Back for a second year, the Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA) has unveiled its poster for the 2011, along with two award winning short films announced earlier this week.
Park Chan-wook’s Paranmanjang (Night Fishing) made headlines for being shot entirely on the iPhone 4, and went on to win the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.
Not content to stop there, KOFFIA 2011 has also managed to secure the Silver Bear winner for Best Short Film Pu-Seo-Jin Bam(Broken Night) from rising star director Yang Hyo-joo.
The Reel Bits is proud to be a Festival Partner again this year, following our successful partnership (as DVD Bits) with KOFFIA 2011. In addition to covering the festival in full, Richard Gray serves as the Blog Editor on the official KOFFIA Blog. We will also be involved in a few of the special events, but more on that later.
KOFFIA 2011 will run from August 24 to 29 at the Dendy Opera Quays in Sydney, before moving to Melbourne’s ACMI from September 10 to 13.
Writer and director Jo Min-Ho got his start as a graduate of the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA), and working as part of the production team for directors Kim Young-bin and Lee Min-yong, with whom he co-scripted A Hot Roof (개같은 날의 오후, 1995).
He caught attention with his 2002 debut Jungle Juice (<정글쥬스), a tale of ice cream and drugs, before following it up in 2006 with Les Formidables (강적). Both films were about people trying to get out from underneath the wrong side of the tracks, and his most recent film to date depicts a group of Koreans who manage to get about as far removed as possible from their lot in life.
A group of eight people across South Korea are selected as contestants in a brand new Survivor-style reality show to be shot in the Australian outback. The nature of the contest remains mysterious, but the prize is 10,000,000,000 Korean Won (which converts roughly to $1,000,000 USD). The lucrative prize and the chance for a trip Down Under buoys the diverse group on their voyage to the Western Australian desert, but things turn dark when one of the contestants turns up dead. The group soon realises that the stakes are much higher than a million dollars, and that the mysterious Director (Park Hee-Soon) knows all…
There have already been a number of films dedicated to the hypocrisy of “reality” television, highlighting the voyeuristic apathy that viewers have in watching televised acts of real violence. Where Series 7 created its own highly realistic mockumentary-style satire of reality TV, and the Brits parodied their own obsession with Big Brother by throwing zombies into the mix (Dead Set), Jo Min-ho’s A MILLION (10억 or 10 eok, 2009) is purely played as a taut thriller. It doesn’t take long for us, and the contestants, to realise that something is rotten in the state of Denmark (or more accurately, Western Australia), but it is a foregone conclusion that the deal is just too good to be true. The real tension lies in the human drama, and the extremes that people will go to stay alive.
Realism and accuracy are not necessarily important to the functionality of A MILLION. If it is to be believed, Australia is filled with places that border oceans, deserts and jungles in the one spot, and cheetahs (yes, cheetahs) are just some of the wild animals that can grab you at any time. However, with the exception of the odd gratuitous shot of a kangaroo bounding across the dunes (no doubt included for the thrill of the domestic Korean audience), A MILLION is a story that could be set in almost any place, and with the exception of the ubiquitous cameras and YouTube streaming, it could be any time as well.
The film has a great ability to draw audiences into the middle of its world, much as the Director draws in his contestants, and leave them stranded and wondering where to go next. Characters die off at a rate of knots, and the deaths and hook-ups that happen along the way seem almost arbitrary: but that’s life, isn’t it?
Shows like Survivor and their reality brethren continue to push our voyeuristic tendencies, especially the ones that contain ‘soft violence’ (akin to ‘soft porn’ in a way) of well-padded battling teams fighting for some arbitrary goal. The continued desire for humans to achieve their 15 minutes in the spotlight or simply win more things to add to our steady consumer existences continues to overlook the obvious: for someone to win, others must miss out on something. While A MILLION never tries to plumb the depths of the philosophical implications of reality programming, it will undoubtedly make you think twice before you put your hand up to go to a remote island and compete for cash money.
A MILLION may not be the vicious indictment of reality television that some of its predecessors have been, but it is not really meant to be either. Although using the format as an excuse to put this group of people in the same place, it becomes a serious (and often bloody) exploration of human behaviour. The landlocked island scenario provides us with a microcosm of the entire human civilisation – a serious Gilligan’s Island if you will.
While Hollywood remakes of foreign language films is nothing new, the wheels and roundabouts of preference tend to favour regional cinema in waves.
The US has long finished with the J-Horror craze, and has run out of Swedish vampire movies or books about girls with dragon tattoos. Korea is undoubtedly the flavour of the month, with two major filmmakers announcing remakes of South Korean hits. Yet the door swings both ways, with Korea mining the world for source material as well. However, the real question remains: is Hollywood ready for Korea yet?
