Category: Korean movies (Page 31 of 31)

There was a surprisingly good profile of the independent movie distributor Sponge House in today’s Korea Times (you can read it here). For people looking for alternatives to the same-old-same-old Hollywood and Korean mainstream, Sponge House is one of the few alternatives around.

But the money quote for me came about halfway through, when Sponge House president Cho Sung-kyu talked about the Korean Screen Quota. As most followers of Korean cinema know, Korea has long had a quota which requires every movie screen in the nation to show local films a minimum number of days per year. Until recently, that number was about 146 days a year, although by showing Korean films at certain peak times, you could get that number down to 106 days a year. But starting July, the quota has been halved to 73 days a year, although with the peak exemptions eliminated.

Although many support the Korean Screen Quota and measures like it in the name of “diversity,” in fact, the quota can actually impede diversity, as Cho notes in the story.

There is a strong debate in Korea about the diversity of Korean cinema and government regulations towards cinema. Cho says, “I disagree with government regulations. They can have good effects too, but they treat all cinemas the same, while there is a big difference between a Sponge House and other smaller film houses, and the big multiplexes. A measure like the screen quota should be flexible towards different kinds of cinemas,” he added. “If the screen quota hadn’t been reduced, we wouldn’t have opened the Sponge Houses. For Sponge Houses it would have been too difficult to show Korean films 146 days a year,” referring to the boom in popular mainstream films in Korea, and the much smaller number of selections from Korean independent cinema.

Cho is skeptical about the suggested “minimum quota,” a regulation that demands Korean independent/art films be shown for a minimum number of days. “Korean independent cinema and its audiences are small. The minimum quota won’t work. People won’t go to see the films.” However, he believes that the Korean independent cinema can grow from its current five percent to 10 percent of the market in the future.

As difficult as it can be for small distributors and films to compete with the mainstream, I really like reading about someone trying to do just that, with minimum government help/interference. Despite its best intentions, government is not the artist’s friend (and quite often the government has intentions that are far from the best). Finding economic solutions to artistic problems is by far the strongest and most sustainable way to preserve that art. Kudos to Cho for trying.

Wow. Zero Hollywood films in the top-10 this week. None. Nada. Zip. In all my years in Korea, I cannot remember that ever happening before. I would say that I am speechless, but I am always speechless (this is typing after all).

In the top spot was the latest in the MARRYING THE MAFIA series, GAMUN-UI BUHWAL (“Rebirth of the Family”). I found the first MtM to be rather unfunny, but the idea was cute enough — a family of gangsters seek out a “prestigious” marriage for their daughter, basically forcing her on a poor, nerdy academic. Few on that cast made it to the first sequel, about a gangster’s daughter-in-law who is also a star prosecutor, aiming to stamp out the mob. For this sequel, most of the cast from the first sequel is back. With the main family now out of the mob and trying to go straight (as kimchi makers), the story is getting kind of threadbare. But with 1.2 million people going for the opening weekend, I guess the brass Taewon Entertainment know what they are doing.

It looks like Zhang Ziyi, Danny Wu and Feng Xiaogang’s publicity trip to Seoul last week helped out the debut of THE BANQUET, which opened in No. 3. All three were quite smart with the local media, talking about how much they like shopping at Dongdaemun (Zhang) or how much they want a Korean crew for their next movie (Feng).

A more interesting and surprising debut this week comes from Pedro Almodovar’s VOLVER at No. 9 — not bad for a film on just eight screens (six of which are in Seoul). I’m pretty sure VOLVER is being distributed in Korea by Sponge House, a small, independent distributor that is doing a lot of interesting things, despite its size (or maybe because of it).

Looks like I was wrong about THE HOST. Which did not make it to 13 million last week, and now that it is down to 71 theaters, I guess it will not make it. Well, not until Showbox (its distributor) finds some “uncounted” admissions or sends all of its staff to see it or whatever. It is pretty close now to 13 million, so it would not take much to push it over the top.

Also looks like THE SINKING OF JAPAN will not make it to 1 million admissions. The film has done quite well in Korea, but I am not sure if it has beaten LOVE LETTER yet. The two are pretty close.

