The boom is back in South Korean cinema. With a record-breaking year at the box office, the Korean film industry is currently enjoying the same kind of runaway success that it did back in 2005-2006, when hits like King and the Clown and The Host gave domestic films more than 60 per cent of the local market. In 2012, domestic films sold 114.6 million tickets, the first time ever that Korean cinema topped the 100 million mark. All year long, both midsized and large scale films outperformed expectations thanks to positive word-of-mouth and heightened audience interest. Overall admissions including imported films amounted to 195 million, up 22 per cent on the previous year, and Korean cinema’s share of the box office was an impressive 58.8 per cent.
Of course, this is not to say that everyone in the industry was popping champagne corks. The string of massive hits over the past 12 months was a pleasant surprise for many industry insiders, but the general mood remains level-headed. There is also continued concern over inequalities and polarities in the market that seem to be growing more severe. Critics fret that a corporate mentality is influencing the filmmaking process to a greater extent than ever before.
Nonetheless, with the crisis of 2007-2008 fading into memory, the Korean film industry has restored its reputation at home. Investors enjoyed higher profits last year than they have in a decade: a report by the Korean Film Council estimated that the industry as a whole turned a 13 per cent profit. Excluding low-budget works, the 70 commercial films released in 2012 earned on average about US$5 million each in theatrical revenues. No less than 12 films reaped profits of at least 100 per cent.
Among the top 10 grossing titles in 2012, seven were Korean films. This includes Choi Dong-hoon’s caper movie The Thieves, whose 13.1 million admissions just barely eclipsed Bong Joon-ho’s The Host (2006) to become the best-selling Korean film in history. (James Cameron’s Avatar retains the all-time crown with 13.4 million admissions. If you think there are no feelings of rivalry on the part of Choi, whose previous film Woochi opened a week after Avatar, take note of the name of the puppy in The Thieves.) A glitzy heist film in the spirit of Ocean’s Eleven, The Thieves tells the story of a group of elite Korean crooks who team up with a similarly skilled crew from Hong Kong in order to rob a diamond from a Macau casino. Audiences were dazzled in part by the star-filled cast, which included Gianna Jun (a.k.a. Jun Ji-hyun, The Berlin File), Kim Yun-seok (Punch), Kim Hye-soo (Tazza: The High Rollers), Lee Jung-jae (New World), and rising heartthrob Kim Soo-hyun, in addition to Hong Kong’s Simon Yam and Derek Tsang, and Malaysia’s Angelica Lee. Director Choi Dong-hoon also deserves much of the credit for infusing the film with his trademark wit and upbeat tempo, making it one of the most unabashedly fun viewing experiences of the summer.
Ranking at #2 for the year was Choo Chang-min’s Masquerade, sort of a Joseon Dynasty-era version of Dave in which popular star Lee Byung-hun (G.I. Joe films) plays a dual role as the king, and a jester who is asked to impersonate him. Released ahead of the the Chuseok (autumn harvest) holiday in September, Masquerade smashed past the 10 million admissions mark and remained in theaters well into December, ultimately passing King and the Clown to become the third-bestselling Korean film ever with 12.3 million tickets sold.
Also earning massive returns was an unusual film titled A Werewolf Boy. Set primarily in the 1960s, it tells the story of a young woman who moves with her family to the countryside, where she encounters a strange young man who seems to have grown up wild, unable to speak.
She and her family first assume that he is an orphan from the Korean War, but as time passes and they befriend him, the mystery surrounding him deepens. Director Jo Sung-hee originally made his name in independent film, directing a highly praised short Don’t Step Out of the House (2008) that screened in Cannes, and then making his feature debut with the austere, low-budget End of Animal (2010). A Werewolf Boy is undeniably mainstream in its orientation, but its uncommon fusion of various genre elements and moods is unique. Helped along in part by the star power of young actor Song Joong-ki (Penny Pinchers) and the solid acting of Park Bo-young (Scandal Makers), the film sold more than 7 million tickets, ranking just behind The Avengers.
The success of some of the other films that placed in the year’s box office top 10 came as a surprise to many observers. Period comedy The Grand Heist starring Cha Tae-hyun (Scandal Makers) didn’t offer very much new to the genre, and it received only a so-so rating from viewers on the internet, but it nonetheless managed to sell 4.9 million tickets during the peak summer months.
Deranged, about a nasty parasite that threatens to kill millions of people, received similarly unenthusiastic marks from critics and many ordinary viewers upon its release in July, but it nonetheless grossed 4.5 million tickets.
