Acknowledgments the Book Was First Conceived During the Mid-1990S
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Acknowledgments The book was first conceived during the mid-1990s—at a time when various South Korean newspaper and magazine articles reported that its unhealthy na- tional film industry might virtually be eliminated in a few years. Such predic- tions have proven to be capricious. On the contrary, Korean cinema in the early decade of the twenty-first century holds one of the most impressive box-office records among the active national film industries. In an exhibition environment replete with modern multiplex theaters where Hollywood films are known to have beaten every competitor, Korean cinema remains an anomaly. Its local products draw a large number of spectators—much larger than the days when quotas on import films were more restrictive and films relied on one-screen re- lease. Korean cinema reached a historical climax in 2001 when it held all of the top five records in the annual box office. It was the first profitable year in decades for the entire industry, before production costs again rapidly exceeded the in- come revenue in 2002. The buying, selling, bankrupting, and rumored merging between two distribution giants (Cinema Service and cj Entertainment) have made up the bulk of headlines in trade magazines since then. The first two years of the new millennium (2001–2) should be remembered for the rising popularity of crass comedy films and the waning of the New Korean Cinema. Films like Kick the Moon (Sillaŭitalpam), MyWifeIsaGang- ster (Chop’ok manura), Hi Dharma (Talma ya nolja), and Marrying the Mafia (Kamunŭiyŏnggwang) topped the box-office chart for months and strongly reminded the Korean film industry of a tactless tagline, ‘‘the box office is never wrong,’’ while the projects of many Korean directors whose names are synony- mous with the New Korean Cinema, Im Kwon-Taek (Chiwaseon), Jang Sun-woo (TheResurrectionoftheLittleMatchGirl), Park Kwang-su (The Trigger), and Hong Sang-su (Turning Gate), either were aborted at the development stage or failed to show profitable figures to their investors. The prefix ‘‘new’’ that des- ignated the crop of young filmmakers who emerged during the 1980s and the 1990s no longer became applicable. Their films were incapable of impressing the new generation of filmgoers in the era of multiplex theaters. It is perhaps not a coincidence that this book on the New Korean Cinema is completed at a precise moment when it is finished as a movement. Though Korean cinema enjoys commercial success that is unprecedented in its history, many of its important production decisions are now made by distributors, cor- porate bigwigs, and talent agents rather than the writers and directors who con- stitute the very soul of the New Korean Cinema. Commercial priorities make artistic ones useless. The Korean film industry since 1999 has scrupulously fol- lowed the path of Hollywood and has shown more interest in making deals and formulaic genres than in innovating and devoting itself to the creation of art. In this book, I am critical of the ways in which the films of the New Korean Cinema have often refashioned the desire for ‘‘dominant men’’ as its most inscriptive trope, but I also duly acknowledge their efforts to create films that have made the historicization of Korean cinema a worthwhile scholarly venture. Throughout the book, I employ psychoanalytic terms like ‘‘fetishism,’’ ‘‘lack,’’ and ‘‘phallus’’ not to validate theory but to better elucidate recent Korean films that have increasingly become ‘‘Westernized.’’ Contemporary South Korean society is no more Confucian than it is capitalist. There is no doubt in my mind that most people in Korea would agree that the present society demands one to express his/her self, ego, and personal pride even if this means losing the hope of cultivating oneself into a humble Confucian sage. The New Korean Cinema of the last two decades has incessantly pursued themes, characterizations, and narratives that center on a particular notion of subjec- tivity: the image of an individual modern man desperate to free himself from institutional repression, familial responsibilities, and personal anxieties. Mired in the praxis of carving this new image, it can be argued that the cinema of the recent years parallels not the flourishing of its national traditional culture, but its rapid vanishing. In other words, the book aims to narrate the very cultural climate where the meaning of the ‘‘native’’ in the globalizing Korea has become obsolete. x I wish to gratefully acknowledge the help of many individuals and institutions that enabled me to write this book. Korea Foundation provided a valuable grant to assist my six-month research in Seoul in 1999–2000. The Korean Film Com- mission (kofic) and the Korean Film Archive also provided access to