Harry Potter helmer Chris Columbus has signed on to direct Kim Young-tak’s Hello Ghost, while Mean Girls director John Waters is set to remake Lee Hae-jun’s Castaway on the Moon. The latter, as long-term Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA) fans will know, closed the festival last year to the delight of audiences. Concerning the almost existential comedy of a man marooned on an island in the middle of the Han River, and the agoraphobic woman who forms a relationship with him from an apartment overlooking the river, it is difficult to know how this will translate to US audiences without losing the wit and subtlety that comes from the many Korea-specific cultural touches in the original, touching film.
Yet as long as mainstream audiences fear reading subtitles on their films, remakes and reworkings of Korean (and other foreign-language cinema) seems inevitable. Back in 2006, Lee Hyun-seung’s Il Mare (시월애) was remade with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves as The Lake House and met with mixed critical reviews, not to mention the dubious honour of the Teen Choice Award for “Choice Liplock”. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but in an increasingly crowded world movies market, replicating Korea’s cinematic achievements in another language is not necessarily the best showcase for their home-grown products.
On the other hand, Korea is not beyond remaking its own films. Last year’s The Housemaid (하녀) is a remake of Kim Ki-Young’s 1960 film of the same name, reworking its core themes for the twenty-first century. The trend seems to be catching on throughout Asia, with Kim Dong-won’s City of Damnation (유감스러운 도시) reworking Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs (also remade in Hollywood as The Departed) as a wacky comedy.
Similarly, South Korean filmmaker Song Hae-Sung released Mukeokja (무적자 aka Invincible), a reworking of the legendary Hong Kong director John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow. Perhaps Woo has the right idea when it comes to remakes: he is producing Korean-American director John H. Lee’s own version of the classic action film The Killer, known for its balletic violence and lingering shots of doves. Perhaps the pervading attitude is that if you are going to do it right, you may as well (re)do it yourself!
While distributors are slowly catching onto the idea that overseas markets are interested in seeing the original versions of these films in the cinema. Korean mega-hit Detective K (조선명탐정 : 각시투구꽃의 비밀) was released in late January in its naive South Korea, and is set for US release on March 11, followed by a Canadian and limited Australian release on March 17.
However, with only limited release in each of those countries (a mere 10 cities in the US, in fact), there is still a ways to go in promoting Korean film overseas. Indeed, with South Korea’s The Last Godfather (라스트 갓파더), a parody of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, to be released in 12 US cities on April 1. It could be an April Fool’s joke, or the start of a new era of Korea in the US.
This piece was originally written for the KOFFIA Blog when I was the original editor.The Reel Bits continues to keep Asia in Focus.
While Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Thirst) and Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Mother) may have temporarily captured the notorious short attention spans of English-speaking markets, Lee Hae-jun (이해준) is less of a household name even in film-lover circles.
‘Unique’ is a word that barely seems adequate to describe Lee Hae-jun. One of South Korea’s emerging filmmakers, writer-director Lee Hey-Jun has already made a name for himself in his early 30s by not really conforming to any particular genre. First gaining major attention with his scripts for Conduct Zero (2002) and Au Revoir, UFO (안녕! 유에프오, 2003), about a town where everyone believes in UFOs, the filmmaker continually challenges outsiders’ traditional ideas of Korean cinema.
His debut feature as a director, 2006’s Like a Virgin (천하장사 마돈나) is a comedy about a transgender teenager who winds up competing in wrestling at a national level to gain the prize money so that he may ultimately become a ‘real woman’. Setting the tone for Lee’s career to date, Variety’s Russell Edwards noted that the film “gives an expansive shove to the rapidly growing permissiveness in a country that was, until very recently, cinematically conservative”.
Indeed, much of that eroding conservative streak may come from the influence of the West, as Lee seems to be saying with Like a Virgin: as the title would suggest, its lead character finds escapism through Madonna’s music, along with applying makeup. Despite the low-budget, and Lee’s relative inexperience as a director, the strength in his writing manages to convey the same displacement that almost every teenager around the world coming to terms with their own sexuality would feel.
Although writing on actor-director Ryoo Seung-wan’s Arahan (아라한 – 장풍대작전, 2003) and Lim Pil-seong’s Antarctic Journal (2005) (with Bong Joon-ho) he has more recently continued his work as a director. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Castaway on the Moon (2009) is a similarly quirky take on the ‘rom-com’ genre, featuring a businessman ‘marooned’ on an island in the middle of the Han River and the blog-bound girl that falls in love with him. Castaway on the Moon is the kind of crowd-pleasing joy-fest that should help many overcome any expectations they might have about Korean cinema. It is no wonder that Mean Girls director John Waters is set to remake the film for US audiences in 2013.