In contrast, relationship comedy All About My Wife, which ranked at #9 with 4.6 million admissions, was broadly praised for its smart acting and crisp direction by Min Kyu-dong (All for Love, Memento Mori). A remake of an Argentinian comedy titled A Boyfriend for My Wife, the film centers on a man (Lee Seon-gyun, Nobody’s Daughter Haewon) who is driven to distraction by the incessant attention and prodding of his sharp-tongued wife (Lim Soo-jung, I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK). When he accidentally comes into contact with a legendary Casanova figure (a show stealing performance by Ryu Seung-ryong, The Front Line), he offers the man money to seduce his wife and provide grounds for a divorce.
Warmly embraced by viewers, the mid-budgeted film vastly exceeded commercial expectations.
Early 2013 also provided its share of big hit films. One example was the gangster noir New World from Park Hoon-jung, who was previously best known as the screenwriter for Ryoo Seung-wan’s The Unjust (2010) and Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil (2010). Inspired by the broad reach and dispassionate gaze of films like The Godfather and Infernal Affairs, Park set out to create a new kind of Korean gangster film that would focus not so much on individual characters, but on the power relationships that exist within a powerful crime syndicate and the police force. With a great cast headed by Lee Jung-jae (The Thieves), Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) and Hwang Jeong-min (The Unjust), New World racked up more than 3 million admissions in late February and early March. Meanwhile the biggest hit of all was a sentimental drama titled Miracle in Cell No. 7, whose runaway commercial success left many observers’ mouths (including this author’s) hanging open. Inspired in part by Sean Penn vehicle I Am Sam, the film tells the story of a man (Ryu Seung-ryong) with the mental capabilities of a child who is wrongly imprisoned and sentenced to death. His cellmates, coming to his support, manage to smuggle his young daughter into the cell so that they can be reunited. Despite massive plot holes and a blatantly manipulative script, the film rode the strong performances of its actors to surge past 10 million admissions. At the time of this writing, it was unclear whether the film would challenge The Thieves for the all-time local box office crown.
Released just a week later on January 30, Ryoo Seungwan’s blockbuster The Berlin File recorded over 7 million admissions to become the best-selling Korean action film of all time. Set and partly shot in Berlin, the film centers around a North Korean spy (Ha Jung-woo, The Yellow Sea) whose life is turned upside down when his wife (Gianna Jun, The Thieves) is accused of leaking secrets. Also starring Han Suk-kyu as a South Korean intelligence agent and the talented Ryoo Seungbeom as an operative sent in from Pyongyang, the film combines a complex web of intrigue with highly ambitious action set pieces. With the largest budget of any work in Ryoo Seung-wan’s filmography, The Berlin File has become his biggest commercial hit to date.
With the success of The Thieves, The Berlin File and firefighting extravaganza The Tower, which accumulated roughly 5 million admissions after being released on Christmas Day, the Korean blockbuster has taken significant steps towards repairing its tarnished reputation. In 2011, midsized films dominated the box office while the spectacular failure of effects driven, big-budget genre films My Way and Sector 7 cut deep into investors’ profits. However the blockbusters of the past year have been more successful in building engaging stories in which to place their impressive special effects, and this surely helped them at the box office. Not all big-budget genre films in 2012 proved a success: R2B: Return to Base, aka Soar into the Sun, a Top Gun inspired film starring pop singer Rain as a fighter jet pilot, bombed miserably upon its release in August. But whereas a year ago, the Korean blockbuster was looking like an endangered species, its future now seems assured.
The big hits of 2012 and early 2013 generated vast amounts of hype and press coverage, so that you’d have to be a true recluse living in Korea not to have heard of them. But amidst the media blitz, some other well-crafted genre films had a hard time getting the attention they deserved. Two prime examples of overlooked gems, in this author’s opinion, are the romantic comedy How to Use Guys with Secret Tips, released as The Berlin File and Miracle in Cell No. 7 were dominating the box office; and the comic occult thriller Ghost Sweepers, released at the height of Masquerade’s popularity.
Korean romantic comedies tend to be hit or miss, but How to Use Guys with Secret Tips is one of the funniest and most charming examples of the genre in recent years. Lee Si-young, who is not only a rising actress but also an amateur boxer, plays a disgruntled assistant director whose life is going nowhere until she discovers a mysterious instructional video, “How to Use Men.” Armed with new knowledge, she sees her career suddenly start to take off. Thanks to its many creative and hilarious details, and its perfect timing, the film is a true pleasure to watch. Unfortunately, however, not many people did watch it: its total audience amounted to just 500,000.
Ghost Sweepers is the latest film from director Shin Jung-won, who has established a unique comic/horror style in his previous works To Catch a Virgin Ghost (2004) and Chaw (2008). The plot involves a strange seaside village possessed by an unusually powerful spiritual force. All of Korea’s most talented mystics, shamans, and exorcists charter a bus and set off to fix the problem, but it turns out to be much more of a challenge than any of them expect. The end result is both funny and gripping, but the film fell a bit short of 1 million admissions, which by today’s standards is a commercial failure. One hopes that this won’t negatively affect Shin’s future projects.
