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.

Nobi: Looking into Joseon Society

 

Usually I write about film that I have seen but this time I would like to write about the slavery in Korea. Not much ago I watched a drama, Chuno (추노), that revolves around the life of a slave hunter during the Joseon Dinasty.  In terms of visual product it has some great scenes but what I found quite interesting was the depiction of the slave figure. Probably because I did not know too much about the slavery system in Korea, I start to search about it.

The slavery structure formed a part of Korean history. Around 30-40% of the population during the Joseon Dinasty was slaves or ‘nobi’ (노비), as it is called in Korea. If we think carefully about this percentage, we can realize the importance of this social class in the pre-modern Korean history.

The society in this period was divided in 4 different social statements. The higher social class or aristocracy was called ‘Yangban’. This class was formed by Confucian scholars that had to succeed becoming a government official in order to keep their status. In case the family member of three generation did not succeed in the government official examination, they would lose their yangban status and would become commoners. Yangban were followed by ‘chungin’ that was the petit bourgeoisie. They were just a privilege class of commoners that formed a group of bureaucrats and skilled professionals. These two social classes were in the top of the social hierarchy and they controlled and ruled over the others.

There was also the Sangmin class or commoners, common people in Joseon Korea that were clean workers with a very little social status. At the bottom of the social hierarchy there was the slavery class called nobi (노비) in Korean.

In the drama it is shown how slaves were skin marked with the Chinese characters for no (노; 奴) and bi (비; 婢) to show whether they were male or female respectively.

The nobi class were owned by the elite yangban and, as part of their properties, they could sell, buy, leave as inheritance or give them as a present. However, nobi class was also fed and clothed by their masters. Probably, they could be sometimes under better conditions than the commoners in terms of food, clothes and housing. The slavery status was hereditary but it was also given as a legal punishment. There are some other curious points that characterize the nobi class. For example they could own some properties and they would be taxed for their properties. It was also common that they had the suffix kae in their names which means tool. In terms of marriage, nobi could marry with commoner and, although it was not allow for them to marry with yangbans, sometimes this prohibition was ignored and some slaves women became 2^nd wives or concubines of the yangban elite.

Nobi in Korea fulfil a great part of Korean History that cover from 7^th to 19^th century. For a length of twelve years, Korea has experienced a large-scale slave system, longer than in other slave-holding countries. That is the main reason why Korea has a peculiar position among slave system societies without mention the fact that Korea was isolated at the end of Asia with almost no connection with other slave societies.

 The other slave-holding countries except Korea were located near areas that were connected by the slave trade markets. That was around the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean connecting America, Africa, Europe and India in Asia. As we can realize from this is that Korea is the unique society that, outside of the mainstream of slavery trade, established a slavery society for a long period in history.

• "Korean nobi in American mirror": http://econ.snu.ac.kr/~ecores/activity/paper/no26.pdf
• "Nobi: Rescuing the Nation from slavery": http://muninn.net/blog/2005/04/nobi-rescuing-the-nation-from-slavery.html

Breath

Breath (2007, dir.Kim Ki-duk)

Here we go again with a film of the Korean filmmaker that has captivated all the international circles, Kim Ki-duk. In “Breath”, he makes again a special depiction of love as a conflictive story. This time it will get involved 4 people: Jang Jin, Yeon, her husband and the young cellmate.

Jang Jin is a prisoner that has tried several times to commit suicide. The social repercussion in the news of his situation has attracted Yeon’s attention. Yeon is a docile housewife that takes care of her daughter and her husband. One day she discovers that her husband is having an affair what leads her to visit Jang in prison. When she gets there, she introduces herself to the prison officers as Jang’s ex-girlfriend. She will continue visiting him bringing different seasons in each visit like she was trying to build a relationship. When she goes to the prison she wallpapers the visit room as an outside area that reflects every season. When the husband realizes about what she is doing he try to separate them and he stops his affair. It seems that he realizes that he want to keep his family over everything.

Autumn visit

Each time that Yeon goes to prison, we can appreciate an unknown person that keep observing Yeon and Jang relationship through the security camera. In one scene, it is possible to appreciate the reflexion of the person in the screen (It is very curious so just have a look and discover him by yourself) . This ‘voyeur’ figure is not new for Kim ki-duk, in fact it is a current topic in his films. This film, ‘Nabbun namja’ and ‘bin jip’ are some examples of its representation.

There are not fixed feelings in the film. The movie has a ‘warm’ storyline; the characters keep changing their heart throughout the movie.

Kim Ki-duk repeats the same characteristic elements that have supported his cinema:

First, he shows again a film based on silence and visual representation. This quiet cinema, based on no dialogs, has given him his international success and he keeps improving this technique in each work.

It also includes trouble characters in the outside boundaries of society: Jang Jin, a prisoner that have tried to kill himself many times; the young cellmate, who feels a harmful love towards Jang Jin; Yeon, a housewife sick of her empty life; and her husband that cheats on her and hits her.

Moreover, it is evident Kim Ki-duk’s special taste for violent and cruel image. The film keeps a dark side all over the film besides the colourful scenes of Yeon’s visits to Jang Jin.

Breath brings out the personal view that the Korean director has of the world. This film illustrates as well how he keeps improving his work.

Bad guy

"Nabbun namja" dir. Kim Ki-duk

“Bad Guy”, in Korean “Nabbun namja” (나쁜 남자) is another example of Kim Ki-duk’s film style. It reflects his special taste toward violence and cruelty and keeps his identity on the film characteristics.

