The Importance of Film Within Korean Society (Part 2)

Because of Korea’s violent history, it is no surprise that this affects the film industry through the views of its directors as they attempt to express themselves through their art. Historian Max Hastings' theory, with regards to the reasons behind continued meddling from outside powers, is Korea’s strategic position as the meeting point between three major nations. So it may be because of this that Korea has suffered repression and feuding. The fact that Korea has been invaded several times by Japan since 1392, even with their isolationist policies, is a good testimony to this. Also, Hastings describes the populace as "fiercely nationalistic" (Hastings 1987), meaning the Koreans took great offence in the suppression of their culture and loss of self-identity. With the full effects of the Japanese occupation coming into place in 1904, when the Japanese moved a sizable army into Korea and brought the nation into a Japanese protectorate, Korean independence died. During the oppression, armed resistance came from many different groups, the biggest being the anti-Japanese guerrilla army. Hastings’ description of Korea during the oppression is that, "Korea became an armed camp, in which mass executions and wholesale imprisonment were commonplace, and all dissent forbidden" (Hastings 1987). This kind of environment continued until 1943, nearly half a century later, and as the Koreans thought they may get a taste of freedom, another problem arose in the form of the United States and Russia. Historian Bruce Cumings believed this came about due to a change in circumstances. "What created 'an entirely new strategic situation in the far east,' was not that Russia was interested in Korea—it had been for decades—but that the United States was interested" (Cumings, as cited in Hastings, 1987). Korea was then divided between the two into North and South, denied independence by outside powers, and experienced a three-year American occupation to prevent the Soviets from gaining in the Japanese defeat as they, "might seize the opportunity to include Korea in their sphere of influence" (Hastings 1987). Following this was the Korean War of 1950-53, which saw 16 armies from five continents under the UN flag against China and North Korea. This divided families and brought about tragedy for the people of Korea, and it wasn’t until 1958 that the last of the Chinese troops left the North and left it to its own communist republic. A tense situation had been set up, creating a cold war in itself for the people of Korea with the communist North and capitalist South. With this intemperate history of fighting and antagonizing the Korean nationalistic feelings right at the outset of the film industry, it is fair to say that this animosity would provide a vehicle for the fledgling directors. Looking at Arirang, a now lost film from 1926 directed by Na Un-Gyu, it is clear to see his views on the society he lived in. Only aged 24, it was his first film and he had also previously been jailed for two years due to his radicalist nature and participation in the Korean Independence Movement during the Japanese occupation. Despite this, he still managed to find a way to express himself and injure the Japanese oppression by using the protagonist to murder a rural landowner because he tried to rape his sister. He also managed to escape censorship by the authorities by having the main character mentally ill and also having a non-Japanese oppressor. Although this film has been lost, it did have a huge impact on other film makers and has been re-made many times. This is clearly a subtle film with a poignant political message against the Japanese regime. This expression of personal feelings in Korean films is not the only direct view in such war films, but also through the medium of the human characters and their everyday struggles.

