Hollywood of the east – The Korean cinema
Ron Fogel
I was first exposed to the uniqueness of the Korean cinema when I watched the film “Il Mare” directed by Hyun-seung Lee in 2000. Time travel, fragile family relationships and a plot line that deviates from the common narratives of the western cinema were only some of the features manifested in that beautiful creation. After watching the historical martial arts drama of epic proportions “fighter in the wind” directed by Yun-ho Yang in 2004 – I finally realized what makes contemporary Korean cinema so special: the Korean cinema produces films with such fierce intensity and strong emotions that are almost unknown to the western viewer ,films that combine art house with Hollywood style commercial cinema, films that deal with a wide range of subjects in the same technical and aesthetic perfection. films that dominate the film market in Korea for the past 20 years (almost 50% of the movie goers in Korea watch Korean films) films that never seize to surprise the viewer.
Till the 1990’s South Korean Cinema didn’t get real international recognition and rarely managed to make its local audience fill the theaters .Furthermore, the content of the films had to go through strict censure under the authoritarian regimes. During the 1990’s some changes brought the renaissance of South Korean Cinema in two .phases First, with the coming of democracy and the weakening of the censure, some old and new filmmakers tried to tackle political and social issues in a critical way in their films. This tendency actually started during the 1980’s, but the process of democratization of South Korea brought a new ,generation of directors who made an ambivalent artistic, complex and challenging cinema that started to draw the attention of international film .festivals To this generation belong such acclaimed directors …as Kim Ki-Duk (“Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring”), and Hong Sang-Soo (“Woman is the Future of Man”) Meanwhile, South Korea had entered a rapid process of globalization and opened itself to the international market and the Korean government encouraged the big Korean corporations .) to invest in the film industry) As a result companies like Samsung and Daewoo invested in film productions and helped to create more commercial films of bigger budget and. Korean Cinema became richer After a very short time, the economic crisis of 1997 forced the corporations to shut down their film departments, but the infrastructure was there and young producers made use of the new professional and commercial formats. They manage to get venture capital investors and in. 1999 a new wave of Korean cinema begun this new wave was characterized by films that try to find the right balance between art and entertainment. Directors such as Bong Joon-Ho (“Mother”, “The Host”, and “Memories of Murder”), Park Chan-Wook (“Oldboy”, “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”), and Kim Ji-Woon (“A Tale of Two Sisters”, “The Good, The Bad and The Weird”) made commercial films, which are at the same time .showcased in prestigious film festivals.
The 21st’ century marked a peak in the globalization of the Korean cinema industry. On one hand Korean directors came to the west to direct films such as park chan wook’s “stalker” and Korean actors began to star in western films. on the other hand and a couple of American studios started to produce Korean films in Korea (such as kim jee woon’s “Age of shadows” produced by Warner brothers)
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The Korean cinema -“Hollywood of the east”- which produces more than a 100 films each year continues to be one of the most strong and important film industries in the world today
Ron Fogel, Artistic director Korean film festival in Israel