archives and films that were essential to this research. Secretary General Kim Hye-jun at kofic was especially kind to provide still photographs, which are reprinted in this book. Mr. Kim and his assistant, Ms. Kim Mi-hyun, helped obtain the legal clarification on the reprint use of motion picture stills. The Humanities Center at University of California, Irvine (uci) and the Northeast Asia Council (neac) of the Association for Asian Studies also provided research funds for travel and other miscellaneous expenses. I would also like to thank the dean of my school and the former chair of my department at uci;DeanKarenLaw- rence and Chair Steven D. Carter played vital roles in this project, allowing me more time to concentrate on the arduous yet gratifying task of writing. A number of friends and colleagues deserve special thanks for their sug- gestions and counsel. David E. James, Esther E. M. Yau, Henry H. Em, Chris Berry, Jim Fujii, Chungmoo Choi, Roland B. Tolentino, Akira Lippit, Eunsun Cho, Marsha Kinder, Ted Fowler, Kim U-chang, Soyoung Kim, Jinsoo An, and Tony Rayns have read parts of this manuscript from its dissertation stage and gave me encouragements to continue writing it. Kathleen McHugh and Nancy Abelmann also offered me incisive editorial comments that were instrumental in writing chapter 8. I owe a particular debt to Rey Chow, one of the editors of the Asia-Pacific series, for extending her invitation. David Scott Diffrient proofread the entire manuscript and kindly offered many thoughtful insights. The two anonymous readers of my manuscript at the Duke University Press also provided sharp editorial comments. My friends at Cine 21 and Kino,two film journals in Korea, gave me opportunities to publish Korean language film reviews and criticisms. Writing in Korean and communicating my ideas to Korean readers helped me tremendously in the entire process of authoring this book. Kim Young-jin, Chung Sung-Ill, Lee Yeon-ho, Lee Young-jae, Huh Moon-young, and Nam Dong-chul especially deserve credit. Kino also helped me secure rare photographs. Many directors have offered insights and shared with me behind-the-scenes stories. Many of these anecdotes could not be included in this book, but they were useful in painting a colorful backdrop of the South Korean film industry during an occasionally dull, oftentimes tedious process. In particular, directors Park Kwang-su, Im Kwon-Taek, Jang Sun-woo, Park Ki-hyung, Park Ki-yong, Hong Sangsoo (Hong Sang-su), and Lee Chang-dong (Yi Ch’ang-dong) were all great companions. Most films are made over a period of several years. I tried Acknowledgments xi my best to clarify and analyze the work of these talented filmmakers after count- less viewings of their films, but all of my discussions, I am sure, will never quite match the rigor and labor in which they were created. I thank my parents, Byung Kon Kim and Yeon-sup Lee, who have always supported my scholarly pursuit. Lastly, Gina’s perceptive power, forbearance, and love all equally contributed in the making of this book. In many ways, she is the coauthor of this book. Portions of chapter 3 appeared, in different form, as ‘‘Is This How the War is Remembered?: Deceptive Sex and the Re-masculinized Nation in The Taebaek Mountains’’ in Im Kwon-Taek: The Making of a Korean National Cinema,ed. David E. James and Kyung Hyun Kim (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002), 197–222. An earlier version of chapter 4 appeared as ‘‘Post-Trauma and Historical Remembrance in Recent South Korean Cinema: A Single Spark (1995) and APetal(1996)’’ in the Cinema Journal, vol. 41, no. 4 (2002): 95–115. Chap- ter 5 was previously published as ‘‘Male Crisis in New Korean Cinema: Read- ing the Early Films of Park Kwang-su,’’ in positions: east asia cultures critique, vol. 9, no. 2 (2001): 369–99. Portions of chapter 9 appeared in Korean language as ‘‘ ‘Namja ran chagi ka sarang hanŭn saram ŭl chuginŭn saram’: Shiri wa jsa ŭi ilt’alja, kukka anbo, pŭlrŏkpŏsŭt’ŏ mihak’’ (‘‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’’: Transgressive Agents, National Security, and Blockbuster Aesthetics in Shiri [1999] and JointSecurityArea[2000]), in jsa, ed. Paek Mun-im (Seoul, Korea: Saminsa, 2002). Most libraries and Korean studies scholars in the United States conform to the romanization system that is known as the McCune-Reischauer system. The ro- manization of Korean terms, titles, and names in this book also follows this rule except for the names that have their own divergent orthography. The preferred names of certain directors whose works have been released in the United States have been retained without using the standard romanization system; they are Jang Sun-woo (Chang Sŏn-u), Park Kwang-su (Pak Kwang-su), and Im Kwon- Taek (Im Kwŏon-t’aek). Korean names are also transliterated in their native standard, with the surname first. xii.