Commercial expectations for mainstream films run pretty high, but large numbers of directors working in Korea set themselves much more modest goals.
Last year, alongside the 70 commercial films released in theaters were 104 low-budget features. Although they may have played on only a few screens, many of these works represent creative high points of Korean cinema’s output. Screenings and accolades at film festivals help to raise some awareness of these films, but directors also look forward to the opportunity to have their works released in Korean theaters and seen by local audiences. The obstacles to reaching a decent sized audience are high, but the existence of specialized chains and independent art-house theaters at least ensure that smaller films are released. In this sector of the film industry, 10,000 admissions is considered a decent performance.
Kang Yi-kwan’s Juvenile Offender is one such film that first received awards from abroad before opening in Korea in November. At the Tokyo International Film Festival, the teenage Seo Young-joo was presented with the Best Acting award, and the film as a whole received the Special Jury prize. Seo plays a high school student sent to a juvenile detention center, where he feels his chances of leading a normal life start to slip away. However fate has a surprise lined up for him in the shape of his long-lost mother. Told in a concise but heartbreaking manner, the film features great acting and a story that leaves much the viewer with much to think about.
The Winter of the Year Was Warm, by producer-turneddirector David Cho, features an everyday setting and a calm, reflective pace that could not have been reproduced in a mainstream film for commercial reasons. And yet, the warm emotions of this film have an appeal that is rare in cinema of any type.
Although vaguely romantic in tone, the film is not about a romantic relationship. It is about a practical arrangement between a film director living in Seoul and a nurse in the seaside city of Gangneung to share their apartments on weekends. Although it sounds very unengaging, the great acting and subtle direction pull you in to these characters’ lives.
The two films described above received great reviews but had to be satisfied with a very limited release.
However the low-budget film National Security received a bigger boost, thanks to the fact that director Chung Ji-young’s previous feature Unbowed (which screened at FEFF in 2012) was a surprise breakout hit. Using many of the same actors, Chung decided to film a tribute to the renowned democracy activist Kim Geuntae, who was arrested and brutally tortured over a period of 22 days in 1985. Although undeniably difficult to watch, National Security was described by many critics as a triumph, and it was one of the most talked about premieres at the 2012 Busan International Film Festival.
However the low-budget feature that made the biggest impact in 2012 was Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta, which in August became the first Korean film ever to win the Golden Lion in Venice. Simultaneously gruesome and visually compelling, Pieta was hailed by its supporters as one of Kim’s best films. It was also uncharacteristically embraced by Korean viewers, who in the past have often found Kim’s work to be too alienating or disturbing. As the film’s box office score passed 600,000, which for a low-budget film of its type was quite extraordinary, Kim announced that he would pull the film from theaters in order to give other low-budget works more access to the nation’s screens.
So 2012 was a year in which both big commercial hits and small independent films made their presence felt.
However economic forces seem to be pushing both ends of the Korean film industry further apart. One issue of concern among critics is that it’s becoming more rare for bigger budget films to take risks and push the envelope in an aesthetic sense. It’s also becoming more difficult for arthouse directors like Lee Changdong or Im Kwon-taek to make the kind of high quality, mid-budgeted films that they used to make. With arthouse directors being pushed into the ultra lowbudget sector, it’s probably not economically possible in Korea to make films like Amour or A Royal Affair. At the opposite end, low-budget genre film – which thrives in Japan – has yet to find a foothold in Korea. Although the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) does its best to provide a showcase for such works, the lack of a decent-sized audience in this specialty market is keeping them back.
Meanwhile, as Korea looks ahead to the remainder of 2013, one film looms in particular. Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer can fairly be described as the most ambitious Korean movie ever made. Based on a French comic book, the dystopian work features an international cast of well-known actors together with Song Kang-ho and Ko A-sung from The Host. Its $40 million budget is the most expensive ever for Korean film, but by February distributor CJ E&M had already earned back more than half of this through international sales. Given the director’s track record (Memories of Murder, The Host, Mother), expectations are sky high.
But this work will also answer the question of whether it is possible for an English-language Korean film to leave a real impact on the international market.
Bong’s compatriots Park Chan-wook (Stoker) and Kim Jee-woon (The Last Stand) have recently shot films in Hollywood, but Snowpiercer was entirely financed and developed in Korea. (Although shot in the Czech Republic, it was produced by Park Chan-wook’s Moho Films, financed by CJ E&M, and is not an international co-production) The ultimate fate of Snowpiercer is sure to have repercussions for ambitious, big-budget Korean films.
Darcy Paquet