(source: Film 2.0)

The strange thing is, this Hollywood-less condition could conceivably last. Next week, the only Western films on the schedule are the animated film ANT BULLY and MRS. DALLOWAY. ANT BULLY did very poorly in the United States, and who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(Sorry, there was no excuse for that…)

KOFIC announced yesterday that THE KING AND THE CLOWN is Korea’s nomination this year for Best Foreign Language Award at the Academy Awards. Oh joy.

THE KING AND THE CLOWN was the big surprise hit of the year. It came out at the very end of 2005 and little was expected of it. TYPHOON, BLUE SWALLOW and DAISY were the heavyweights. Even Hollywood was keeping its distance. But surprise, surprise — Typhoon turned out to be a faint gust, and Blue Swallow was a dead parrot. And Daisy was not even released until some time later. That left THE KING AND THE CLOWN with very little competition.

Even though TKatC opened on just 200 screens (pretty small these days in Korea), it got some amazing word of mouth. It just took off, and by the end of March, it had become the biggest film ever in Korea, selling over 12.3 million tickets.

That success was doubly surprising considering CLOWN had some strong homosexual themes in it. In case you do not know, TKatC is the story of two entertainers back in the early Joseon (Chosun) Dynasty who get in trouble for mocking the king. But after they are able to make the king himself laugh, they become entertainers in the royal court. The king takes quite a fancy to one of the guys, who is quite effeminate and known to turn tricks to help feed the two of them. Both of them then get drawn into the palace’s politics, and bad stuff happens.

Anyhow, KING AND THE CLOWN beat out Kim Ki-duk’s TIME and Bong Joon-ho’s THE HOST, so it is not like the competition was overwhelming. But still, I wish Korea could have done better. Just becoming Korea’s pick is no guarantee that it will become one of the five Oscar finalists. And considering how clueless the Academy is each year (doubly so in the foreign language category), is this a prize you really want to win?

Tuesday evening, the nice folks at the Pusan International Film Festival held their festival lineup announcement. Each year, about a month before the festival, the organizers hold a big press event where they talk all about the films and special programs and other events that will be going on at PIFF.

This year’s PIFF (Oct. 12-20) looks like it will be as much fun as ever. With 245 movies screening, there will be no shortage of films from all over the world to see.

But what sets off PIFF from all the other films festivals are:
1) The audiences. PIFF gets nearly 200,000 people a year, making it by far the most popular film festival in Asia.
2) The market. Now, there are plenty of film markets all over Asia (Bangkok, Tokyo, Hong Kong), but I would argue that only PIFF and Hong Kong are remotely significant. And since Hong Kong occurs by itself, with no film festival attached, it is much more subdued. But with PIFF and the Asian Film Market (as they are calling it this year) occuring at the same time, you get a real energy. Plus lots of celebrities, parties and all that silliness.

As usual, I expect I will be spending a lot of time in the Korean Cinema Retrospective, enjoying the old stuff. This year, PIFF will be featuring a lot of films from the colonial period, stuff I have seen almost none of before. I am really looking forward to them.

There really is too much screening for me to talk about all the things I want to see, but a few goodies will include:
– CROSSING THE LINE, the latest Daniel Gordon documentary out of North Korea, this time looking at Americans who defected TO North Korea.
– NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE, by Tsukamoto Shinya
– SCREAM OF THE ANTS, the latest by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
– PAPRIKA, the animated film by Kon Satoshi
– BORAT, because I am a bandwagon-jumping idiot

I guess I should think about adding a weekly box office column, just to be all cool and professional like Ryuganji. Or something like that.

FYI, I am going to use Film 2.0’s stats. Sure, KOFIC is more accurate, but it only looks at 86% of the market. Until they get up closer to 100% (hopefully in a year or so), I will use Film 2.0.

(source: Film 2.0)

So, what to make of all this? The Japanese disaster movie SINKING OF JAPAN became the film to finally dethrone THE HOST, after a long and amazing run in No. 1 spot. In fact, this looks to be the best opening for a non-anime Japanese film ever in Korea, and the movie could possibly surpass LOVE LETTER as the top Japanese film ever in Korea (again, not including animation). One factor that could hurt its haul, though, is poor word of mouth. Just like in Japan, people do not seem to like SINKING very much (in the words of one friend, “It’s boring… It doesn’t sink”).

