Prologue

E ven though Hollywood films still dominate the world’s box offices, Korean
films are just as popular as their Hollywood counterparts in domestic
theaters. In 2014 alone, Korean movies drew a combined total of 107.7 million
viewers at box offices nationwide, accounting for 50.1% of the total number of
movie viewers. Korean movies have accounted for more than 50% of the total
film market share for the past four years and have attracted more than 100
million moviegoers annually for the past three years. In particular, the movie
The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014), which depicts the Myeongnyang Naval
Battle led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin, attracted 17.61 million viewers during its
stay at the box office, setting an all-time record-high in the commercial film
industry. Domestically produced movies from other genres have also experienced
great success in recent years. One such example is the documentary My Love,
Don’t Cross That River (2014), the story of an elderly couple who spent 76 years
together; the movie attracted 4.8 million viewers and achieved unprecedented
Korean box-office success among low-budget indie films and art movies.
Along with its increased success domestically, the Korean film industry
has also been increasing its export of films to foreign countries. At the heart of
the export industry is the continued momentum of Hallyu (the Korean Wave)

06 K-MOVIE
2014.
The Admiral:
Roaring Currents

07 Prologue
2014
My Love, Don't Cross That River

08 K-MOVIE
 Prologue

propelled forth by the popularity of the industry’s top

Korean actors and actresses. The Korean film industry
has also been expanding its market share by using its
production knowledge to engage in join film ventures
with other Asian countries, such as China and
Vietnam.
The highlights outlined above serve as a brief
summary of the Korean film industry as it today in
2014. Korean films and the Korean film industry
as a whole have undergone many years of so-called
growing pains to reach the level of success they
enjoy today. The high caliber Korean films seen
today are largely the result of the passion of Korean
moviemakers and their ability to match the production
skills of other advanced nations as well as Korean
moviegoers’ undying support of Korean films to match
the passion and ability of Korean moviemakers. This
book not only shares some of the dynamic ups and
downs of the Korean film industry throughout history,
but also seeks to share some of the cultural experiences
of Korea with people from around the world.

09 Prologue
 Chapter

01
Korean Films
Today

The Evolution of Commercial Films:

Korean-style Blockbuster Films
The term ‘Korean-style blockbuster’ was first used in promotional materials for
The Soul Guardians, a fantasy film released in 1998. The movie’s producer sought
to mirror the style and budget of Hollywood blockbuster movies by bumping
production costs to $2.1 million, up from $1.3 million, the average production
cost of movie in Korea at that time. Much of this budget increase was used to
produce stand-out special effects and conduct aggressive marketing. The interest
in Hollywood blockbuster movies in Korea was sparked by the release of Jurassic
Park (1993) by Director Steven Spielberg. When the media reported that Jurassic
Park had earned as much as the total export of 1.5 million Korean cars worldwide,
many Koreans started to realize the economic value of the cultural industry. From
then on, the Korean film industry sought to embrace the principles of profit-
maximization via the economics of scale and began to follow Hollywood’s lead of

12 K-MOVIE
 2003.
Taegukgi:
Brotherhood
Of War

producing and distributing movies using larger budgets.

However, despite its best efforts, the Korean film industry was still much smaller
than Hollywood and needed a unique filming strategy to compensate for its small
size and limited resources in order to effectively compete with Hollywood. This
strategy involved developing movie plots that would elicit sympathy from Korean
audiences and making the most efficient use of limited budgets using well-knit
scenarios. Using this strategy, Korean moviemakers were able to make more creative
blockbuster movies than they had previously while still coming in at far below the
average production cost of Hollywood movies and their other foreign counterparts.
The movies produced using this type of strategy increased the number of box
office viewers proportionate to increased production costs, making an important
contribution to the quantitative growth of the Korean film industry.

13 Korean Films Today

 2014.
The Admiral: Roaring Currents

The success of Kang Je-kyu’s Shiri showed that the strategy could pay
dividends. An action thriller set against the backdrop of inter-Korean tensions,
the film was made for $2.7 million and drew a record audience of 6.2 million
within three weeks of its release. It was also a hit in Japan, becoming the first
Korean film to attract more than a million viewers to theaters there. Shiri
inaugurated a new era in Korean cinema history. One film after another adopted
the Hollywood-style economy-of-scale strategy: huge production costs, saturation
marketing, wide release. In 2000, Park Chan-wook’s Joint Security Area hit a new
high water mark with an audience of 5.83 million nationwide. The blockbuster
strategy was now a sine qua non for industry growth.
The accent in “Korean - style blockbuster” is on the “Korean.” If the typical

14 K-MOVIE
Hollywood film is a transnational spectacle that relies heavily on fantasy and sci-
fi elements, its Korean counterpart focuses on dramatic recreations of incidents
from the country’s stormy history.
This demands solid scripting and a firm footing in historical episodes or
situations that were traumatic for the Korean people (of which there is no
shortage). Many have dwelled on the ongoing conflict with North Korea, and
the tragedy of a single people pitted against each other by their nation’s division.
Signature blockbuster films that have enjoyed box-office success using the
aforementioned strategy include Silmido, Taegukgi: Brotherhood of War, Joint
Security Area and Northern Limit Line, all of which drew more than 10 million
viewers.
In addition to financial gain, the success of Korean blockbuster movies has led
to the exploration of new genres and more viewing options for Korean audience
members. The continuous appearance of movies with 10 million viewers or more
is largely attributable to filmmakers’ new attempts to meet the gradually growing
expectations of the average Korean moviegoer. Some of the representative
blockbuster movies from the Korean film industry that have rivaled Hollywood
releases include The Host (2006), a movie about a Korean monster, Haeundae
(2009), a disaster film, Sector 7 (2011), Asia’s first 3D blockbuster film, and
My Way (2011), a film with wartime scenes equally as stunning as those in
Hollywood films. Other films of note include War of the Arrows (2011) and The
Thieves (2012), two stunning action movies, The Flu (2013), a film in which the
main characters fight against lethal cold viruses, and Snowpiercer (2013), a film
with a star-studded cast.

15 Korean Films Today

2013.
Snowpiercer

The evolution of the Korean-style blockbuster has continued into the present.
The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014), which depicts the historic Myeongnyang
Naval Battle led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin during the Joseon Dynasty, raised the bar
for Korean films both in terms of the scale and complexity of its battle scenes and
in terms of its record-breaking sales. Yet another recent hit is Ode to My Father
(2014), the story of overcoming major challenges in modern and contemporary
society. This particular movie not only elicited the sympathy of middle-aged and
older audiences, but was also one of the most popular films of 2014, coming in
second only to The Admiral: Roaring Currents in terms of total number of viewers.
So far in 2015, the top Korean films that have passed the 10 million viewer

16 K-MOVIE
 2014.
Ode to My Father

mark have been Assassination (2015), a film that depicts the struggle of Korean
independence activists during Japanese colonial rule, and Veteran (2015), a film
about a major confrontation between a large conglomerate and a police detective.
It is true that the commercial film industry in Korea has developed
gradually by using the strategy of imitating diverse genre films in Hollywood.
However, Korean films have been marked with such a high degree of creativity
and uniqueness that Korean films are no longer labeled or perceived as poor
Hollywood imitations, thus fascinating domestic as well as foreign audiences. In
other words, most Korean movies have stopped competing with those from other
countries and are now striving for excellence in their own right.

17 Korean Films Today

The Coexistence of ‘Diversity Films’
Audiences haven’t just supported commercial films. In 2001, a year when screens
were dominated by Korean-style gangster films like Kwak Kyung-taek’s Friend, an
independent movement was afoot among viewers to protect the “small movies”.
artistically accomplished, but unable to score the theater space they needed to
draw a big audience. Examples included Lim Soon-rye’s Waikiki Brothers, Jang
Hyun-soo’s Raybang, Moon Seung-wook’s The Butterfly, and Jeong Jae-eun’s Take
Care of My Cat.
This newfound attention led to re-releases and extended runs, generating
some measure of box office performance. People began talking about the
importance of diversity in cinema. Low-budget movies and art films needed at
least some opportunity for theatrical release, they argued. Meanwhile, the re-
release campaign continued unabated, granting second chances to films like
Taekwon Boys (2004) and Epitaph (2007). Viewers were trying to change the
multiplex culture, with its overwhelming focus on the blockbuster, and stake
out new “viewing rights.” This support went a long way in contributing to the
diversity of Korean cinema.
A turning point came in 2003, when the Korean Film Council (KOFIC)
launched the Artplus Cinema Network, an alliance of art cinemas and low-budget
independent theaters geared to providing a new viewership for particularly
outstanding films and giving audiences the right to a more eclectic selection. As a
result, documentaries that had previously been denied any screens to speak of in
theaters (Park Ki-bok’s ‘Mudang’: Reconciliation Between the Living and the Dead
(2003), Kim Dong-won’s Repatriation (2004), and Kim Myung-jun’s Our School
(2006) among them) were now receiving official openings.

18 K-MOVIE
 2001.
Take Care of My Cat

Our School was an especially big hit. The moving documentary, which looks
at the lives of Korean-Japanese students at a Hokkaido school from admission to
graduation, was seen by more than 70,000 viewers in Korean theaters. Around
half of them ended up doing so not at formal theatrical screenings, but through
the noncommercial community screenings network.

19 Korean Films Today

 2006. 2013.
Our School Han Gong-ju)

For example, One for All, All for One (2014), a film depicting the daily lives of
ethnic Korean students living in Japan, was not distributed online right after the
movie left theaters, but was instead shown to select groups of people following the
completion of an application process for noncommercial community screenings.
This can be seen as the society’s quite but meaningful attempt to deviate from a
theatrical screening-focused movie culture.
Currently, in Korea, independent, low-budget, and artistic movies are
collectively referred to as ‘diversity films.’ One representative diversity film that
has attracted attention both domestically and overseas is Old Partner (2009),
which portrays a unique friendship between an old man and his aging bull. After
its release, the film gained in popularity through word of mouth and soon made
its way from indie theaters all the way to the main multiplexes, drawing a total
of 2.99 million viewers. Old Partner enjoyed its spot as the top indie film for a
number of years until the release My Love, Don’t Cross That River (2014), which
set a new record of 4.8 million viewers. Other notable diversity films included

20 K-MOVIE
No Regret (2006), Breathless (2009), The Journals of Musan (2011), Bleak Night
(2011), The King of Pigs (2011), Miracle on Jongno Street (2011), 2 Doors (2012),
Pieta (2012), A Girl at My Door (2014), and Han Gong-Ju (2014), each of which
enjoyed relatively high ticket sales thanks to the support of Korean audiences and
favorable reviews at domestic and foreign film festivals.
Director Kim Ki-duk, an auteur director, and Director Hong Sang-soo, in
particular, have received much support in European countries. In fact, Kim Ki-
duk’s film Pieta (2012) became the first Korean film to win one of the world’s top
three film festivals upon receiving the Golden Lion Award at the 69th Venice
Film Festival. Even more recently, Han Gong-Ju (2014) by Director Lee Su-jin was
awarded the grand prize at both the Marrakesh International Film Festival and
the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Factory Complex (2015) won the
Silver Lion Award at the Venice Biennale. These movies and their successes on
the international stage have greatly contributed to the continued popularization
of Korean diversity films worldwide.

21 Korean Films Today

Foreign Perspectives on Korean Films

Focus on the Director

Darcy Pacquet, Korean correspondent for the American film site Screen
International, says the new Korean films of the 21st century, a regular presence
at international film festivals, are playing a crucial trendshaping role in Asian
culture. In particular, he notes the prestige enjoyed by the director, whose grip on
the filmmaking process is rather tighter than is the case in the United States or
other advanced countries. The industry’s ever-evolving technical capabilities are
allowing these filmmakers’ talents to shine, opening new paths for them to share
their unique and original cinematic visions.
Korea traces its first experience with the film medium back to the early 20th
century, the days of Japanese colonial rule. For a long time, the filmmaking
process followed a kind of apprenticeship system (itself rooted in Japanese
practice). Apprentices started out doing basic jobs on the film set, moving
their way up the ladder as they honed their practical skills and strategies by
watching their more experienced colleagues at work. The system was rigorously
hierarchical, and gave the director unquestioned authority, quite a difference from
the producer-dominated American studio system. But as the pictures got bigger
and more costly, Korea began looking to the American system as a model, seeing
its practices as more systematic and rational. For a while, the two forms coexisted,
giving birth to a unique production culture; as Pacquet observes, the director
remained a very influential presence. This production environment, and its trust
in directorial talent, would later provide a crucial underpinning for directors like
Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, and Kim Jee-woon, whose “well-made” films
became an industry mainstay.

22 K-MOVIE
 Not everything has been about commercial appeal, though. Some directors
have painstakingly nurtured unique perspectives that are anything but
commercial –and found audiences for them not just (or not even) at home, but in
overseas art film markets. Emblematic of this trend are such respected figures as
Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, and Lee Chang-dong.
These directors enjoy fervent fan bases in the domestic art film market and
have been hailed by overseas media and critics for distinctive approaches that
stand at the very forefront of Asian film aesthetics.

Lee Chang-dong and his staff

at set of Poetry

23 Korean Films Today

 Korea National University of Arts’ School of Film,
TV & Multimedia

Avid Viewer Interest

Another hallmark of Korean cinema, Pacquet says, is the high level of local
audience attention it enjoys. One of the best examples of this is Park Chan-
wook’s Oldboy (2005). Despite its shockingly taboo subject matter and distinctive
auteurist vibe, the film drew more than 3 million viewers to theaters nationwide-a
testament to Korean audiences’ love and support for Korean cinema.
Discerning and open to the adventurous, those audiences have furnished a
solid support base for the growth of their national cinema. It is doubtful that

24 K-MOVIE
viewers in other countries would have been as receptive to a homoerotically
charged historical drama, The King and the Crown (2005) or a blockbuster
monster movie with strongly political associations, The Host (2006), but both
were 10 million-plus sensations in Korean theaters. It is also unusual to find
a country where fully one-quarter of the filmviewing population heads to the
theater to see the same movie, as has often been the case in Korea.

Flourishing Film Media

A boom in film media has been crucial for Korean cinema’s growth, Pacquet
notes. Most of the country’s major media companies have their own journals
featuring in-depth coverage of anything and everything film-related. Cine 21,
which dates back to the pre-blockbuster days of 1995, may be the leader of the
pack, but a number of other weeklies (Film 2.0, Movieweek) and monthlies (Kino,
Screen) are also there to survey the peaks and valleys of cinema history, making a
rich contribution to Korean film discourse.

Help from the Government

Last but not least, the overseas attention enjoyed by Korean films has been
facilitated by support programs from the national government. The country has
a screen quota system in place to provide cinema space for Korean movies and
ensure a certain level of cultural diversity. Meanwhile, the Korean Film Council
has been the focal point for efforts to expand film infrastructure, assist local
films in finding overseas audiences, improve working conditions in the industry,
support low-budget independent work, and –through the Good Downloader
Campaign –eradicate the practice of illegal fi lm downloading. In these and other
ways, it is working to lay the groundwork for the industry’s development.

25 Korean Films Today