothing happened. Japanese movies and TV and music barely made a ripple here. Except for Hiyao Miyazaki films and the 1998 release of LOVE LETTER, Japanese movies did poorly. Japanese TV dramas got fairly mediocre ratings. Life moved on.

Turns out, however, that there was a decent market for Japanese culture here. It just needed some time to incubate. This year has seen many Japanse movies do respectable numbers, led by THE SINKING OF JAPAN. I doubt Japanese product will overwhelm Korea, but it good to see the market growing more diverse.

It is especially good to know that most people in both countries have little interest in the annoying nationalism and stupid anti-Korea/anti-Japan garbage spewed by some in both countries. Among the people who really matter — the filmmakers and writers and designers) (not to mention the average folk who care about movies and music and such) — there is a healthy interest in the art and pop culture of their neighbors. And on a business level, the two nation’s entertainment industries are growing more and more interconnected.

As for Darcy’s feeling that there is a lack of energy in Korean movies these days… I am actually a little optimistic, for the first time in quite a while. The big guns of the industry (Bong Joon-ho, Kim Jee-woon, etc.) seem to be working on some good stuff right now. And there are a bunch of new directors making films with potential. CJ Entertainment and Nabi Pictures have teamed up to create a bunch of low-budget genre movies (I’m a big believer that low-budget schlock can be one of the most fertile fields for a film industry). In TV, the cable channels are increasingly churning out new shows to compete with the lame dreck on mainstream TV, much as HBO started to do in the 1990s. Sure, there is a lot of crud out there… but as Sturgeon’s Law says, 95% of everything is crud.

(Or Sturgeon’s Revelation, if you want to be pedantic).

(Note: While writing this entry, my Firefox browser crashed. But upon reopening it, I discovered that my entire post had been saved. I was so surprised and happy. All hail Firefox 2.0!)

Another dreary week at the box office here in South Korea. The top film, HOW THE LACK OF LOVE AFFECTS TWO MEN, won the No. 1 spot with just 281,500 in attendance (about $1.87 million), one of the lowest figures for a No. 1 film in quite a while. But it was nice to see iHQ have one of its films open at the top of the box office. iHQ has been through a long streak of disappointments, so hopefully this will be the start of something good.

Interesting to see DEVIL WEARS PRADA and PRESTIGE holding on to the Nos. 2 and 3 spots for another week, especially while last week’s No. 1, LOVE ME NOT, plummeted to No. 6.

TAZZA is pretty much finished, with 6.77 million tickets ($44.90 million), making it the seventh-biggest film in Korean history. Not a bad run at all.

Just three more days until THE DEPARTED opens in Korea. Much nerdy joy on my part.

(Source: Film2.0)

Those kings of the backhanded compliments, North Korea, have come out with some good press of Bong Joon-ho’s monster movie, THE HOST. Apparently they were quite pleased by the film’s critical stance toward the American military presence in South Korea.

Now, I would never claim to be Bong Joon-ho’s best friend, but from my conversations with the man, plus what I have heard from those who know and work with him, the idea that he is a raging anti-American is pretty off the mark.

Why knows — maybe the North Koreans are just buttering up director Bong so he will remake BULGASARI.

Bong’s THE HOST will make its debut in France on Nov. 22. Maybe even on a good number of screens. Not sure about the United States; I have heard December and February.

Well, it looks like we have the CJ CGV monthly box office report for October. The big news — once again, Korean films topped 80% of the box office. That makes three months in a row that Korean movies have done so well, by far the strongest quarter they have ever had. Four out of 10 months for the year, too.

(Actually, I am not exactly sure about August. I do not have CGV’s August report, and according to the Korea Film Council, local movies took in 77.2% of theatrical revenues in August. But CGV routinely reports slightly better numbers for Korean films. KOFIC uses a fancy computerized system so is more accurate, however it does not use every theater in the nation. In fact, the weekly and monthly reports only look at Seoul data, and Korean films tend to be even more popular outside of the nation’s capital. Point being, even if Korean movies fell below the 80% level in August, they were at least extremely close).

The important part of such a strong and extended run, in my humble opinion, is how so many different films have carried the industry since August. In August, the big film was THE HOST. In September, you had MAUNDY THURSDAY and MARRYING THE MAFIA 3. In October it was TAZZA. All very different kinds of films, appealing to different audiences. Hopefully this will inspire the nation’s producers, investors and other bigwigs to take more chances in the future and continue to press for diversity…

I will not be holding my breath.

