The past 12 months have brought a change of seasons to South Korean politics and society. For the Korean film community, the election of President Moon Jae-in to replace the disgraced and impeached Park Geun-hye signaled the end of a decade-long winter, which was marked by slashed funding, government reprisals and secret blacklists of cultural figures. Much of the focus of the past year has been on rebuilding institutions like the Korean Film Council and the Busan International Film Festival which had been compromised under the previous two administrations. But the arrival of spring has not been without its own degree of turbulence. In the political sphere, tensions with North Korea and the U.S. has kept the country on edge, even as a new diplomatic front opened in early 2018. And after a slow start, the #MeToo movement hit South Korea with full force, shaking many sectors of society, including the film industry.
Several films released over the past year have successfully captured various aspects of the current historical moment. The sense of society rising up and ushering in a new era was effectively depicted in Jang Joon-hwan’s 1987: When the Day Comes. Set in the run-up to the so-called June Struggle of 1987, in which mass demonstrations forced the military government to introduce direct presidential elections and a democratic constitution, the film follows a wide cast of characters in order to show how one small act of resistance can lead to another, and gradually build up momentum for social change. With its combination of a timely social message (the film inevitably calls to mind the mass demonstrations against the government leadership in 2016-17), its complex but effective storytelling, and its all-star cast, 1987: When the Day Comes was for many critics the film of the year.
Just as timely in many ways was the political thriller Steel Rain, which explores the present-day tension between South and North Korea. Directed by Yang Woo-seok (whose debut film The Attorney was an FEFF award-winner in 2014), the film opens with a elaborately-planned coup attempt against the North Korean leadership. In the chaos and confusion that results, a North Korean military agent ends up in Seoul, forced to cooperate with a South Korean national security secretary whose motives he cannot trust. At turns suspenseful, funny, frightening and thought-provoking, the film opened in December at a time when real-life nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula were almost as intense as the events depicted in the film.
The above mentioned movies represent two of the three major releases of the 2017-18 winter box-office season. As it turned out, the third film Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds also (unintentionally) found itself at the center of a major social storm. The #MeToo movement, which took shape last fall in Hollywood following allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, did not immediately take hold in Korea. However in late January, a female prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun appeared on live TV to describe being groped at a funeral by one of her superiors, and the reprisals she suffered after she tried to speak up about it. The outpouring of public support she received encouraged other women to go public with their own stories, and before long the #MeToo movement had penetrated deep into all corners of Korean society.
Within the film industry, one of the first figures to be accused was the popular supporting actor Oh Dal-soo (Assassination, Ode to My Father), who admitted to sexually abusing several women early in his career. Oh had played a key supporting role in the tremendously successful Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds, although the film had already earned the majority of its 14.4 million admissions (the second-highest grossing film of all time in Korea) at the time the story broke. Nonetheless, this film is merely the first in a two-part series, with part two already shot and being readied for a summer 2018 release. After some deliberation, the production company decided to re-cast and re-shoot the scenes that feature Oh and another actor Choi Il-hwa who was accused of similar crimes.
Major figures in the political world, academia, literature, theater circles and more have been brought down by #MeToo allegations, but the most high profile case in the film industry involves Golden Lion-winner Kim Ki-duk and his frequent collaborator Cho Jae-hyun, who were accused by multiple women on a leading investigative TV program of repeated assault. Both are now currently under criminal investigation, and it appears that their long careers may be over.
So in one sense, the Korean film industry is going through a period of profound upheaval and change. The Korean Film Council is making an effort to address issues like sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the industry. At the same time, they are also drawing up plans to increase support for independent cinema, which has suffered through a lean decade under conservative rule. The number of independent films produced in Korea is expected to rise in the coming years, as more funds are made available for production support. Nonetheless, distribution and marketing of independent films will remain a challenge in a market dominated by the major distributors.
The one area of the industry that has not shown much change is in the overall statistics. In 2017 there were 219.9 million film tickets sold totaling $1.66 billion, a 0.8% increase on the previous year. The market share of Korean films dropped slightly to 51.8%. Four distributors – CJ Entertainment, Lotte Entertainment, Showbox, and NEW – continue to dominate the market (CJ has been the top distributor for 15 years straight), although the smaller distributor-exhibitor Megabox found considerable success with mid-budget releases like The Outlaws, Little Forest and Anarchist from the Colony.
Some of the year’s box-office hits were expected to do well from the start, while others came as a surprise. The most ambitious, high-profile release of 2017 was Ryoo Seung-wan’s big-budget The Battleship Island, which opened in July. Set during World War II on the Hashima Island coal mine, the film depicts the tragic experiences of Korean forced laborers and women forced into prostitution. Its jaw-dropping action sequences and massive open set unquestionably set a new standard for Korean blockbusters. Nonetheless the film’s mix of historical polemic and genre spectacle proved highly controversial, in a way that exposed divisions within Korean society. Those on the more nationalist end of the spectrum were incensed at the film’s depiction of Koreans collaborating with the Japanese, while those on the other end of the spectrum accused the film itself of being nationalist. In the end, The Battleship Island amassed 6.6 million admissions – a considerable amount, but far short of initial expectations.
