Forgot password

Korean cinema industry was astonished by the box office performance of Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2012) in early 2013. This movie directed by LEE Hwang-kyung was somewhat out of date and old fashioned, and it didn’t have any big name stars except for the rising actor, RYU Seung-ryong. Reminding the audiences of the Sean Penn geared Hollywood movie, I Am Sam, Miracle in Cell No. 7 depicts the secret reunion of an intellectually challenged prisoner and his little daughter in a cell, thanks to the help from his fellow inmates. The plausibility of the story is very poor and the plot was an easy guess, but still it made a great tear jerker. Movie critics were confused and surprised at its great box office performance, but such a regression in the narrative was soon accepted as a main trend. It attracted as many as 12.8 million viewers, replacing every box office record in Korea to date.

 

At the close of 2013, another huge box office success was hitting Korean theatres. Directed by rookie YANG Woo-suk and featuring a major star SONG Kang-ho, The Attorney (2013) is about to replace yet again every box office record that Miracle in Cell No. 7 has set early last year. Released on the December 9th, it has become the fastest movie ever to hit 5 million viewers, only taking 10 days since its release and the media are busy reporting this unexpected phenomenon. The Attorney is based on the true story of the late president ROH Moo-Hyun, who ended his tragic life with suicide. The film starts with the life of an attorney with only a high school diploma, who then becomes a judge, turns into an affluent attorney specializing in taxes, and finally transforms into a human rights attorney when he happens to defend a college student who was illegally kept by the police. So early in 2013, outdated and regressive melodrama attracted nationwide viewers, and at the end of the year, a biographical movie featuring the late president who was passionately supported by devotees and extremely despised by opponents is hitting hard at the box office.

They look like an incomparable pair, but these two films are common in that they both show the kind of pleasure you don’t really get in reality, the kind of pleasure that TV shows do not provide in this ongoing economic stagnation. They act as confrontations towards political parties in Korea and give the audiences catharsis. The lack of justice in real life is compensated by imagination on the screen, giving a meaningful pleasure to the audience. For example, the father and daughter in Miracle in Cell No. 7 are all the more sympathized because he is wrongly accused of a crime that he did not committed. He is mentally retarded and is not able to defend for himself, and the government authority is unfair and indifferent to his situation. In The Attorney, the police and law officers accuse political opponents as communists and put them in jail, and this act of McCarthyism is the type of evil that the attorney has to fight against. The audiences see the good will and courage of the main character-victims in RYU Seung-ryong and SONG Kang-ho’s roles.

 

Many of the successful commercial films this year involve politics in their storytelling in one way or another, and it is where the audiences’ emotions are shaken. The Terror Live (2013), a screen debut of KIM Byung-woo achieved an unexpected success. It is a thriller where a news reporter has to broadcast live while his own life is at stake. The reporter realizes that there is a bomb placed in the studio,  as he is on air with the terrorist who exploded the bridge over the Han River. In this film, the terrorist explicitly demands for the president’s apology. Another unexpected box office hit, Hide and Seek (2013) is a horror movie depicting the bleakness of life in the apartment complex where the sense of community has been lost. These box office hits either openly speak their political stance or express their collective hysteria, both reflecting the helplessness of people suffering from political chaos and the absence of righteous authority, and how life still has to go on despite such chaos and absence. These worries, angers and anxieties are expressed in a variety of generic paradigms.

 

Recently, it has become common in Korean cinema to appeal to the collective sense of justice. JUNG Ji-young’s Unbowed and HWANG Dong-hyuk’s Silenced (2011) are such good examples. They are based on true stories, and are combined with generic formulae towards the end to provoke the audience’s catharsis, resulting in huge success. However, JUNG’s other political film, National Security (2012), is based on the true story of the famous activist KIM Keun-tae  and his torture and struggle in a secret police hideout which failed to attract many viewers. It contained very dry realism without dramatic decorations. YEON Sang-ho’s animation, The Fake (2013), is a low budget independent animation film and featured the hidden side of a pseudo religious leader, criticizing the fantasy of the poor dreaming of a messiah. This film was also not very positively received at the box office, maybe because the downright realism did not attract the viewers. The mainstream Korean cinema in 2013 can be summed up as realism with a twist, which amalgamates political theme, popular storytelling, and heroic act of the main character, relying on the generic formulae.

