Jennifer's Passion: April 2020

“And the Oscars goes to …”

February is kind of a special month, especially this year. Despite the news of the new coronavirus from Wuhan, China is spreading, I want to highlight the winning of four Academy awards that was taken away by the ‘Parasite’ team. Let’s forget about the COVID-19 for a while and look back at this rare winning story.

A few weeks ago, I watched the awarding night of ‘The 40^th Blue Dragon Film Awards’. They were celebrating the 40^th years of the award and the 100^thyears of the Korean movie industry. This year marked the tenth years I followed the Korean movie industry, which means I’ve only watched just 10% of it.

Snippets of 'The 40th Blue Dragon Film Awards'
'Parasite' Team
Courtesy of Sports Chosun via Hellokpop.com

The Roar

Dating back to 1919, ‘The Righteous Revenge’ was to be believed the first Korean movie to be released. That year, Korea (South and North Korea were one) was still under the occupation of Japan. So, it was not the era to be creative and appreciate it. Surviving the day was hard enough, how come they have time to enjoy a movie, but it turned out that it received warm attention. The first movie was in kinodrama (play with motion picture inserts) format. A few years later, the format changed. They started to have silent film, sound film, colored film, and then the film format we enjoy now.

The underlying background of the early days is mostly about the occupation of Japan or Korean folktales. The most famous folktale in Korea is called Chunhyang-jeon (which means ‘the legend of Chunhyang’). This folktale can be found in any storytelling form such as song, poem, drama, book, and many more. The most famous format is song and drama. Most of the Korean traditional performances are inspired by this folktale. Jang Geun-suk and Ha Jiwon’s were able to have a turning point in their acting career thanks to the drama ‘Chunhyang’ (this drama is one of the legendary drama, which every Hallyu fans have to watch).

Lee Mongryong (acted by Jo Seung-woo) and Chunhyang (acted by Lee Hyo-Jung)
from the movie 'Chunhyang' (2000) produced by Im Kwon-taek
Courtesy of CJ Entertainment via Dramabeans

For Koreans, the occupation of Japan was the most painful and longest memory they ever have. No wonder there were lots of visual-art forms that took the settings from this period. They were occupied for 35 years and then for 5 years later another war broke out. They were barely revived the mess that was made during the Japanese occupation. The Korean War is also an interesting underlying theme. Viewers today were curious about those days, which making the filmmakers pushed their creativity to recreate the situation.

As the world is now shifting and more people are open-minded, the storyline of a movie became more diverse and unique, especially when cultures came in.

Turning Point

Hollywood is will always be associated with the word ‘film’. There is where all actors and filmmakers in the world are dreaming to be. There were few Korean actors that have opened the way in the Hollywood scene, like Rain, Lee Byung-hun, Daniel Henney, and Bae Doona. Not only on screen but behind the screen too. I found few Korean named editors and other crews on Hollywood movies, and of them is Marvel Studios' movie. But, who would know that a Korean film will be the one who took home 4 Oscars trophy away that night? I never really care about that award before, even though I personally love watching a film. Since the winner is a Korean film, which is the first non-English film that won the award, I got curious about it. Not specifically about the award, but about the director and Korean film industry itself.

Ninja Assassin Movie Poster
Rain's first Hollywood debut movie on 2009
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures via Petelagi.com

Bong Joon-ho is a veteran in the Korean film industry and he had good relationships with other phenomenal directors around the world. His acceptance speech leaves a great impression both for the Koreans and invitees that night. It was in simple English, “Thank you. I will drink until (the) next morning, thank you”. But this snippet of his acceptance speech became a stir in the Korean society (there are some parodies of him) and he showed the true Korean culture that night. Well, he is a true Korean to the bone, anyway. His speech is witty and simple enough and brightens up the theater right away. What ‘Parasite’ team did was truly an achievement for Koreans and a gate-opener for other Asian countries. Through this event, the world knows that Asian countries are able to keep up the Western countries, which notable for their advanced technologies and ideas.

The Blue Dragon Film Awards were given before The Academy Awards and of course, ‘Parasite’ also won the heart of the local industry, as well. They won five awards and one of them is the ‘Best Film’ awards. Most of the other contenders who won the other awards, open their speech with, “I thought ‘Parasite’ team who will win this award, or I/We didn’t expect to receive this award…” this shows how strong ‘Parasite’ is.

Bong Joon-Ho's Acceptance Speech Parody
"Parodysite"
Courtesy of Yoon Seyoon's Youtube Channel (Awesome YoonSeyoonie)

Well, actually, superstar actor, Song Kang-ho's other movie called ‘Taxi Driver’ also received lots of love from the overseas movie enthusiasts, but the impact and messages ‘Parasite’ showed were relatable to all nationalities and every citizen in the world. So, it is not an understatement to say the turning point of the Korean movie industry is ‘Parasite’.