Another major summer release, Jang Hun’s A Taxi Driver, also took its inspiration from a real-life tragedy. In this case it was a lethal government crackdown on demonstrators in the city of Gwangju in 1980, which ended with hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of people killed and the army invading the city. The film focuses on a German photojournalist, Jürgen Hinzpeter, who, with the help of a taxi driver from Seoul, recorded images from the events in Gwangju and then distributed them to the outside world. Since news of the incident was suppressed in the Korean press, underground videotapes of the footage shot by Hinzpeter circulated among the Korean populace in the coming years – as indeed can be seen in a memorable scene from 1987: When the Day Comes. A Taxi Driver proved to be the must-see release of the summer season, with 12.2 million tickets sold.
Some other hits from 2017 arrived with less pre-release hype, but succeeded through strong word of mouth. Midnight Runners by up-and-coming director Jason Kim tells the story of two young police academy students who witness a kidnapping late one night, and decide to pursue the kidnappers, despite their lack of experience. A funny and warm-hearted action comedy that also goes into some pretty dark places, the film hung on to amass an impressive 5.7 million admissions.
The Outlaws by debut director Kang Yoon-sung was even more of a surprise. A violent thriller about an ethnic Korean gangster from China, and the police detective who tries to bring him to justice, the film looked from the outside like any number of other Korean mid-budget crime films. But a combination of inventive characterization, energetic pacing, and a charismatic performance by Ma Dong-seok (a.k.a. Don Lee, Train to Busan) turned it into a potent force at the box office. Indeed, with his unique blend of physical brawn and toughness masking an inner warmth and sympathy, Ma Dong-seok is proving himself to be a major box-office draw. After debuting in early October at #3, The Outlaws quickly rose to #1 and held on long enough to rack up a highly impressive 6.9 million admissions.
Sure enough, the fall season was bursting at the seams with thrillers. As a reliably performing genre with a certain degree of international appeal, thrillers have taken up an ever greater share of the major studios’ slates in recent years. Some of the other standouts from 2017 include Jang Hang-jun’s psychological thriller Forgotten, which puts the audience in the mind of a very troubled young man who sees and remembers details about a disturbing murder that may or may have actually happened. A Special Lady by debut director Lee An-gyu stands out for its fascinating female lead played with cool authority and menace by veteran actress Kim Hye-soo. And The Chase turns familiar police procedurals on their head by depicting the investigation and pursuit of a serial killer, not by a group of tough young detectives, but rather by two retired old men who make up for their lack of physical prowess with a stubborn refusal to give up.
Moving beyond genre movies, 2017 was a good year for lower-budget dramas and independent films, although only a few titles managed to break out and receive widespread attention. Politically-themed documentaries such as Our President (about the late President Roh Moo-hyun) and Criminal Conspiracy (about government efforts to control public broadcasters) did well at the box-office, which was perhaps unsurprising given the current mood. For fiction features it was more of an uphill struggle to reach viewers, but the diverse subject matter and innovative style of independent films spoke for themselves. One example of such a film – though it is a very special case – was Running Actress, the directorial debut of acclaimed actress Moon So-ri. Featuring herself playing herself, the film is a wry look at the various burdens and pressures that actors and other members of the Korean film industry deal with each day.
Moving into early 2018, one of the most striking things about Korean cinema in the first three months of the year was the better-than-expected performance of a group of low and mid-budget films. Director Yim Soon-rye’s Little Forest, featuring rising star Kim Tae-ri (The Handmaiden), is an adaptation of a Japanese manga about a woman who sets aside her fast-paced life to move to the countryside, grow food, and cook. Quite popular with younger viewers, the film’s better-than-expected box office performance spoke both to the quality of the filmmaking, and also perhaps to a reconsideration of life values among the younger generation, who suffer the most from the highly competitive nature of Korean society.
Also performing quite well were two films in genres that used to be mainstays of Korean cinema, but which in recent years have rarely been produced by the major studios. The classic melodrama Be with You is a remake of a 2004 Japanese film about a woman who mysteriously returns to her husband and young son six months after her death. With a standout performance by actress Son Ye-jin, the film fought off competition from bigger-budget fare and proved that melodramas still have potential in the Korean market.
Just a few weeks later, a similar dynamic was at play with the found-footage horror film Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, directed by Jung Bum-sik (Epitaph). Budgeted at just $1 million, the film centers on a group of horror enthusiasts who film their visit to an abandoned, supposedly haunted insane asylum in the hopes of cashing in on Youtube. The horror genre has fallen far from its heyday in the early 2000s, when 5-6 new spine-tingling features arrived in theaters at the start of every summer. That seasonal tradition seems to have passed into history, but with the success of Gonjiam, which easily out-performed both Ready Player One and the big-budget CJ Entertainment production Seven Years of Night, new life has been breathed into the horror genre.
It may be that the unexpected success of the three films mentioned above was due to singular, one-time factors. But it also may be a sign that Korean audiences are in the mood for something new. Critics have been calling for a more diverse slate of films from the major studios for some years now. Perhaps now audiences will follow suit? The coming year, which will feature a record number of blockbusters budgeted at $10 million or over, will give us some indication.
Darcy Paquet