K-ulture

'K-ulture' is a virtual space created to spread articles, news and think pieces about South korean culture and about the country in general.
These days international popularity of South Korea has been growing and broadening to many parts of the world not just Asia, either politically and culturally.
It is a country that has experienced a huge economic development in 60 years and now is one of the most important technological exported countries. Brand such as Samsung, LG, Kia, Hyundai...are korean and they are selling all over the world.
The presence of Korean films in international festivals, the success of the korean pop group all over the asia, the sales of technology and cars, the G-20 meeting celebrated in Seoul (the capital)...demostrate the relevant position that the country is taken internationally.
And, although South Korea is one of the emergent nations and despite of its importance , no many people know about its history, politics, culture or customs. This is the beginning point where this blog idea comes from, to bring Korea closer to those who want to read or know more about it.
As my principal interests are related with the media and the culture, the blog will be focus on these topics but always keeping a broad view, showing and releasing articles about history, economy or international relations.
I invite everyone to do any coments about any topic you are interested in.

Lost in Korea

What do I mean with "Lost in Korea"?
Everyone that has been in Korea will agree with me in one thing: there are many places in the country that are worthy to visit. I mean, not just landscapes, that are wonderful (of course), but also beautiful spots in cities including museums, galleries, or even restaurants. This section is not a tourist guide but just a personal photo album with some suggestion of places that anyone must visit.

I will use personal pictures so I hope you enjoy them.

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COOKIES POLICY

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Success of K-pop in Europe

 

RESOURCE YONHAP NEWS AGENCY

Members of the 5 K-pop Bands (picture from yonhap news)

The international impact of Korean popular culture is getting unable to obviate. Last weekend Paris, the capital of France, was full of thousand of fans waiting to taste “kimchi flavour”. The Parisian city held last Friday, 10^th of June, the biggest korean pop concert celebrated in Europe, (I guess the first one). It was a huge success for the 5 top Korean bands (TVXQ, Girls’ Generation, Super Junior, SHINee and f(x)) in their European debut.

Thus was the impact of the performance that it was held another one on Saturday, selling all the tickets. Over 7,000 fans from all over Europe could enjoy 44 songs of these Korean groups in Le Zenith de Paris concert hall. Two percent of the audience was Koreans.

The Saturday, 11^th of June, Lee Soo-man, founder and chairman of SM Entertainment, one of the most important agencies in Korea, gave a conference with around 70 composers and producers in which he talked about the success of K-pop culture.

As Lee Soo-man explained the “Korean wave or Hallyu” is spreading beyond Korean borders in 3 stages: exporting hallyu products, collaborating with foreign firms and passing down Korean CT to local people to create a localized hallyu.

In general, nowadays the spreading of Korean pop culture outside of Korea is moving forward really fast, in a way we cannot even notice. Teddy Ridley, American record producer that worked with Michael Jackson, described K-pop as a type of “movement”. It is becoming a cultural movement implicating the whole world and It cannot be obviated the importance that it has over the international relations of the country.

Mother

 

Poster of the film "Mother" (dir. Bong Joon-ho)

“Mother” is the 5^th film of Bong Joon-ho, respectful korean director that starts his career with the film “Barking dogs never bite” but he wouldn’t become acknowledge till his next movie “Memories of murder”, that is based on the true story of the 1^st  known serial killer in the country. This film was exposed in several film festivals around the world including Cannes, London International Film Festival, Tokyo International Film Festival or San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain getting awards in, both, Spain and Tokyo, as well as, in Torino Film Festival.

Mother tells the story of a woman that has to struggle to save her own son from murder accusation. The main topic of the film revolves around the idea of a mother that is able to face any kind of situation in order to protect her children, no matter what it is, if it is immoral or so.

Probably, one of the most interesting features of the film is the acting of the main roles. Both characters, the mother (Kim Hye-ja) and the son (Won Bin) have a very dramatic weight inside the story. Kim Hye-ja plays the role of an unnamed widow that works selling medicinal herbs and practicing acupuncture, and lives with her son, Do-joon, who is mentally disabled. One day, Do-joon is arrested under murder suspicion when a high school girl is discovered dead.

From this moment, Do-joon’s mother, trusting in her son’s innocence, starts to search and investigate the girl, her background and every detail of the murder in order to prove the innocence of Do-joon. This investigation would lead her toward an old man that collects junk and this man turns to be the witness supporting that Do-joon is the culprit. In the view of the circumstances, the woman ends up killing the old man burning also the junkyard but leaving behind her acupuncture equipment. 

