Forgot password

 

Korea’s political turmoil blended into its cinema in 2017, a year marked by several historical works echoing current events. Meanwhile overseas, major films from returning auteurs and a new wave of filmmakers once again invaded the world’s festivals, led by no less than five new films at this year’s 70th Cannes Film Festival. Business-wise year set no new records in Korea yet the local industry continued to wield a slight edge over Hollywood’s global tentpoles. 

KoBiz has looked back over the busy year that was to highlight some of the major shifts and events that marked the industry and the viewing public:

With one of the highest per capita rates of attendance in the world, the Korean film exhibition market continued to thrive, and is expected to fall in the 210-220 million admissions range for, in a country of just 50 million inhabitants, for the fifth year running year. This long-running steadiness has resulted in observers commenting that the industry has reached a saturation point.

Although overall admissions were strong local content lost a little ground over the previous year and at the time of this writing, the local market share is just below 50% but is expected to barely edge past it with a strong lineup of local titles in late December.

The ten million viewer club welcomed one new member this year, as the political drama A Taxi Driver became the 15th Korean film to cross the threshold in late summer. Depending on how they are received, December’s trio of big-budget releases (Steel Rain, Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds and 1987: When the Day Comes) may give the club another new member.  

The year’s biggest shock came on October 30, when the country learned of the unexpected passing of beloved actor KIM Joo-hyuk, after he was involved in a late afternoon traffic collision in the Gangnam area. A major star in the country for almost two decades, many felt that he had reached a peak in his career in recent years, drawing acclaim for works such as Hong Sangsoo’s Yourself and Yours and LEE Kyoung-mi’s The Truth Beneath. He appeared in the action-drama Confidential Assignment and the period noir The Tooth and the Nail earlier this year and completed two films prior to his death which will premiere next year: CHO Geun-hyun’s period drama Age of Rebellion and LEE Hae-young’s Dokjeon, a remake of Johnny TO’s Chinese thriller Drug War.

BONG Joon-ho’s highly anticipated Netflix debut Okja encountered some controversy both at home and abroad. It first kicked up a hornet’s nest during this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it was one of the first Netflix films to ever screen in competition, along with Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). French exhibitors were livid that Cannes would take a film that would never screen in theaters, as Netflix refuses to comply with France’s 36-month minimum window between a film’s theatrical release and availability on online streaming services.

Controversy followed the film to Korea a month later when local exhibitors, including the country’s three main chains CGV, Lotte Cinema and Megabox, refused to screen the title which was being distributed by Next Entertainment World. Despite being shut out of multiplexes, curiosity and BONG’s name packed out arthouse cinemas for weeks, though the film’s 322,000 admissions (USD 2.24 million) was likely a fraction of what it might have made in general release. 

Arthouse filmmaker Hong Sangsoo may have been in the news for some personal reasons this year, but 2017 was also the biggest and busiest year of his career to date as he released three titles and completed production on another, which will be his 22nd. The Berlin International Film Festival welcomed On the Beach at Night Alone in competition, where it earned KIM Min-hee the Best Actress prize, allowing her to join the only other two Korean performers to be rewarded a top prize at one of the three most prestigious film festivals in the world, along with JEON Do-yeon (Best Actress in Cannes for Secret Sunshine in 2007) and KANG Soo-youn (Best Actress in Venice for The Surrogate Womb in 1987).

Speaking of Cannes, Hong became the first Korean filmmaker to have two films invited to the festival during the same edition, with The Day After being welcomed to the competition (his fifth competition invitation, another record for a Korean filmmaker), while Claire’s Camera, his second collaboration with French actress Isabelle Huppert, was featured as a special screening. Hong also completed production on his 22nd film Blades of Grass, which will see him team up with his muse KIM Min-hee for the fifth time.

Western stars have occasionally appeared in Korean films before, such as Liam Neeson’s appearance as General Douglas MacArthur in the Korean War film Operation Chromite last summer, but the trend was on the rise this year and yielded its most successful collaboration yet. Versatile German star Thomas Kretschmann, from films such as Downfall and Avengers: Age of Ultron, appeared in JANG Hun’s hit Gwangju-set drama A Taxi Driver, playing the real life German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter, who took a taxi from Seoul to cover the protests there in May 1980. Side-by-side with SONG Kang-ho’s taxi driver, Kretschmann drew strong notices for his naturalistic performance.

Other examples included the Swedish actor Peter Stormare, a noted character actor in Hollywood who has featured in Fargo and Armageddon, who played a CIA agent in PARK Hoon-jung’s North Korean serial killer thriller V.I.P. As already mentioned, Isabelle Huppert performed in a Korean film for the second time in Hong Sangsoo’s Claire’s Camera.

Joining them soon will be French superstar Vincent Cassel of Black Swan, who will play the head of IMF in the 1990s-set financial drama Sovereign Default Day alongside KIM Hye-soo and YOO Ah-in. The film, from SPLIT director CHOI Kook-hee, kicks off production this month.

Until not so long ago in Korea, social commentary in films was generally hidden from view as facts and events were only implied. As filmmakers have grown bolder and audiences more demanding, the situation is now quite different. In a year that saw the former president kicked out of office and an ideological switch following a snap election, political content found favor with audiences, but not necessarily as expected. 

Election drama The Mayor with CHOI Min-shik, timed to be released shortly before people went to the polls in May, failed to draw much interest but political works that were based on actual events fared much better. These included the year’s biggest hit A Taxi Driver, based on the infamous Gwangju Democratization Movement of 1980, prosecutor saga The King, which follows the terms of several presidents and the corrupt district attorneys of the judiciary, the surprise hit documentary OUR PRESIDENT, a Jeonju Cinema Project which followed the late president ROH Moo-hyun’s rise to power, and media corruption documentary Criminal Conspiracy from investigative journalist CHOI Seung-ho, who this month was announced as the new head of MBC, the broadcaster that fired him during a struggle for editorial independence. Even the period siege drama The Fortress is largely an allegory for the current political climate while I Can Speak, another surprise hit, also hit a hot button political discourse surrounding the acknowledgement of the plight of Korean comfort women at the hands of the Japanese military during World War II.

As we prepare to close out the year, viewers will have a chance for one more dark trip down memory lane with JANG Joon-hwan’s star-studded 1987: When the Day Comes. Already strongly received by critics, this story of the death of a student by torture, which lead to the demonstrations that would eventually topple former president CHUN Doo-hwan, may well upend the box office chart for the year.