On one side, the characters that are always in the outside borders of society. Han-ki is a young man that seems to live out of the law. One day, he notices Sun-hwa, a beautiful college student, and falls for her. In front of everyone, even her boyfriend. Han-ki violently kiss her but she neglects and humiliates him in public by splitting on him. After this event he decides to revenge. Han-ki, helped by some friends, involves Sun-hwa in a debt that she cannot pay back. She finally ends in a prostitution district of Seoul forced to sell her body to repay the sum.

The scene when he forces her to kiss him

Soon, Han-ki will be obsessed with the girl presence. He observes her through the mirror. This is another important point in the film, the development of the ‘voyeur’ figure. This voyeur attitude is also shown in the poster of the film. We can appreciate him watching her and his reflexion on the mirror. Watching how she is suffering will lead him to be in love with her but this won’t change his attitude.

The film depicts the complete transformation of a woman that goes from a very conservative position, refusing the situation, to the opposite attitude. She will finally become a prostitute. Furthermore, what it’s more representative, the movie reflects the idea of women’s psychology that women prefer bad guys rather than nice ones.

In fact, at the end and besides everything that she has gone through, Sun-hwa falls in love with Han-ki (kind of syndrome of Stockholm). Even she goes to prison when he is arrested and asks him not to die there.

The idea of love is mixed with pain. These two elements are quite difficult to separate in Kim Ki-duk’s cinema.

Again, the director plays with silence giving much more importance to the image than the dialogs. Probably, this has become one of the most remarkable elements about his film style.

3-Iron

The title in korean Bin jip (빈집), empty house, describe faithfully the plot of the film. The Kim Ki-duk film describes the life of Tae-suk. After checking that houses are empty, he breaks into house or flats while the owner is away. Once, he enters into a large house without notice that a woman is inside. That woman, Sun-hwa, keeps observing the way Tae-suk is acting. As soon as they have the first eye contact, Tae-suk leaves the home but he keeps going there and watching over. When he realizes that Sun-hwa’s husband is battering her, he revenges her by hitting her husband with a 3 Iron (the golf club that gives name to the film in English). After that, they run away together, both Tae-suk and Sun-hwa.

From this point they start a relationship based on silence. Maybe because of the silence, it could disappoint somehow audience that are not prepared to see a film like this. But the image and photography of this movie is amazingly beautiful as it is the story.

It is not easy to see this kind of films, more independent, outside of the film festivals. Most of these Asian movies, more precisely South Korean ones, are just available in this kind of events. 3 Iron and other Korean films have depicted a particular film style. They show a cinema that little by little has become more remarkable. Not just this one but also “A tale of two sisters”, “Old boy”, “Memories of murder”, “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” are heading a list of example of a cinematography that has become very strong. Korean cinema, as Indian one, has been one of the film industries that has been able to compete with Hollywood.

The figure of Kim Ki-duk has been very important in terms of international diffusion of korean cinema. In his work he always explores characters that are in the border of the society. In ‘Bin Jip’, for example, appear Tae-suk, a young man that is like a 'parasite' living in houses when the owner is not inside; Sun-hwa, a beautiful woman, that was a model, subjugated under her husband authority and violence; and Min-gyu, the violent and insecure husband that batters his wife.

In this film Kim ki-duk depicts the love as a mixture with pain and this representation is based on the image almost without dialogs (even the main character do not say a word).

Tae-suk lives without possessions using things of other people and that questions the necessity of having assets.

The silence is a very important element in the film. Kim Ki-duk manages to use it properly and get a very good final project based on a visual poetry. I really recommend this film to everyone that want to get in touch with a different kind of cinema far away from the typical hollywood movie.

DMZ: an evidence of the division

Have passed around 50 years since the Korean war finished with an agreement of ceasefire and building the DMZ, demilitarized zone, from one side to the other of the peninsula, dividing the country in two parts North and South Korea; symbolizing war and peace at the same time.

Since that moment North Korea has tried four times to dig a tunnel to reach South Korea but just the 3^rd Tunnel can be visited. This is the closer one to get Seoul. To see the tunnel first you have to go down around 30 metros before being actually walking through it. It was quite impressive to be there thinking that they almost reach the capital of South Korea. Even taking pictures inside is completely forbidden.

Near there it is the Dora Observatory. This observatory supposes to be the only place where you can actually have a view of North Korea and see Gaeseong city. It is really exiting the idea of being there. I had the opportunity to visit it but because of the weather it was impossible to see anything and, moreover, taking pictures was forbidden. But, anyway, when you are there, it is almost impossible not to think in how many times people that have family in North Korea have gone there just to dream about meeting them again.

And this hope of unification is what people could get from the visit to woljeongri station. This provisional train station would join the last station in South Korea and the first one of North Korea. You can notice the sorrow of the divided country since the first step into the building. And the day that both parts get together again, will affect also the whole Asian continent and South Korea won’t be isolated any more. Asian continent and European continent would be joined.

The division topic and the hope for the reunification have been represented in several films such as JSA (dir. Park Chan-wook, 2000), Taegukgi (dir. Kangh Je-gyu, 2004), Silmido (dir. Kang Woo-suk, 2003), Shiri (dir. Kang, Je-gyu, 1999), Manmubang (dir. Aum Jong-sun, 1994).