 

In this aspect, it is not surprising that The Attorney is doing great with a record number of viewers. This film is geared with the star value of SONG Kang-ho and is deeply related with the current political landscape of Korea. It is not a perfect movie in terms of filmic quality, but owing to SONG’s great acting and star value, and being based on the true story of the late President ROH Moo-Hyun, this film is showing an outstanding box office performance. At the first half of The Attorney, audiences can see the signature acting style of SONG that they have been constantly seeing since 2000’s, which is loose and funny. Whatever persona he acts, he tends to rip the character off from tension. This is a characteristic that viewers can find in themselves and have familiarity with.  Most people try to hide their soft side in public places. The bizarre balance of SONG between highly tensed public face and his openness in private settings, paints his signature on every part he acts.

SONG’s mastery reaches the peak when he finally escapes the cycle of tension and relaxation and paints his powerful pathos on the persona. The attorney played by SONG unfolds his speech in great tension and confidence towards the end of the film which takes place in the court room. Without letting go of the charm that he has carefully built at the beginning of the movie, he successfully transforms into a righteous attorney. In the second half, he never smiles nor gives one single moment for the audience to exhale. The level of absorption in his acting is unprecedented, depicting the bizarre comic-tragic atmosphere of the courtroom under the military dictatorship, when people are not allowed to laugh or cry, so to speak.

The star persona of SONG, who seems to be easy going but nonetheless has a sharp dagger in the heart, is maybe the icon to summarize 2013 Korean cinema. SONG played in Snowpiercer (2013) and The Face Reader (2013) before The Attorney, and both films attracted more than 9 million viewers. Since The Attorney‘s success is easily predicted to continue into 2014, he will have attracted as many as 30 million viewers in one year with his star power. The Face Reader depicts a coup d’état in the Joseon dynasty, and SONG plays a face reader who tells the fortune through a tragic persona, a helpless individual in the midst of the great waves of history. Just as in Snowpiercer, his star persona is in the middle of a historical turmoil but responds indifferently, or, when struck and damaged, endures the pain with inner strength. He is more like an anti-hero who transforms the tragedy of the defeated into a firm stance, even with a sense of humor. The Attorney is a rare instance where such star persona of his exploded with an unusual theme and direction.

If SONG Kang-ho has shown the most impressive presence in Korean cinema among actors, the winner among the directors is Bong Joon Ho, who has shown a great balance between box office success and critique. PARK Chan-wook and KIM Ji-woon respectively made Stoker (2013) and The Last Stand (2013) in Hollywood, but were both disappointed at the box office reports which were far from breaking even. However, Bong had great success in Korea with Snowpiercer which he shot in Czech Republic with Hollywood staff and actors. Although the 430 billion KRW budget was mainly provided by the Korean conglomerate, CJ Entertainment, the film’s main actors and staff were non-Koreans, and the film was shot through a Hollywood system. The narrative unfolds in English too, except for occasional Korean lines from SONG and KO Ah-sung. Bong and SONG worked with actors including Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and John Hurt although they spoke different languages. The setting of the story is very global, too. This SF drama takes place 17years after 2014, when earth is hit with the second Big Freeze, and the only survivors live in a train that endlessly circles around the world. Class struggle takes place in the train, lower class contending the upper class. After the press premiere in Korea, many journalists and critics predicted that it won’t do well at the box office since the film is too dark, “artsy”, and has no Korean locality. Somewhat cynic critics kept on delivering their negative opinions on social media.

