Korean Films

Note: On August 21–22, the 2007 New York Korean Film Festival honored Im Kwon-Taek with a retrospective of his seminal works — Festival, Come Come Come Upward, Chunhyang, and The General’s Son — which were screened at BAM Rose Cinématek. Click here to learn more about the New York Korean Film Festival.

Note: The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in NYC held a Kim Ki-Duk Retrospective from April 23-May 8, 2008.

Korean Wave

The Korean Wave (한류) refers to the recent surge of popularity of South Korean popular culture in other countries, especially in Asian countries. It is also referred to as Hallyu from the Korean pronunciation of the term. Korea Wave is the term that describes the acclaim that Korean films have received at Asian and international film festivals in the 21st century. The term was coined in China in mid 1999 by Beijing journalists startled by the growing popularity of South Koreans and South Korean goods in China. The Korean Wave began with the export of Korean TV dramas such as Jewel in the Palace [See the Korean TV Dramas page ]. The Busan Film Festival now rivals the Hong Kong Film Festival. Hollywood producers are vying for the "remake" rights on many Korean films because they recognize that the dramas are so powerful. Hollywood understands that most Americans would prefer not to read sub-titles. So, they re-do the films in an American context. Many of the very hot films are released as TV dramas and can be purchased later as DVD sets.

See the Korean Wave page for more information about this important phenomenon sweeping Asia and now hitting the West!

For the second year in a row, Le Festival des Films du Monde is putting the spotlight on a country in which the cinema is at the heart and soul of its nation's culture. Susan Sontag recently pronounced that cinema is dead because cinephilia is dead. Clearly she hasn't visited Iran (last year's country of focus) or Korea. One only has to watch the beginning of Mohsen Makmalbaf's Salam Cinema! where literally thousands of people show up for a casting call for a non-existent feature to recognize that Iranians are cinema crazy. And, by all accounts the same is true these days in the Republic of Korea (commonly known as South Korea).

For the first edition of the Pusan International film Festival in 1996, almost all of the screenings were sold out. (Pusan is South Korea's second largest city after Seoul.) According to Korean film critic/filmmaker Lee Mijeong, young people were so enthusiastic about this film festival, they even chased British film critic Tony Rayns down the streeet, trying to get his autograph! ....Historically, Korean cinema has been virtually invisible to the rest of the world, and, to some extent, to its own people...l The evidence points to the 1960s as being the first significant decade of sound film production in Korea, and its industry's "classical" period. Korea's Motion Picture Law, which took effect in January 20, 1962 mandated that film companies must produce at least 15 films per year and that all films should be commercial by design.

Korean cinema declined in the 1970s and its revival in the 1980s led finally to some exposure in the West. Im Kwon-Taek's Adada (1987) was the very first Korean film I saw, at Montreal's World Film Festival in August, 1988. Until David Overby programmed the magnificent retrospective of East Asian films at Toronto's Festival of Festivals the previous September, only a handful of Korean films had ever been screened in Canada (east of Vancouver). (Overby showed no less than eight films from the Republic of Korea in the special "Eastern Horizons" series.) But, with virtually no coverage of Korean cinema in the English language, nothing had led me to expect that Adada would be such an interesting work, thematically, stylistically, and in its narrative content.

As of this writing, some 13 films directed by Im Kwon Taek have now shown at least once in Montreal, far more than by any other Korean director. Clearly, through the 1980s he was Korea's most prominent director and probably, the country's most prolific according to a publication produced for the 1st Pusan International Film Festival, Im directed 16 films in the decade....Following the new directions of Im Kwon-Taek and Lee Chang-ho, critics have dubbed the period of resurgance in the late 1980s as the "Korean New Wave."....Two books in English have even appeared recently on the subject of the Korean New Wave: Seoul Stirring , written by Rayns to accompany a film series at the ICA in London and Korean New Wave , published by the 1st Pusan International Film Festival. And, the "new wave" is clearly not yet over, as many new directors are emerging amidst the 1990s cinephilia....The prospects for more Korean film discoveries being made during this year's FFM look extremely promising.

Director: Im Kwon-Taek

Director Im Kwon-Taek is considered the father of contemporary South Korean films.
His career spans four decades from 1962 until the present and he has directed over 100 films!

Born in Changsong, Cheollanam-do, 2 May 1936. He grew up in the southern city Kwangju, where he completed senior high school. His family suffered considerable hardships and losses in the Korean War, so he had to move to Pusan in search of work: he was a labourer before trying to start a business recycling US Army boots into shoes. He moved to Seoul in 1956, where a film director Chung Chang-Hwa offered him work as a production assistant in exchange for room and board. Five years later, Chung recommended him as a director, and he completed his first feature in 1962. He was a prolific director of films in various popular genres until the late 1970s but felt a deepening urge to make more serious films that first found in outlet in his 1978 film, Jokbo (1979) (Genealogy). Since 1981's Mandala (1981), he has been considered Korea's leading director. He and his films have won every possible prize in Korea's three annual film awards ceremonies, and a growing number of international festival prizes too. His film Seopyeonje (1993) (is the most honoured Korean film ever made, with (to date) 27 domestic and three international prizes; it was also an enormous success in the Korean market.

Chihwaseon (Painted Fire)

Im Kwon-Taek's widely-proclaimed Chihwaseon (Painted Fire) will be shown this year at the Korea Club!
See the December 1 meeting for more information.

''Chihwaseon (Painted Fire)'' was shown as part of last year's New York Film Festival. Following are excerpts from A. O. Scott's review, which appeared in The New York Times on Sept. 28, 2002; the full text is online at nytimes.com/movies. The film opens today in Manhattan. ''Chihwaseon,'' the new film by Im Kwon-Taek, the prolific grand old man of South Korean cinema, is one eminent artist's biography of another. The subject of the film is Jang Seung-Ub, a 19th-century painter known by the pseudonym Ohwon who lived, in Mr. Im's rendition, like a vagabond rock star. Jang, born a commoner and discovered as a boy by a sympathetic aristocrat, dazzled and scandalized his country's politically fragmented ruling class and spent his long career in and out of favor, and in and out of trouble.

Born in 1960, Kim is the director of many films, including the acclaimed Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring. It is a classic, artistic, deeply-moving film about a Buddhist monk and the growth of his young student at a beautiful island monastery. The Korea Club will show this film. See the October 6 meeting page for more information.

See the Sony Classics trailer for the film at: http://www.sonyclassics.com/spring/.

This exquisitely filmed 2004 drama directed by Kim Ki-Duk centers around a Buddhist monk and his student at a monastery that floats on a raft amidst a breathtaking landscape on an exquisitely tree-lined lake. The elegant story is hauntingly beautiful. It is divided into five segments, with each season representing a stage in the student’s life as he learns harsh lessons that apply to us all. The surprise ending adds special meaning to this inspiring film! The director himself appears as the man in the last stage of life.

The hermitage that is the stage for SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... AND SPRING is an artificially constructed set made to float on top of Jusan Pond in North Kyungsang Province in Korea. Created about 200 years ago, Jusan Pond is an artificial lake in which the surrounding mountains are reflected in its waters. It retains the mystical aura of having trees more than hundreds of years old still growing within its water. LJ Film was able to obtain permission to build the set after finally convincing the Ministry of Environment through six months of negotiations.

The Korean poster for the film is shown below.