Other good news in the report — with 14.11 million tickets sold, this October was the strongest in the modern era. You can think the Chuseok holidays for the boost.

As of Oct. 31, Korean movies have accounted for 61.9% of the box office, and considering local films usually end the year strongly, there is a strong chance they will end the year over 60% for the first time.

A VERY quiet weekend for the movies this past weekend. Box office we way down and spread out, with nothing really capturing people’s attention. Moon Geun-young once again was able to open her film in the top spot, with her melodrama LOVE ME NOT (Sarang Ttauin Piryo Eopseo). But with just 327,000 admissions, that was not a huge accomplishment.

(Funny to think that we now live in an age where 327,000 admissions in three days is mediocre. I remember when Moon’s film TALE OF TWO SISTERS broke records with an opening weekend of something over 700,000 admissions. At the time, it was pretty outstanding. Then the 1-million barrier fell. Then 1.6 million (a bunch of films). Then THE HOST scored 2.6 million in its opening weekend in July.)

DEVIL WEARS PRADA and THE PRESTIGE are continuing to do fairly well, with modest dropoffs from last week, and DEATH NOTE still doing okay, too (all were down about 33%).

(Source: Film2.0)
Next week looks like it will be similarly slow, but the week after that, things should start improving, with some big holiday releases beginning to roll out, starting with Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED (which, of course, I am quite nerded up about seeing).

Foreign titles took the top three spots this week (it has been months since that has happened), with THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA at No. 1 for the second week in a row. Never underestimate the power of the SEX AND THE CITY crowd. PRADA has now made about $6.2 million in Korea, and looks like it should top $10 million.

THE PRESTIGE came in at No. 2, based on its Seoul attendance, although nationally it was beaten by the Japanese manga-adaptation DEATH NOTE. Always interesting to me to see what films draw well in Seoul versus what films perform stronger in the small towns and countryside. The regional difference between the two films becomes even stronger when you notice that THE PRESTIGE was playing on 35% fewer screens, which means its per-screen average in Seoul must have been very strong (indeed, the theater where I saw THE PRESTIGE on Thursday night in Seoul was quite busy).

I quite liked THE PRESTIGE… it is so invigorating to see a mainstream movie that is at least trying to do something different. Good looking film, good acting, an engaging mystery but with a story and subject unlike the usual. Got kind of silly toward the end, though.

DEATH NOTE is a bit of a goofy project. Based on a hugely popular Japanese comic book, it is the story of a kid who finds a demonic notebook. If you write someone’s name in that notebook, the person will die in 24 hours. You can even specify the cause. But a big part of the comic book’s appeal is its extremely sharp, high-detail drawings, an effect you totally lose on the screen (of course).

(Oh, and DEATH NOTE just the first of two movies. DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME just came out last weekend in Japan to some impressive box office, taking in over $10 million in its first two days. I do not know when it will be released in Korea, though).

DEATH NOTE was also co-produced by Warner Japan. With domestic movie industries on the upswing around Asia, it is interesting to see the Hollywood majors taking an increased interest in local films. Warner, for instance, has invested in DEATH NOTE and some other Japanese movie, the huge Chinese hit THE BLACK STONE, and… uh, has more on the way (not officially announced yet, sorry).

Other notes… TAZZA is still chugging along. It could make it to 7 million tickets if it is lucky. TRACES OF LOVE saw its box office come crashing down in its second week of release. In general, it is a pretty quiet week at the box office, although it is nice to see the pie being divided up a little more widely, with the No. 10 movie pulling in over 10,000 bodies — last week, we only had a top-7, and even then the No. 7 film did not crack 10,000.

(Source: Film2.0)

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA was the No. 1 film last weekend, despite a relatively modest rollout (239 screens), thanks to Korea’s plethora of On Style-watching young women. On Style is a TV station in Korea popular with young professional women… the kind of channel that shows a lot of SEX & THE CITY and FRIENDS and OPRAH. Over the last few years, that demographic has become the main driving force of many trends over here. Young Korean women watch more TV than men do, go to Starbucks, eat at TGIFRidays and, of course, shop.