 

However, it turned out to be the opposite. Of course the film received both sides of criticism, but the controversy only increased the curiosity of the audiences. Supported by massive marketing strategy and promotion, Snowpiercer attracted an unexpected number of viewers. The film has earned approximately 64 billion KRW (6 million USD), attracting 9.3 million viewers nationwide. Despite the commercial success, Bong nonetheless declared in early October at BIFF (Busan International Film Festival) that he will never direct such a big project again. He said he will not go through the pressure of a massive project, and will go back to small size, storytelling movies, and focusing on details. Bong has been very much creative at unfolding western generic grammar and transforming it in the Korean landscape, deliberately causing rocky and unexpected turns in the narrative. Memories of Murder (2003) which is one of his signature works, is a story of a countryside detective who fails at finding a serial killer. Korean audiences were very much touched by the unhappy ending, closing with the face of a frustrated detective. The ending was far from that of a Hollywood detective film where the story and resolution have a certain framework. However, it was framed in the best way for the Korean audiences. The Host’s 2006 monster is somewhat smaller in size and less impressive than expected, but instead, what stay with the audiences for a long time is the Han River and the landscape around it. It looks familiar and strange at the same time to the local audiences who have lived in Seoul. In Mother (2009), KIM Hye-ja, a Korean icon of the sacred mother, plays the lead role. She stands up and fights, first to prove her son’s innocence, then to hide his crime, and finally immersed in madness and horror. Watching her, Korean audiences also fell into the state of panic and craze.

 

In Snowpiercer, such signature movement of Bong’s locality is not salient. However, this film and Bong’s intelligence still tap on something sensitive in the Korean society, resulting in the passionate reception of domestic audiences. The film depicts how the leader of the tail compartment (representing the low class) goes to the forefront compartment to eliminate their leader, Wilford. While most critics saw it to be a class struggle, some had different views. Especially, the greatest actress in the film, Tilda Swinton, assessed the film as to explore the issue of leadership. Unlike Curtis the tail compartment leader, Gilliam the sage of the tail compartment, or Wilford the leader believing in the law of the jungle, SONG plays a totally different type of leader. He plays the role of NAMGUNG Minsu who is an anarchist, and the film positively accepts this new type of leadership. NAMGUNG is not interested in the class struggle in the train but only in obtaining the hallucinating material. Some audacious critic even says that NAMGUNG is a drug junkie, and the world of hallucination that he sees is also Bong’s third vision: when considering the fact that NAMGUNG is hallucinating, the happy ending of the film is also part of his dream and not reality.

 

Like his previous films, Bong goes beyond the expected narrative and theme by the end of Snowpiercer. The distopic ending of this fable was very appealing to the Korean audience who constantly experiences controversial conflicts between the two political parties in real life. NAMGUNG Minsu played by SONG is hallucinating most of the time, easy going and laid-back, and definitely not a leader material. However, he has a great charm of a truthful human being. He is indifferent to class struggle because, for him, replacement of the ruling class with another class is not an ultimate solution to human history and he is hoping to escape from it all. The ending of Snowpiercer is somewhat similar to that of The Host. Towards the end of The Host, SONG adopts a homeless boy after he lost his daughter to the monster. He prepares a hot meal for him, while constantly worrying about reappearance of the monster at the Han River. Of course this is a tragedy, but at the same time, a happy ending. Similarly, Snowpiercer presents Bong’s version of vision, different from what the audiences had expected. Korean audiences felt characteristics of both local and global at the same time.

 
The Only Survivor in the Independent Film Scene

RYU Seung-wan’s The Berlin File (2012) has a similar success formula as Snowpiercer. It was shot at several places in Eastern Europe and the story takes place in Berlin, but the film was exclusively made by the support of Korean funding. RYU proves his long career as an action film director. Contending with his seniors including PARK Chan-wook and BONG Joon Ho, he had tried to make “artsy” films with his own signature, but has stopped such attempt with The Unjust (2010). The Berlin File is a story of North Korean and South Korean spy agents, both of whom are respectively excluded in their own teams and confused by their own identities, which leads to their downfalls. The plot is not succinct and is rather extraneous, but such deficiency is compensated by the pleasure of great action. Just like many of his previous works, The Berlin File also triggers déjà-vu, with references to existing films. Especially, it is criticized as being too similar to Matt Damon’s Bourne series. However, the ending where the North Korean and South Korean spies experience a brotherly bonding, mixed with RYU’s mastery on expressing characters through action, promises his long and stable career in Korean commercial cinema.

