Why Korean Films?

So, a new blog, this one devoted mainly to Korean film and TV drama, though I will write about some other Asian cinema too. I wanted a site for reviews of work that had already been reviewed by others at Koreanfilm.org, where I intend to go on contributing; I also want to explore some themes, like violence, sexuality, gender, and nationalism, that don’t constitute reviews as such. I don't know how active posting will be, but I've been putting off this project for some time, and just noticed that I'd been posting more and more about Korean film at my other blog. I'll crosspost that material here soon.

Various people, Korean and non-Korean, have asked me why I like Korean films so much. I’m so fascinated with Korean cinema because it’s fascinating: South Korea has an amazing array of brilliant writers, directors, actors, cinematographers and other tech people, who exploded into creativity in the 1990s. The production values improved, largely as a result of increased corporate investment, resulting in some very popular blockbusters; but the Korean environment is still remarkably hospitable to smaller, more personal, more political films.

The first Korean film I saw, in June 1996, was Park Kwang-su’s A Single Spark (Jeon Tae-il), which a Korean friend had rented on VHS from the local Korean grocery. It had no subtitles, of course, so my friend interpreted for me, and explained the political situation depicted in the film.

At the time I was just beginning to learn about Korean culture and history. I had met my first Korean friend in fall of 1995; he is one of the friends I visit when I go to Korea now. I had read a little Korean literature in English translation, but most of the translations were poor, and that interfered with my appreciation of the works. I had read three novels by Choi Inhoon and one by Yi Munyol, plus a few stories and poems. I had probably started listening to Korean pop music by then, but still knew very little -- mainly Lee Seunghwan’s CD Cycle.

My Korean friends had told me that Korean films were not very good, so I was surprised by how good A Single Spark was. I began to investigate availability of Korean films with English subtitles. At that time, there was almost nothing. I believe Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Traveled to the East? had been released on video in the US, and 301/302 was released the following year. A Single Spark had been shown in New York at the Human Rights Film Festival at about the time my friend showed it to me, but there was no video version with subtitles. I should have organized a showing of the film by myself, or looked for an organization that might have sponsored it. But I didn't know where to begin with that. I am not much of a leader, as I think I would have had to be to make such a thing happen.

So it was a few more years, in 1999, before I got a DVD player and discovered that some Korean films had been released on DVD with English subtitles. Im Kwon-taek’s Chunhyang and Lee Myung-se’s Nowhere to Hide were released to art houses in the US, and got some attention. The ‘alternative’ newspaper, the Village Voice in New York City, printed an article about Korean cinema, which showed me that other Americans were paying attention to it. At Indiana University, the East Asian Languages department included some Korean films in their film series, shown on campus on video. First I bought Korean DVDs in Chicago's Koreatown, then discovered online sources that charged less. When I traveled to Korea, as I eventually did, I bought DVDs there too, and occasionally watched Korean films in theaters.

As I watched more Korean films, the more interested I got. Even in something like Nowhere to Hide, which has little substance, the surface brilliance was fascinating. I didn't like everything I saw, but I was still amazed at how many good films were coming out of Korea. There is a combination of intelligence and passion that I don’t find anywhere else, at least not in such concentration. It's hard to separate my personal interest in Korea from my interest in Korean films; I think that each one feeds the other. Because I liked the Korean people I met, I wanted to know more about their country and culture; when I discovered good Korean writers, musicians, and filmmakers, I wanted to spend more time with Korean people, and I wanted other Americans to appreciate Korea as I do. I also wanted Koreans to appreciate the achievements of their artists as I do – many of them apparently discovered the brilliance of their filmmakers even later than I did, with less excuse.

I want to stress, though, that I’m not disciplined or systematic. I looked at whatever caught my attention, partly because I had so many other interests and concerns -- religion, philosophy, feminism, GLBT issues, politics, globalization, literature, education, and so on -- and partly because that’s just my way of doing things. I knew something about Asian cinema from other countries, first Japanese, which was the first to get attention in the US, then Chinese, especially Hong Kong. None of this had impressed me so much, almost none of it really connected with me, except for Tsai Ming-liang of Taiwan and, later, Kore-eda Hirokazu of Japan. Of Japanese films I mostly knew only Kurosawa, Oshima, Kitano, and one or two others. It took me awhile to get to Ozu’s work. In Hong Kong it was mostly Jackie Chan and John Woo, following other Westerners’ interests. From the mainland I’d seen Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. After all, I was looking at what was released here, which is still pretty limited to what is trendy. Thanks to online vendors, the range has increased a lot. But I’m still moving along slowly, as always, limited by money and time. I just did a quick count, and I guess I’ve seen just over 100 Korean films now, which is not bad compared to most other foreigners, but still only a beginning.

It seems that many critics see something they call “objectivity” as an ideal for reviewing and criticism. To my mind “objectivity” isn’t possible in the study of art or entertainment, nor would it be desirable even if were possible. People are not electrons or rocks, and the domain where we can be studied as if we were mere objects is very limited and doesn’t extend to art.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Korea, of course, let alone “objective” about it. My Korean is still too limited to permit me to watch Korean films or TV without subtitles. I watch and write about these movies avowedly as a foreigner, an outsider to Korean culture, though an outsider who is trying to learn as much about Korea as possible. I write as an amateur in the word's sense of an unpaid layperson, but also in its etymological sense of one who does the work for love rather than money. Still, I believe that my approach can be useful, not only to other foreigners interested in Korea, but to Koreans interested in how a friendly outsider sees Korean cinema. A variety of perspectives does not produce “objectivity,” but it does teach us more about what we’re looking at. I’ve always found that when I wrote most personally, other people were most likely to find what I wrote useful; I hope that will continue to be true in my entries here.

Procedural note: I'll leave comments on for now, and see how that goes. The blog's design will be work-in-progress for a while; I want a different look, but that can wait.