TRACES OF LOVE, the opening film from the Pusan Film Festival, opened in second. I have nothing special to say about this melodrama (I already made a few comments in my PIFF opening story a couple of weeks ago).

TAZZA bounced back to No. 3 this week, and has now topped 6-million admissions, making it the about the eight-biggest movie ever in Korea (depending on who’s counting).

ONE PIECE is some silly Japanese animation. Don’t feel bad if you have never heard of it.

(Source: Film2.0)

Movies about gambling have given us some great stories over the years — Paul Newman’s THE HUSTLER, Matt Damon in ROUNDERS, Chow Yun-Fat in GOD OF GAMBLERS… Tom Cruise and Newman again in THE COLOR OF MONEY. (And, of course, there are plenty of movies about the gambling business, Las Vegas and the like, CASINO, BUGSY, THE STING, but I am referring more to movies about gambling itself, about the psychology of gambling, and not so much about movies that use gambling as a backdrop to tell another story).

So I was pretty interested in Choi Dong-hun’s stylish card-shark movie, TAZZA: THE HIGH ROLLERS (also known as WAR OF FLOWER, before CJ Entertainment wisely changed its English name). (And, yes, I am a month late here, but I finally saw the movie last weekend). Much like Choi’s first film, THE BIG SWINDLE, TAZZA offered oodles of style, but unfortunately, it did not offer much more than that, as an inspired opening soon gave way to cliche.

TAZZA certainly has plenty of style. Everyone seems to be dressed in eye-popping colors, with kind of an over-the-top ’70s garish thing going on (but in a good way). And the music is perhaps the best movie soundtrack music I have ever heard in a Korean film. Just avoiding the usual Japanese snorefest or Korean bombast is a step in the right direction, but this really was first rate. Sexy, slinky, totally fit the mood.

The story, however, does not measure up to the style. Here is how CJ Entertainment described the film:

Goni (Cho Seung-woo) leads a boring life working at a small furniture factory. One day he becomes a victim of a con game and loses his family’s fortune. Running away from home, Goni wanders from town to town. By fate, he meets Pyeong (Baek Yoon-shik) who is one of 3 Tazzas (a master Hwatu card player). Under Master Pyeong’s tutorage, Goni aims to also become a Tazza. Nothing is what it seems and no one is to be trusted in the world of high rollers.

So, what do we have? Guy dresses bad, is a weakling and loses at cards. Then he learns from an expert, learns how to fight and starts dressing really well (or at least really flashy). And… that’s about it. Emasculated loser becomes Mr. Big. Nothing particularly wrong with this story, but it is one we have all seen a thousand times before.

There is, of course, a twist or two… none of which thrilled me. Although the train sequence toward the end was pretty amusing (I will not spoil it, though).

My biggest complaint is that the movie never really lets us into the game of hwa-tu, never really lets us into the mind of the players or the dynamics of the game. We see Goni learning how to cheat a lot, but not much else. He learns to deal from the bottom of the deck, how to keep track of the shuffle and a whole bunch of tricks, but we do not learn much about the actual game (an automatic card shuffler like many casinos use these days would pretty much kill this movie). I’m no expert at hwa-tu, but I wonder if the game is inherently limiting in how much drama you can get out of it.

As for the acting… Baek is, as usual, very good. Cho is mostly okay, too. And Kim Hye-soo is surprising good most of the time.

So, to sum up, TAZZA is a run, stylish romp, but do not expect a great story. It was not a terrible story, but it is a little disappointing because it easily could have been so much better.

If you are interested in the game of hwa-tu, there is an online DOS version available here. Unfortunately, www.mrhwatu.com seems to be blocked in Korea. Lots of information and links here.

Only a couple of new titles this week, but one of them is the new No. 1 — Jang Jin’s latest, RIGHTEOUS TIES. Jang has had several successes over the past few years, including GUNS AND TALKS (which he wrote and directed), WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL (he wrote the stage play and the movie, and produced the movie), and MURDER TAKE ONE (wrote the play, wrote the script and directed). On the other hand, he has more than a few “underperformers” next to his name, such as THE SPY, SOMEONE SPECIAL or A MAN WHO WENT TO MARS.

GANGSTER HIGH, on the other hand, had a really impressively poor debut. Just 21,200 tickets sold? (And that includes Thursday night). Given that it was shown on 134 screens, that works out to a $1,000 per screen average. Ouch.

(Source: Film2.0)