Year of Hollywood, Women and TRAIN TO BUSAN
As we close out another big year for Korean films, in which local admissions topped 100 million for the fourth consecutive time and homegrown titles experienced unprecedented success on the global stage, it’s time to look back on what were the big events for one of the world’s healthiest film industries and the themes and stories that drove the nation’s filmmakers. Read on to discover KoBiz’s list of the top Korean film trends in 2016:
Hollywood Enters the Fray
Hollywood has long had its eye on Korea but 2016 was the year that saw them fully immerse themselves within the Korean film industry. Prior to this year, American production companies have snagged several remake rights, wooed top personnel such as
PARK Chan-wook and
KIM Jee-woon to make Hollywood films and
20th Century Fox have dabbled in Korean film production to varying degrees of success. With their fourth Korean work co-financed by Ivanhoe Pictures, Fox finally cracked the market with their smash hit horror-thriller
THE WAILING which accrued 6.88 million viewers (USD 46.61 million). The film, which bowed at the Cannes Film Festival out of competition, is the third by celebrated auteur
NA Hong-jin.
Finding an even quicker path to success was fellow Hollywood major
Warner Bros. Entering the market for the very first time, the company scored one of the year’s biggest hits with their Chuseok season release
The Age of Shadows. From acclaimed filmmaker KIM Jee-woon, the Colonial Era spy action-thriller received great reviews out of the Venice Film Festival and amassed 7.5 million viewers (USD 51.12 million).
2017 may prove to be an even more auspicious year for Hollywood players as Netflix gets ready to launch their globe-trotting
BONG Joon-ho thriller
Okja in the summer while Warners Bros. release their
LEE Byung-hun starring thriller
Single Rider on February 23rd and the
PARK Hoon-jung-directed
V.I.P. later in the year. Meanwhile, Fox will release their period title
The Proxy Soldiers with
LEE Jung-jae and
YEO Jin-gu.
TRAIN TO BUSAN Dominates Global Charts
Acclaimed indie animator
YEON Sang-ho switched to live action filmmaking this year with the zombie thriller
TRAIN TO BUSAN which already seemed like a success after scoring a midnight screening invite to the Cannes Film Festival, but few could imagine just how far it would go. After scoring the biggest opening day of all time at the Korean box office in July, the action-thriller set several records before finishing up its run with 11 million admissions, the highest total of the year and 11th best of all time.
Yet the film’s most impressive results were yet to come, as the film reached unprecedented heights on the charts in several international markets. It quickly became the best-selling Korean title in Asian countries such as Taiwan (USD 10 million), the Philippines (USD 6 million), Malaysia (USD 5.2 million), Singapore (USD 4 million), even going so far as to become the most successful Asian film of all time in Hong Kong, beating out any Chinese language film that has ever opened there with USD 9.3 million. With well over USD 40 million banked around the world, the film is now the most successful Korean film ever on the international field. This distinction was recognized at the first International Film Festival and Awards Macao, where it was given the title of Asian blockbuster of the year.
Advance of Women Directors
While
The World of Us had a successful run as an independent film, there were no major titles this year by women which broke out in a major way, which given the strong critical marks and awards body attention given to some of them, highlights the continued difficulties for women directors in the Korean film industry.
Like for Likes and
Will You Be There? were romantic titles primarily aimed at female audiences but with
MISSING and
The Truth Beneath, the directors sought to engage wider audiences with strong female character, played by performers such as
UHM Ji-won,
KONG Hyo-jin and
SON Ye-jin, engaging in dark thriller narratives which encompassed several societal and political overtones.
With new titles by directors
SHIN Su-won and
YIM Soon-rye on the way, as well as
LEE Joo-young’s debut
Single Rider being financed by Warner Bros., perhaps 2017 will bring women filmmakers the recognition they deserve to audiences beyond the small critical and industrial voices that have championed them until now.
Popular Genres Carry Over from 2015
While disaster films were a uniquely 2016 trend, the most prevalent styles of film to come out throughout the year remained Japanese Occupation Era films and modern narratives highlighting corruption themes. Going back into the past were a wide array of Colonial Era narratives which each welcomed success for different reasons.
The Colonial time period will once again be featured in
RYOO Seung-wan’s action-thriller
Battleship Island and the mystery
The Tooth and the Nail next year but there are signs the trend may be coming to its end with several new big-budget titles opting to revive an older trend instead, tales of spy intrigue involving North Korea.