Korean Film
Film has a sole powerful ubiquity within human culture. It has a huge influence on the way people live in a community. Most of the stories that are presented through the film are known to happen in societies. People tend to show and celebrate their cultures and traditions because they link them together in a community. As a result, films can show different lifestyles that people live in 1thus having an influence to other people’s culture. Correspondingly, the American film industry has influenced different films for different countries in the world today. Because of their excellence in telling a story through screens has made many film industries worldwide choose their form of standards of producing movies thus forming a contemporary cultural film. Generally, in many countries, the American film has been the standard for every film produced that is not American. The American culture through Hollywood has come to dominate the way filmmakers and the audience think. Therefore, the following paper will research on the South Korean contemporary culture in films.
Notably, South Korea has been more focused and strict in following their own culture. This has influenced everything in terms of art, and films. Korean life has been influenced by political views and forces during the past centuries through domestic government interference. During the late dynasty such as the Joseon dynasty and the South Korean war, the film industry has been under political mercies. The first film was shown in Ingogae, Bukchon in the year 1897 in a shabby barrack that was owned by a Chinese citizen (Yecies, Brian, and Aegyung). In the Shabby barrack, short films and actual films were shown and produced by France’s Pathe Pictures. Research shows that there was also another film that was shown in 1898 near a place called Namdaemun in Seoul. However, this research has been refuted by the researcher Brian Yecies where he says that the is no concrete evidence in the issues of The Time or nay article that was published around the same year. The films started getting more influence from the outside world when an American traveler and lecture come to visit South Korea. He is believed to be the first to film in Korea as part of his travelogue programs.
Moreover, after producing the film he went to present it to the South Korean royal family in 1899. On the other hand, in 1930 an announcement was made about a public screening in one of the contemporary newspapers called Hwangseong sinmum (The Imperial) (Yecies, Brian, and Aegyung). The Advertisement was made by one of the prominent electrical company called Dongdaemun whereby people paid 10 Jeon (coin) to see the scenic photography. This influenced the film industry if Korea to the point that in 1903 a first movie theater called Dongdaemun Motion Picture Studio was opened. This is where he imported films used to be shown such as the Broken Blossoms (1919), and the Way Down East (1920). Dansang-sa’s owner, Park Sung-pil as the first producer in Korea decide to support the early Korean cinemas by financing domestic films such as Loyal Revenge (1919). Park Sung-pil also financed the first local documentary film called the Scenes of Kyongsong City which was shown in 1919 (Yecies, Brian, and Aegyung). There was an introduction of Kino dramas that became more popular in South Korea because of showing their culture. In 1922, Chunhyang a first South Korean featured film with the influence of the traditional story was released. It was known to be the first film with, widescreen, color and sound.
Additionally, from 1926 to 1930 was the golden era of silent films in South Korean. In this era, most of the South Korean Studio was operated by the Japanese people. One of the successful Japanese filmmaker, writer, and star called Yodo Orajo managed to produce his own first film Na in 1926. This was the start of silent films in South Korea. The Na film was different from all their films that were produced in the past because it had no political theme (Parc). However, the film had a person who worked as a narrator at the theater to give people the meaning of the film and show subtitles. South Korea has a huge difference compared to other Asian countries because of their purpose and intention which developed the themes of the films produced. With both countries having great production of movies in the past year, South Korea film has achieved wide international recognition. Historically, the South Korean film industry tend to focus their theme on revolution and communism and is only focused on their citizens with an exception of the outside films. The reason behind this was because the government was afraid that the American culture was influencing the lives of their citizens. However, after some time the influence was huge to the point of turning around the South Korean Industry.
In the 1950s and 1960s, South Korea was very successful in making movies that were accepted globally. However, in the 1970s the movies that were produced became low quality because of international standards (Lee). In 1980 through the present, the film of South Korean has undergone different changes that have influenced its standards and rules on what to show the audience.in 1979 the 5th Republic replaced the Revitalizing Government. This made the country of South Korea to become more democratic, liberal and open. However, with the new liberation in South Korea, there was still censorship that limited creativity if the producers and directors of the films. Social themes started to frequent in most of the films that were produced thus they were easily explored ad depicted. Despite the growth of the film industry the South Korean government did not support or approve of what the censors allowed. However, the government and culture of South Korea used to criticize the film industry because of the objection to the screenplay.
In 2005, South Korea experienced a shift in the film industry when laws were made against making films that had an international influence and the number of films to be shown per theater per year (Berg). Today the South Korean film industry has managed to make their entertainment industry that is more focused on producing and support films called Hallyuwood. The Hallyuwood was is influenced by the western culture whereby the word “Hallyu” means South Korean Wave and “wood” was borrowed from the word Hollywood. The word Hallyuwood was developed to show how contemporary films have swept across the shores of most of the countries in the Asia region. The word was quoted by different articles, magazines, and newspapers as the description of the wave that has swept in different places, people, and events that relate to the country of South Korea. Hollywood, Bollywood, and Hallyuwood are known to the major pillar if the film industry in the world today and the most greats film productions of all time (Parc). Hollywood has released different movies that are influenced by South Korean culture. On the other hand, some directors from South Korean such as Park Cha-wook and Kim Jee-woon have made a great impact after transferring from the Hallyuwood to Hollywood. They made their first English films that are famous such as “The Last Stand” by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chan-wook’s directed Stoker by Nicole Kidman. With an exception of the film industry in neighboring countries such as India, the South Korean film industry has been known to be celebrated in the Asian region with a great relationship between the South Korean government and the private sector in the production of South Korean films.
Conclusively, the South Korea film industry has struggled because of politics, government, and culture. South Korea is guided by their culture and leadership. Historically, South Korean film industry was dictated on what to show to their audience by the authorities making it hard for the producers and directors to be more creative. Today the film industry has grown tremendously because of the influence of the American culture through their films that have become more popularity in the whole world. As a result, the South Korean film industry has more freedom that has allowed it to produce movies that have a huge influence on the American cultures though showing great stories of their past.
Works cited
Berg, Su-Hyun. "Creative cluster evolution: The case of the film and TV industries in Seoul, South Korea." European Planning Studies 23.10 (2015): 1993-2008.
Lee, Hyangjin. "Contemporary Korean cinema: Identity, culture and politics." (2019).
Parc, Jimmyn. "The effects of protection in cultural industries: The case of the Korean film policies." International Journal of Cultural Policy 23.5 (2017): 618-633.
Yecies, Brian, and Aegyung Shim. The changing face of Korean cinema: 1960 to 2015. Routledge, 2015.