 

Another charm of the film is Bong Joon-ho’s ability to keep a tension feeling over the whole movie. Bong Joon-ho manages again to capture the attention of the public through a very carefully thought-out use of the image. Its photography is very intimist, based on backlighting and dark image that confers to the film a texture and a sublime beauty helping to the atmosphere. About the treatment of the image, it is important to mention the cyclic composition of the film where the beginning and the ending have some aspects in common (the mother dancing both in the field and the bus). 

Beginning of the film with Do-joon's mother dancing

As a constant in Bong Joon-ho’s films, Mother is created also as a mix of genre. However, this mix genre won’t shock the audience as much as other of his films because the merger is more natural, thriller as well as intimist film marked with a comic overtone in some situations.

With this film, Joon-ho reintroduces the depiction of the police from a negative point of view, as he did in “Memories of Murder”, almost blaming them of corruption, taking confessions from torturing the suspect.

This is a film with a great emotional weight that gives the audience the opportunity to get into the story showing a diseased portrait of the characters and analysing the morality of their actions.

'Ex aequo' for Un certain Regard section prize

Kim K-duk, winning director

The last 21st of May, it was revealed the identity of the winner films for the section Un Certain Regard. As I said in the last post, Korean cinema came this time to the festival with three different candidates for the named section and finally it was one of them among the winners of Un Certain Regard first prize, Arirang (dir. Kim Ki-duk). Once again, this proves the quality of Korean films.

Shot of Arirang

 For this 64^th edition of the festival, the jury has delivered an ‘Ex aequo’ prize getting equal qualifications both films, the Korean ‘Arirang’ and the German production ‘Halt auf freier Strecke’ (dir. Andreas Dresen). Although it is a ‘share’ award, it is pleased as well so it is an acknowledgment for Korean cinema. 

This was not the only good piece of news from this year. Among the winners of the Cinéfondation section we can find as well the name of a Korean production, Ya-gan-bi-hang, the only one of this nationality, which has obtained a deserved bronze position. 

Shot from Ya-gan-bi-hang (dir.Son Tae-gyum)

 Now that the festival is over, for us, we can just wait for the next year to see what the festival and the Korean cinema will offer.

For more information about the 64th edition winners, look into the webpage of Cannes Film Festival.

KOREAN CINEMA: A MUST FOR CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

Once again one of the most influent film festival in Europe and, what is more, around the world started this week its 64^th edition. From the 11^th till the 22^nd of may the city of Cannes will greet artists and film professionals from around the world.

As it is common since several editions ago, we will be able to find some interesting features of Korean cinema that has become a must for this festival.

If we take a look among the films included in the section “Un certain regard”, we can find three South Korean films: Arirang (dir. Kim Ki-duk), The day he arrives (dir. Hong Sang-soo), and The yellow sea (or The Murderer) (dir. Na Hong-jin). Among the directors of these three films, probably two of them will recall us to past editions, as it is the case of Kim Ki-duk and Hong Sang-soo that repeat the experience while Na Hong-jin presents for the first time a work in this competition.

These three films will have to compete among the 21 movies of this section (including them). At the moment I have seen none of these films but I am willing to see the three of them. Probably, Arirang is the one that interest me the most. The reason that moves my interest it is maybe Kim Ki-duk acting role. It is not a common feature seeing Kim Ki-duk acting in his movies and taking the weight of the acting role. In fact, I think I haven’t seen him acting before (although he appeared slightly in Breath). Here it is the Trailer if you want to take a look.

Hong Sang-soo, director of The day he arrives, has also presented other of his film in Cannes. In 2005 Tale of Cinema was entered in the section “In Competition”. In 2004, another film of this director, Woman is the future of men, was also classified in this section. But it was not till the last edition, in 2010, when one of his films, Hahaha, won the Prix Un Certain Regard.

The most inexperienced one, Na Hong-jin, has been classified for the first time with his film The yellow sea. I have just watched the trailer but it seems to be a great thriller, without mention that the film was top at the box office when it was openned on December 22, 2010.

These are not the only Korean piece of work presented in the festival. If we move to the Cinéfondation category we will encounter a short film directed by Son Tae-gyum. This work tells the story of a boy that has sex with a man for money. The man suggest the boy to meet again and ask him for his phone number but later on the boy’s brother will confiscate the cell phone.

Will one of them get the great prize of the section? As I have seen none of the films selected in this section, I can not predict about the results so we will have to wait till the 22^nd for the jury’s decision.