There seems to be a trend where major producing companies are building a conservative investment policy, where films that are adopting Hollywood motifs and systems are the only ones being made, and the existence of creativity and originality is in question. Because of this, Korean independent cinema scene is about to vanish. Many indie works are still being made, but the number of the viewers for most does not exceed 10,000 viewers nationwide. The numbers of screening houses are also too small and the resources that these independent films can spend on marketing and promotion are incomparable to what the big budget commercial films can do. While they take up 700 to 800 screens, independent films occupy only 10 or so screens and even their sheer survival is just too hard. Now it is a clearly known fact that rich films get richer and poor films get poorer, and moreover, very few films have shown the kind of aesthetics that you may expect in independent cinema.

The only exception would be O Muel’s Jiseul (2013), which did well in terms of box office performance, attracting more than 120 000 viewers nationwide. The film looks right into the wound of history caused by the conflict of the left and right, unlike commercial films which take politics and history but only provide an indirect metaphor or emotional catharsis. O Muel has been shooting full length feature films on the historical conflicts of Jeju Island, his hometown. He captures the grand view of the island which had been underestimated by the people in mainland Korea. Focusing on the April 3rd incident in Jeju Island which took place in 1948, Jiseul is like a ritual gift, shot from an insider’s perspective. The communist partisan power is increasing in the island and the soldiers are commanded to shoot anybody within 5 km from the seashore, considering them as rebels. The story is very simple. The people in Jeju Island are scared at the death threats from the soldiers while hiding in the mountains, and the soldiers are becoming mad, extremely tired from their cruel assignment. The little holes in the big narrative are filled with the grand landscape of the island shot in black and white. Set in winter, the quiet and blunt land of Jeju is covered with black pebbles and stones, wild waves and its breaking white foam, sad looking rain clouds, and glittering white snow fields which are beautifully personified. 

 

In a world where people are still divided into left and right and fighting against each other, O conducts a ritual in the form of a film for his ancestors.  Filled with thick tears, he has a special attachment to the island where he was born and raised. In one of the scenes, a pig is slaughtered to feed the soldiers and is shot in a bird’s eye view. This scene looks very disturbing and all the more cruel because it reminds the viewers of the people-slaughter in the film. The tragedy of people-slaughter looks as though a part of quotidian life in this film. However, it is at least somewhat assuring because this scene is seen from somebody else’s perspective. At least somebody is witnessing this drastic tragedy. The biggest achievement that O Muel has done in this film while using the camera as a ritual tool, is to give the feeling that the gods of Jeju are quietly watching human history. This film leaves a number of images in the audiences’ memory, such as the still life frames. Just like the shots in the film are irreversible once switched to the next, it is the same in our lives: what has gone is not retrievable. However, some images in this film stay in our memory immortally. O Muel has made these immortal images with the help from the local gods in Jeju Island. 

Politics is still an important issue in 2013 Korean cinema. Whether explicitly or not, this subject still ignites and coexists with Korean cinema. The box office winners in 2013 are the ones that have successfully transformed this ember into a big torch on the screen. It is a rather interesting phenomenon. Korea is over saturated with politics, whether in media or in a bar, but it has not been long since popular culture including cinema has openly dealt with such issues. In Korea, cinema is still the most influential center of popular culture, and it has often been suspected to provide only escapist pleasure. However, without even knowing it, Korean cinema has successfully digested politics within itself. Especially mainstream commercial cinema has succeeded in adjusting people’s anger and positioning it safely within the grammar of genre films. Such trend is likely to go on in 2014, where the political conflicts are expected to increase and become even more complex.

 

By KIM Young-jin(Film Critic)