Korean Movies Values

Citing from Statista (2020), the Korean movie export value from 2013 to 2019 shows some ups and downs, but it worth more than 25 million dollars each year. The highest value is 43.89 million dollars in 2016. That year is when ‘Train to Busan’ was released. Regardless of the Oscar-winning movie, ‘Parasite’ was released last year, the export values were placed 4^th out of 6^th. I believe because of the other contender movies in 2019 were pretty strong such as The Avengers, live-action Aladdin, as well as Lion King, and many more, it became the reason for lower export value. But nevertheless, in Korea itself, last year marked the highest cinema admission according to Statista. This means that Koreans are more appreciating in the movie industry (both Korean and other countries movies as well) nowadays.

Daddy Seok-woo (acted by Gong Yoo) in Train to Busan (2016)
Courtesy of Next Entertainment World via Detik.co.id

There are 1.1 thousand Korean movies that were released in South Korea and few of the remarkable movies that were released are, ‘Extreme Jobs’, ‘Parasite’, ‘Born 1982: Kim Jiyoung’, ‘Exit’, ‘The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil’, and ‘Innocent Witness’. I haven’t got the chance to watched all the movies that were released last year, but ‘Extreme Jobs’, ‘Parasite’, ‘Born 1982: Kim Jiyoung’, and ‘Exit’ are truly remarkable movies. It was entertaining, touching, and they had the best castings too. I realized that these three elements are the things that made Korean movies attractive. Korea is known to have a diverse historical value. From the Kingdom era to Japanese occupation to the Korean war to fighting from poverty until the modern-day. Through those ups and downs, making their storyline unique and rich.

'Exit' (2019) Movie Poster
Courtesy of CJ E&M via IMDb

Notable Movies I’ve Ever Watched

Well, as far as I remember, I started to follow the Korean film industry since I watched ‘Train to Busan’. Thanks to the handsome daddy, Gong Yoo, I watched the movie. If it was not acted by him, I probably wouldn’t dare to watch it, even though so many people talked about it, even from the non-Korean-fans. Even the movie got a special studio in my neighborhood cinema.

The first Korean movie I watched is ‘The Man from Nowhere’. The film was released in 2010, which is the second year I got hooked in the Korean wave. The film was too dark for me to watch at that time, but the film itself received lots of love from the viewers, especially the Koreans. The Won Bin effect was pretty huge that time, well up until now actually. Another good Korean movie I’ve watched is ‘Miracle in Cell No. 7’. Oh, I cried a lot. Both Korean movies and dramas could make me a crybaby and are really good at delivering the same emotions. The classic ‘My Sassy Girl’ and ‘200 Pounds of Beauty’ should not be missed out from the list.

A snippet of 'My Sassy Girl' (2001)
Featuring Gianna Jun and Cha Tae-hyun
Courtesy of Cinema Service via Tumblr

One of my favorite films about the Japanese occupation is ‘The Battleship’. Indonesia and Korea had the same year of Independence, which is in 1945. This film’s setting is when Koreans were brought to China to be a slave. With the help of a “spy”, they were able to plan an escape route. When they were able to exit the slavery, the Alliance bombed Hiroshima (on the 6^th of August) and Nagasaki (on the 9^th of August), which brought down Japanese power greatly. It was an intense movie, where there are lots of scenes of poverty, blood, and cursing. The hidden patriotic of me came out when I watched the movie.

Lately, I’ve been watching some old Korean movies like, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘A Day’, ‘The Chronicle of Blood Merchant’, ‘The Undercover Spy’, ‘Sunflower’, ‘Love Forecast’, ‘Scarlet Innocence’, ‘Luck Key’, ‘Beauty Inside’, and many more. Since it was premiered in different years, I could see it clearly that the industry was progressing. And that’s why I chose to write a post about this topic on my feature this time.

A movie is not only about telling stories and entertain the viewers, but it's about passion and hard work. A single movie is not complete without a writer, director, music director, editor, actor, and more other crews that need to hold in hand creating a wonderful story and entertain the viewer. No wonder why a movie ending screen-roll is long. It's all because so many people needed to make a movie. Let's appreciate every movie, even though you don't like the story or the actor or other things, but let's remember that it is a piece of someone's hard work.

It was pretty unfortunate, that the industry had to stop for a while this month because of the COVID-19, but I hope you can catch up to watch Korean movies in this hard situation. Wishing you to stay healthy and happy all the time. This too shall pass. I will pray for all of you wherever you are. If you are able to read this post, you are doing well and fortunate. Let’s save the world together. See you in my upcoming post.

BONUS!
I wanted to share some of my experience watching the preview or premiere of the Korean movies while I'm in Korea. I pretty often going to the cinema while I'm living in Korea because first, I got to see the actors in real life cheaper than going to a fan-meeting, second, there were lots of good movie in 2018, third, their popcorn was tasty, and lastly, it's good to spend time with friends and learn Korean in the same time. So, here it is.