As mentioned earlier in "Defining Korean Cinema," I brought up the fact that the directors of Korea have widely varying backgrounds. This involves the route they took to entering the film industry and their personal views which inevitably end up being expressed through their cinematic achievements. Probably the largest contribution to the sudden flare in the industry was started by the government. It was in the 1980s that freedom in film took off when the State Licensing System, which acted as a form of censorship, was abolished. Then public filmmaking grants were made available, which turned the idea of filmmaking into an appealing career possibility. The industry had a radical change as film schools prospered and a new generation of young filmmakers came about who were set on making movies that broke the previous pattern, they were armed with a critical attitude to society and filled their films with their own values and philosophies. One such director is Park Chan-Wook, who is responsible for the blockbuster Joint Security Area (also known as JSA) in 2000, about the post war division of North and South Korea. He shocked Korean audiences by portraying north side soldiers as humane, and by doing so broke a taboo, it made JSA the highest earning film ever in Korea at the time. Park Chan-Wook was born in Seoul, South Korea, and his route into the film making industry is largely reflected in his works. He obtained a degree in philosophy from Sogang University but then went on to become a film critic. He didn’t try his hand at directing until 1988 when he acted as assistant director on Kkamdong (1988) and then finally went on to direct his own films starting with Moon Is ... Sun's Dream in 1992. In his later works Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance in 2002, he expresses his philosophical ideas about human society through the acts of vengeance, which he sees as a unique code to humanity. This was later followed up by Old Boy in 2004, in which he says he is making artistic statements about the human condition. "After making two revenge movies one after another, I discovered my own inner self. I wanted to say I’d discarded rage, hate and violence. Instead I came to the conclusion that I needed more graceful rage, classier hatred, more delicate violence. I wanted revenge to be an act of redemption, a vengeance carried out by a person who seeks to save her soul." (Park 2006) Here, he refers back to his vengeance two part series with regards to a third part, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, 2005, which came out in cinemas in the UK in February 10, 2006. It would seem that with each film, he is refining his philosophies and expressing himself better. With these films, we have seen an evolution of the director himself and it would seem he is finally satisfied with his vengeance ideas as he states in a interview with Total Film journalist Ceri Thomas regarding his next piece, "Audiences can expect less violence and more romance and humour" (Park 2006). This is a contradiction to other statements he has made this year, as although he says he deplores violence and suggests it to only be used when necessary, in either plot advancement or vessel for argument and expression, he has also stated in the same interview mentioned previously, "There are many directors in popular culture who deal with love and understanding, so I want to focus on the aspect which other people don’t want to see or recognise. To an artist, describing love and happiness is nothing. It is much more attractive to describe the darker side. Love is really quite boring" (Park 2006).

Another director with very a different entrance to the cinema industry is Kim Ki-Duk.He was born in Bonghwa in South Korea. However, he didn’t go to film school but instead studied fine arts abroad in Paris from 1990 to 1992 but overall has had very little academic training. Despite lack of tutelage in the filmmaking areas, he went on to write screenplays and first became known when he won an award for best screenplay by the Educational Institute of Screenwriting with his work A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death in 1993. He achieved two more screenplay awards before moving into directing in 1996 with his film A Crocodile. Kim’s Films are very low budget but he produces lots of them, with an estimated average of 12 movies a decade. Most likely due to his strange route into the industry, he has also developed an unusual way of directing as a result. In an interview with Kim Ki-Duk by Jonathan Ross on the Asian Invasion documentary series (2006), he explains his personal method of working. "The most important element for me in making films is the location. The location is my top priority, what follows then are the characters, the narrative and style. If there are really important props or sets needed, I will produce them or find them myself. I also do my own location scouting. I write my own scenarios which can be changed at any time during shooting." (Kim Ki-Duk 2006). Most directors will invent the scenarios and characters firstly, then the rest follows in what they would find suitable locations based on the story and sequences they have written. Kim Ki-Duk also uses no scripts but instead writes a synopsis for each scene with which to build around as he goes along. As a result, his films have little or no dialogue to them. According to Kim Ki-Duk, this lack of vocals in his works is meant to portray the unspoken word and the meaninglessness he sees present in modern society, and this lends to many of his films, which are about the apparent infrastructure of harm and self harm in human society.

South Korean director Kim Jee-Woon began his career in the industry as an accomplished actor and theatre director. For him, the main theme to his films is the sense of detailed visual design. He has mentioned in a interview for Subway Cinema that it was easy for him to become a director and he considers himself very lucky. "I actually didn't need to go through all this process that the other people go through" (Kim 2001, Online). Despite his easy move into directing films, it is not actually his background that gives his cinematic works their style. Instead, it is a different influence that comes from his admiration of other directors. He states the most respected of these is French director Robert Bresson. "I would like to take a path that he took—I want to follow his steps some day." (Kim 2001, Online). Robert Bresson began making films in 1934, but turned from main stream films with well known actors to his own unusual style involving non-actors who give a flat, expressionless performance. His films have been described as minimalist and imperative. Information is sometimes only conveyed to the audience through the soundtrack. In a mini biography for Bresson by Michael Brooke for the Internet Movie Database, he describes his films: "It's a demanding and difficult, intensely personal style, which means that his films never achieved great popularity" (Michael Brooke, 2006). This is an interesting path for a director such as Kim Jee-Woon considering he has achieved a lot of success so far with his films, seeing releases abroad as well as in Korea.