Writing for the KOFFIA program last year, we commented that only thing that will really surprise us about Lee Hae-jun is what he does next.As we wait for the next big thing from the director, we can be content in the knowledge that Hollywood remakes will only serve to highlight his existing body of work to a wider audience, and potentially open up a new market for his films around the world. Whatever his next project may be, we know one thing for sure: it will be interesting.
This piece was originally written for the KOFFIA Blog when I was the original editor.The Reel Bits continues to keep Asia in Focus.
Unique is a word that barely seems adequate to describe Lee Hae-jun. One of South Korea’s emerging filmmakers, writer-director Lee Hae-Jun has already made a name for himself in his early 30s by not really conforming to any particular genre. First gaining major attention with his script about a town where everyone believes in UFOs, Au Revoir, UFO (2003), the filmmaker continually challenges outsiders’ traditional ideas of Korean cinema. His debut feature as a director, 2006’s Like a Virgin, is a comedy about a transgender teenager who winds up competing in wrestling at a national level. Although writing on actor-director Ryoo Seung-wan’s Arahan (2003) and Lim Pil-seong’s Antarctic Journal (2005) he has more recently continued his work as a director. Castaway on the Moon (김씨표류기 aka Kim’s Island), his second film as a director, continues this off-beat attitude.
Kim Seung-Keun (Jung Jae-Young) has had enough with his lot in life, and leaps from a bridge overlooking the Han River. Even this goes wrong, and he washes ashore on a small island. Despite being able to view the city lights of Seoul, he is unable to swim and is marooned for all intents and purposes. Slowly but surely he adapts to his environment, creating his own little paradise home. As Mr. Kim learns to survive on the island, he is also being watched by Kim Jung-Yeon (Jung Ryeo-Won), a recluse who has shut herself away in her room, occasionally peeking outside to take a photo of the moon. It it while doing this that she spots Mr. Kim’s ‘HELP’ signal, and the pair form an unlikely relationship across the Han.
Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Castaway on the Moon is a refreshingly original and quirky take on the romantic comedy. While completely indebted to the simple formula at the heart of all good (and more often than not bad) rom-coms, that of an impossible obstacle that separates our would-be lovers, Castaway on the Moon cleverly places itself in a world that is entirely its own. It is revelatory to find so much magic in what is essentially a two-stage setup, with only Kim’s island and the apartment of a agoraphobic hoarder to keep us occupied. Kim Byung-seo’s alternatively hyper-real bright and depressingly muted photography reflects the moods of these hapless heroes, but more than that: these are incredibly likable and well-drawn characters. We meet both characters at the lowest point in their lives, and through such an intimate lens, we gradually share that glimmer of hope they both begin to share. It is rare for such a setup to be so joyous in its telling, although the comedy ranges from the broad to the Korean-specific.
The film is a romance, but it is not necessarily one that always takes place between a man and a woman. It is trite to say it, but the characters must also learn to love themselves before they can even attempt to escape their self-made prisons. Mr. Kim, for example, slowly learns to cook for himself on the island and is captivated by a sachet of noodle mix that he finds (without noodles) on the island. One of his quests is to make his own noodles and enjoy them, something he repeatedly tries and frustratingly fails at. When his mysterious observer, only communicating with him via a series of notes and sand-messages, manages to get a takeaway place to deliver the noodles to him, he rejects them: by his own standards, he has not earned it. When the moment does come, and he accomplishes his task, the scene is one of ecstatic delight: it actually manages to elicit groans of delight from the audience.
Castaway on the Moon begins with an attempted suicide, but is ultimately a celebration of life. Through the intense study of two characters, the extreme fetishisation of food and other objects that are dear to these characters and Lee Hae-jun transforms what could be a simple rom-com with a morality tale to an existential comedy that poses universal questions for the ages. In this sense, it has more in common with a Michel Gondry film than the similarly titled Tom Hanks vehicle Cast Away, yet the film works as a simple story about a marooning for those who want to simply kick back and enjoy the little things in life. It is no surprise that Mean Girls director Mark Waters is set to remake the film for an US audience, although it is hardly necessary: Castaway on the Moon is the kind of crowd-pleasing joy-fest that should help many overcome any expectations they might have about Korean cinema.
Castaway on the Moon screened as part of KOFFIA 2010, and is reviewed again here as part of The 2011 Korean Cinema Blogathon. You can catch it on World Movies on the Foxtel/Austar network in Australia on the 24th and 25th on March, 2011. It is also available on DVD from various outlets around the world.
Back for a second year, the Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA) has unveiled its poster for the 2011, along with two award winning short films announced earlier this week.
The Reel Bits is the cinema arm of DVD Bits. Richard can be found on Twitter @DVDBits and Sarah @swardplay. The Reel Bits is also @The_ReelBits.