I should point out that Japan did not return the favor. THE HOST opened in Japan last weekend, but came in just a wimpy 7th. Kind of disappointing.

It was, however, a very good opening for Hong Sang-soo’s WOMAN ON THE BEACH. In fact, it was his second-best opening, after WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN (which had its numbers boosted by its star, Yu Ji-tae). Consider this a statement to Kim Ki-duk that a Korean filmmaker can be arthouse and respected abroad and pull in good numbers in Korea.

Ok, this post has nothing to do with Jane Siberry. Rather, I am talking about the latest Hong Sang-soo film WOMAN ON THE BEACH. I checked it out last weekend (twice actually) and really enjoyed it. In fact, it might be my second-favorite Hong film, up there with TURNING GATE (VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS remains No. 1, by far).

The story, as is always the case with Hong, is deceptively simple and self-referential — a movie director wants to go to the beach to work on a treatment for his next film, so he pursuades his assistant to give him a ride. The assistant brings along his girlfriend. Add some flirting and sexual tension and a whole lot of talking, and you have a Hong film.

After the assistant and his girlfriend leave the next day, the director soon returns to the beach and finds himself another woman to talk to. Again as in most Hong films, the story now begins to repeat the previous storyline, sometimes in parallel and other times in contrast.

One of the unique things in WOMAN ON THE BEACH is that, for the first time I can recall in a Hong film, the women finally get a chance to meet and interact. Usually he keeps them apart. Their conversations help flesh out their characters (sometimes, I think Hong does not give the woman characters as much depth as the men) and provide a different perspective on what is happening.

Another thing I liked about the film is how everyone changed once their trip was over. So much emotion and melodrama goes on throughout the movie, but once they leave the beach and return home (in the director’s case, once he finishes his movie treatment), it is like all their misadventures are forgotten… like shadows or echoes. It makes you wonder how much of their feelings were “real” and how much were just performances or habits or the like. “The play is the thing,” as the saying goes, and once the director was finished his play, everything else melted away.

Anyhow, do not let me meandering musings get in the way. The film is quite funny and delightful. More than worth your time.

I recently checked out Bong Man-dae’s latest film, the plastic surgery horror flick CINDERELLA and was quite disappointed. It is baaaaaad. Not that I was terribly surprised — most Korean horror films of the last few years have been illogical and distinctly non-scary. But for all its badness, CINDERELLA is a surprisingly watchable film, and one worth discussing.

Bong started out his career making straight-to-video erotic films that were surprisingly witty and well-done (for the genre, at least). Then in 2003 he tried making a “real” film, SWEET SEX AND LOVE. This was also a sex-based film… but it was made for the movie theaters, and was just an “R” release, not a pure sex film. The story was hardly revolutionary, but I was really struck by how well-done the filming itself was. Each frame seemed to be extremely well composed, with an attention to detail that usually is lacking in Korean movies.

After that, he made a six-part made-for-TV series (also about sex) called DONGSANG IMONG (or “Dreaming Different Loves”, according to the KOFIC website). This was also quite interesting… kind of a meta-sex film, with the first two episodes being about the making of a sex movie, then the third and four episodes being the actual sex movie, and the fifth and sixth episodes being the aftermath of the film. Like SWEET SEX, DONGSANG IMONG did not have the best dialogue or acting, but it was carefully composited and framed, with a lot of creativity. In fact, 2004 was such a dismal year for movies in Korea, I considered DONGSANG to be the best film of the year, even though it was made for TV.

Which brings me to CINDERELLA. This is the story of a single mom who is a plastic surgeon, her daughter and her daughter’s friends (girls who like beauty advice and many of whom have gotten plastic surgery themselves). But problems are afoot as the girls who have gotten plastic surgery start dying, in gruesome ways, with their faces cut.

Like a lot of Korean horror films, this story end up being quite convoluted and inconsistent. People die, and then their friends apparently forget about them and go to the pool or wherever. And very little is scary.

Most disappointing, though, was the lack of great composition, like Bong’s earlier films. Sure, there are some good-looking shots and scenes, but nowhere near as many as in his previous works.

That said, the film is delightfully over-the-top, and there are some interesting-looking scenes and cinematography. CINDERELLA is definitely a bad film, but if you like schlock, it is rather amusing in its own, terrible way.

Anyhow, there is a trailer for the film here: