In a memorable line from Song Neung-han's comedy classic No. 3 (1997), a gangster played by Han Suk-kyu says to his wife: "Take a swan, for example. It looks graceful and elegant above the water. But do you know what's happening underneath? Its feet are paddling away like hell! That's what life is."
Such is also the usual state of the Korean film industry. On the surface, Korean cinema glided from hit to hit in 2005, on its way to another brilliant year in which it accounted for 60% of local ticket sales. Star-driven films such as April Snow and A Moment to Remember became strong hits in Japan, while on the festival circuit, a record seven Korean films screened at Cannes and Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance drew widespread notice at Venice. In October the Pusan International Film Festival celebrated its tenth edition in grand style, then in the final days of 2005 a modest film called King and the Clown was released which unexpectedly sold upwards of 11 million tickets, and which at the time of this writing looked likely to set a new all-time box office record.
It was indeed a good year for Korean cinema in 2005, but a peek beneath the surface reveals a turbulent, unruly side to the industry as well. A public spat between producers and star management companies in the summer underlined some shifting power relationships in the industry. Labor issues have been simmering for some time, resulting in the establishment of the industry's first labour unions in December. Major conglomerates CJ Entertainment, Showbox and Lotte continued to consolidate their power, causing friction with smaller and mid-sized companies. One of the highest rates of internet piracy in the world has resulted in a DVD market that is described by some as "about to collapse." And most explosive of all has been the issue of Korea's Screen Quota system, which the South Korean government has decided to reduce by half from July 1 of this year.
But first, a discussion of the films. The production of large and small films alike has been booming over the past year. In 2005, a total of 85 local films were released in theaters, ranging from KT Kwak's action blockbuster Typhoon costing a record US$18 million, to 17 low-budget films with budgets all under US$1 million. The former is yet another example of the much-discussed "Korean blockbuster" - high-concept, big-budget genre productions that over the past five or six years have failed more often than they have succeeded. The phenomenal success of Tae Guk Gi and Silmido in 2004 seemed to give the Korean blockbuster a second lease on life, yet 2005 must go down as yet another year in which most of the big, expensive pictures were outclassed and outgrossed by mid-sized fare.
Typhoon, a multi-lingual, globetrotting action film about a man planning a terrorist attack on North and South Korea, was released on December 14 on the same day as King Kong. Nonetheless, despite an enthusiastic performance by top-ranked actor Jang Dong-gun (Tae Guk Gi, The Promise), the film's impressive special effects and overseas location shooting in Thailand and Vladivostok failed to generate any excitement among viewers. The film ended up selling 4.2 million tickets - certainly not small change, but not enough to ensure a profit, and much less than its distributor CJ Entertainment was hoping for when it opened the film on a record 540 screens. Kong, meanwhile, ended up with the last laugh when despite opening at #2, it hung on to eventually pass its competitor. (South Korea is one of the few countries in the world where King Kong was the highest-grossing Hollywood movie released in 2005.)
Other would-be blockbusters did even worse. Antarctic Journal, a fantasy/adventure/horror film centering around an expedition to the Point of Inaccessibility in Antarctica, cost US$8.5 million to make but sold only about a million tickets. Shot in New Zealand, the film featured major stars Song Kang-ho (Memories of Murder) and Yu Ji-tae (Oldboy), but fans ridiculed the filmmakers for making a movie set in the Antarctic snow where nothing really happens.
The biggest loss-maker of the year is likely to be the US$10 million Blue Swallow, a film that is much more accomplished from a cinematic point of view than the two works mentioned above, but which only managed to sell about 600,000 tickets. A biopic of Korea's first civilian female aviator, who lived in Japan in the 1920s, Blue Swallow tried to entice viewers with its relevance to real-life history, but ended up being blindsided by real-life history. Shortly before the film's release, accusations surfaced on the internet that the film's protagonist had in actuality engaged in pro-Japanese publicity stunts. Whatever the subtleties of the real-life situation may have been, it ended up giving viewers one more reason to go see King and the Clown (released on the same day) instead.
Yet there was one notable example of a blockbuster that soared above expectations, and indeed it became one of the top five grossing Korean films of all time. Welcome to Dongmakgol didn't have quite as high of a budget as the works mentioned above, but it was a film painted on a vast canvass with numerous special effects and extensive CGI. Based on a stage play by Jang Jin - the director of Guns & Talks (2001) and Someone Special (2004), both of which were popular favourites in Udine - Welcome to Dongmakgol was blockbuster in style but relied most heavily on the characterization and humor in its script. Almost a textbook example of how to do an effective Korean blockbuster, Dongmakgol was an instant hit with viewers of all ages and eventually topped 8 million admissions.
Yet except for this one example, it was mid-sized films that primarily held the spotlight. From the start of the summer until the end of the year, one or two films emerged in every month as a hot topic of conversation among young Koreans. In June it was Rules of Dating, a controversial and frank look at the line between lust and sexual harassment by debut director Han Jae-rim. With standout performances by Gang Hye-jung (Oldboy) and Park Hae-il (Memories of Murder), the film's off-colour dialogue and unflinching attitude made it one of the year's standouts.
In late July, Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance stole the spotlight, opening to record box office in its first weekend, but tailing off in the following week, when Dongmakgol was released. August featured both Dongmakgol and yet another film based on a stage play by Jang Jin, this time directed by Jang himself. Murder, Take One is a look at the various personalities involved in a murder investigation, which a local broadcaster has decided to record on air in real time. Jang's unique verbal humour and comic timing, which separates him from any other Korean director, was on full display in this film, and it became a robust hit.
September featured two major hits: comedy sequel Marrying the Mafia 2, which with over 6 million admissions did even better than the highly successful original film, and the critically acclaimed melodrama You Are My Sunshine, about a rural farmer who falls in love with and marries a local prostitute. The two films are an exercise in contrasts: the broad humour and lightheartedness of Mafia played well with audiences who seem to have missed the high-concept gangster comedies of 2001. Meanwhile, You Are My Sunshine is an over-the-top melodrama directed by Park Jin-pyo, better known for gritty, uncompromising low-budget independent films like Too Young to Die. If that last sentence seems to contradict itself, the film was nonetheless a refreshing blend of traditional melodramatic forms with a more modern, realist-based point of view. The film also featured the two most critically-praised performances of 2005, with Hwang Jeong-min (A Bittersweet Life) picking up a host of Best Actor honors for his portrayal of the farmer, and Jeon Do-yeon (Untold Scandal) also walking off with a fair number of trophies of her own.
October's standout proved to be All For Love, a film with a large ensemble cast that was marketed as sort of a Korean Love Actually, but which proved to be a bit more serious in tone. From second time director Min Kyu-dong, who co-directed the horror classic Memento Mori in 1999, the film juggled its many personalities and performances with skill. Much compared to Sad Movie, another ensemble piece with an all-star cast released in the same month, All For Love was judged by both critics and audiences to have come out on top.
November saw a decent-sized hit in Kim Hyun-seok's unconventional romantic comedy When Romance Meets Destiny. The film is a perfect example of the art of good casting: often Korean audiences are far more drawn by mid-level stars in unexpected combinations, rather than big-name stars in conventional roles. The film centers around Kim Ju-hyuk (Singles) and Bong Tae-gyu (A Good Lawyer's Wife) as two brothers, opposite in character, who both experience romantic troubles. The film's convincing performances and clever screenplay, particularly in the first half, won over a large number of fans.
In late December and into January, it was the turn of King and the Clown. This mid-budget period drama about a pair of clowns who end up at the court of a mad king was seen as a commercially risky venture, particularly given an obvious gay subtext that pervades the film. Nonetheless its popularity was explosive from day one, and it ultimately passed the elusive 10 million admissions mark that had previously only been reached by big-budget military dramas. Part of the credit for the film's success has to go to young star Lee Joon-ki (Flying Boys), whose feminine demeanor and pretty face turned him into an object of worship among Korean schoolgirls. On the other hand, the film itself proved to be highly effective drama, particularly in its convincing re-enactments of traditional comic theater.
There was another story to the films of 2005, though, and this was the increasingly large number of low-budget films which managed to reach theaters. Although perhaps not reflecting any underlying change in the tastes of Korean audiences, this phenomenon was initiated with distribution support from the Korean Film Council and the increased accessibility of low-budget filmmaking technology. With the help of a theater network devoted to arthouse releases, 17 low-budget Korean films were released in 2005, compared to only 3 in 2004. The films themselves displayed a wide diversity, from the low-budget martial arts film Geochilmaru: The Showdown to the lightly comic Five Is Too Many - about a woman who unwittingly acquires four eccentric roommates - to The Unforgiven, which picked up multiple awards at Pusan for its critical take on life in the Korean military. With distribution support continuing in 2006, this year is expected to see another full crop of independent films.
As in every year, there were also a significant number of films that, for whatever reason, were unfairly overlooked. Blossom Again, by director Jung Ji-woo (Happy End), probably stands at the head of this class. A touching and surprising drama about relationships and memory, the film's subtle brand of experimentation was neither arthouse enough to appeal to major festivals, nor commercial enough to appeal to audiences. Those who search the film out will be surprised and rewarded, however. Park Heung-shik's Bravo My Life, meanwhile, centers around one boy's early adolescence during the early 1980s, an era of political oppression and change. While the political elements of the film remain largely in the background, the film's light but sad tone indirectly sketches the problems faced by ordinary people living in a poor and authoritarian state. Finally, Oh Seok-geun's Love Is a Crazy Thing provides an unusually clear-headed and engaging portrait of a Busan housewife who takes up work in the sex industry, anchored by a terrific, understated performance by Jeon Mi-seon.
At the same time, however, 2005 saw a fair number of overly conventional works that relied on old formulas and star power in a bid for commercial success. Seeing this, some local critics are becoming more insistent in asking if Korean cinema is being spoiled by its commercial success. Certainly, the vast amounts of money being poured into the film industry, from large conglomerates like CJ Entertainment and Showbox to giant telecoms companies such as SK Telecom and KTF, have raised questions about the links between big business and creativity. Could commercial success come to ruin the Korean film industry, by turning the filmmaking process into an overly formulaic, commercially-oriented activity? Such concerns are particularly pressing for debut filmmakers - whereas established directors such as Park Chan-wook or Bong Joon-ho are given a great deal of artistic freedom, young directors making their first film must often adhere to a more mainstream, commercial line.
It's worth noting, however, that the biggest buzz films of 2005 - which in many cases expressed a more individualistic character - were virtually all the work of experienced, respected producers. The role of the producer is often overlooked in the filmmaking process, but on average it is probably the best predictor of a film's creative and box-office success, at least within the realm of Korean commercial cinema (smaller-scale, independent film is another matter). In that sense, it's interesting that many of Korea's most accomplished producers are in the process of gaining a bit more independence from the big conglomerates. Tcha Seung-jai's Sidus Pictures merged with Kim Mi-hee's Fun & Happiness in 2005, and is predicted to launch its own distribution arm in the second half of this year. MK Pictures, formed from the merger of Myung Films and KangJeGyu Films in 2004, also launched its own distribution arm last year after creating several film investment funds.
As for other industry trends in 2005, perhaps the biggest one was the rising importance of stars. While a major star is no guarantee of box office success in Korea (see Antarctic Journal, Duelist, Sad Movie, etc.), it can without question guarantee a much higher selling price to Japan. Korea raised US$76 million from selling its films overseas last year, with US$60 million of that total coming from Japan. The sudden craze for Korean pop culture in Japan is having a huge effect on the Korean industry - a film like April Snow serves as a perfect example. Although it tanked at the local box office, the film featuring pan-Asian stars Bae Yong-joon and Son Ye-jin was pre-sold for a rumoured US$7.5 million to Japan, ensuring that it would make a profit anyway. The film went on to earn US$23.7 million at the Japanese box office, a new record for a Korean film - at least, until another Korean film A Moment to Remember passed it with US$24 million a few weeks later.
Such forces have transformed the mathematics involved in making a film in Korea. With the casting of a hallyu ("Korean Wave") star starting to resemble a license to print money, a struggle is emerging between producers and the talent management companies who represent stars. In particular, management companies' insistence on co-production status for films featuring their actors - which guarantees a percentage of a film's profits - caused producers to lash out in a widely-publicized press conference. Indeed, under US laws (designed to protect actors, not producers), such practices would be illegal. Eventually, the two sides met for discussions and resolved their differences to a certain extent. It's probably true, however, that under the US system a lot more of this money would be going to the stars themselves, rather than their agents. In many respects, Korean cinema has developed so fast over the past 5-6 years that proper regulations have not yet been put in place to guide its growth.
Concerns about regulations and film policy have now taken center stage, after the decision by the Korean government in late January to reduce the nation's Screen Quota system to 73 days. The Screen Quota obligates Korean theaters to screen local films for a certain number of days per year - until now the official level has been set at 146 days, although due to various reductions the actual level ranges from 106-126 days. The regulation is Korea's best-known form of protection against domination by foreign (i.e. Hollywood) cinema, and as such the US has been pressuring Korea for years to reduce or scrap it. US trade negotiators finally found the stick they needed this year when it linked a reduction of the Screen Quota to the opening of talks on a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement.
The announcement that the quota would be halved was met with fury by many members of the film industry, and Seoul has been witness to demonstrations, candlelight vigils and one-man protests by actors and directors ever since. Rhetoric surrounding the quota has taken on a strongly political character, as the quota's fate has implications not only for Korea but for other countries around the world who wish to keep protective measures for local cinema.
The future effect on the Korean film industry of a quota reduction is hard for anyone to predict, given the current success of local films and the indirect way in which the quota works. Although even supporters of the quota admit that there is unlikely to be much of an influence in the next few years, the real test will come in ten or twenty years. Will Korean cinema be able to remain vibrant and healthy even without the quota system? Only time will tell.