Flock Out of Luck Ministries Shutting Down

As a reporter who does a lot of stuff in media issues, one of the major government ministries I need to deal with is the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC). I also write about Korean science, which has me dealing with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST).

So what does President-elect Lee Myung-bak do? He axes both the MIC and MOST. Yikes. Should I take that personally?

I am cautiously optimistic about these changes. A professor of mine used to say, you can change the length of the alimentary canal all you want, the end product is still the same. But the truth is, organization does matter. It may not be as sexy or easy to understand as a great pop song or a cool movie, but boring stuff like infrastructure and organization is a vital part of any industry. Do not kid yourself, the "entertainment business" is as much business as it is entertainment.

What do these changes mean? First of all, getting the MIC out of the way potentially a huge boon for much of the Information Technology industry. IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) has been held up for years because of the MIC's squabbling with the Korean Broadcasting Commission. Also, how about Blackberries? Lots of cool toys like that have been kept out of Korea because of roadblocks put up by the MIC. There are plenty of tech issues keeping the iPhone out of Korea, but today we are one step closer to getting them.

We can only hope that the end of the MIC will also mean an end to (or at least a reduction in) Internet censorship. Way too much of the Internet in Korea gets shut off at the whim of random bureaucrats.

Despite the downsizing, Lee Myung-bak had a lot of science and IT stuff in his election platform. And he brought in people like Park Chan-mo (former head of POSTECH and all-round cool guy) to be one of his main advisors. Expect science and IT to remain central to Korean policymaking. After all, science, education and tech have been combined to create the Ministry of Knowledge-Based Economy (MOKBE?), which is quite a mouthful, but a clear sign of where Lee's priorities lie.

And who knows? What will happen once Lee Myung-bak comes up against the full force of bureaucratic intransigence? Once everything settles down, I imagine much less will change than people think right now.

But some deregulating in the media industry could be a great shot in the arm, helping Korea's media companies get a little more profitable, which in turn gives us consumers a better chance at getting better movies, TV, music and whatnot ("content" in boring industry-speak).

And at least Lee kept the Ministry of Culture. It is not like the accountant barbarians are taking over everything.

(Note: I might update this post over the weekend as additional stuff occurs to me).

Korea Weekend Box Office - Jan. 11-13

A bit of a change starting this week, as I will be reporting weekly revenue instead of attendance. Seems like the more relevant stat to me. But if something significant happens to a movie's attendance (like topping 10 million admissions), I will try to mention it.

The Korean won is worth about 940 won/dollar, so you can approximate the chart to millions of dollars easily enough.

Let me know if you have any feedback, questions, concerns with the change.

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	Women's Handball Team (Uri Saengae Choego-ui Sungan - Korean)	1.10	493	4.14	4.92
2.	Open City (Mubangbi Dosi - Korean)	1.10	413	3.06	3.61
3.	Bee Movie	1.03	296	1.48	4.37
4.	The Mist	1.10	256	1.32	1.58
5.	Enchanted	1.10	322	1.01	1.23
6.	National Treasure 2	12.20	233	0.396	11.15
7.	The Golden Compass	12.18	210	0.320	17.82
8.	The Jacket	1.10	179	0.318	0.370
9.	30 Days of Night	1.10	144	0.312	0.364
10.	Gidarida Micheo - Korean	1.01	237	0.200	2.79

(Source: KOBIS - Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Random Notes - Vol 3, No. 2

I checked out some surprisingly good bands at Freebird the other night. It has been quite a while since I even thought about Freebird, but this time it had the best bands I have seen in Korea for ages.

Most notable was ORIENTAL LUCY (sorry, I only have these crappy cell phone pics). Each song was quite different, ranging from a retro-70s-rock sound to a bizarre cover of a trot classic that sounded like something by SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES. (They have a Cyworld page here, but it is one of those annoying ones you need to sign into to use, so it is pretty much useless for most people.)


Another very good band was FRENZY, a four-man instrumental shoe-gazing band that sounded a bit like classic Echo and the Bunnymen (my friend's assessment).


The other band was JERANG, perhaps not as good, but still interesting in their own way. A bit of an early-Radiohead, whiny sound, but not bad. I believe JERANG won the most recent Korea national high school talent competition. They four guys in the band are just 20 (Korean age, I would imagine, so 19 in the rest of the world), so they have some time to improve. But a good beginning.

I just ran across a relatively new-ish magazine and website dedicated to the Seoul art scene, called NEXART (actually, I think Nex Art has been around since 2006, but I just discovered it). At the moment it is in Korean only, but the website claims that an English section will be coming in March. If you pick up the 'zine around town, most of the stories have a short English intro, which is limited but quite interesting.

Poking around on the Nex Art website then led me to the English (and Korean) website EAST BRIDGE, another site for finding out more about the Korean art scene.

As long as you are at East Bridge, do not forget to check out their huge list of Korean art links.

I just checked out the first two episodes of THE WIRE's fifth season (through totally legitimate means, I am sure... Stealing them via Bittorrent would be wrong).

Totally love it. Season 5 is, somehow, even more bleak than the first four seasons. But despite the depressing edge to things, it is still the best show on television, by far. Great writing, solid insights and, despite the dark cynicism, more than a few funny moments.

In case you have not heard, THE WIRE season 5 turns an eye to the media, in particular to modern newspapers, with all the brutal insight the show has used to examine city politics, the war on drugs, schools and all the rest.

Some early reviews have criticized the shows creator for having an exaggerated or cartoon-like perspective on the troubles facing the modern newspaper, but I think those criticisms are off-base. Sure it is not 100-percent correct, but THE WIRE is a fictional, entertainment program, not a documentary. I am guessing its view of the newsroom is as accurate as all the other institutions it has skewered over the years (which is to say quite accurate, but very much fiction).

If you are in Korea, you can still track down season 1 of THE WIRE here and there, for just 20,000 won or so. Totally worth it. Or you can order seasons 1-4 from Amazon.com.

Korea Weekend Box Office - Jan. 4-6

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance	Total Attendance
1.	B Movie	1.03	334	305,448	358,690
2.	National Treasure 2	12.20	334	192,535	1,586,336
3.	The Golden Compass	12.18	346	176,933	2,698,140
4.	Gidarida Micheo - Korean	01.01	306	151,828	321,030
5.	P.S. I Love You	1.03	249	119,076	214,123
6.	Sex Is Zero 2 (Saekjeuk Sigong Sijeun 2 - Korean)	12.13	256	104,151	1,934,090
7.	August Rush	11.29	174	80,352	2,102,733
8.	American Gangster	12.27	252	75,237	355,866
9.	My Love (Nae Sarang - Korean)	12.20	199	62,300	932,806
10.	Rainbow Eyes (Gamyeon - Korean)	12.27	211	55,351	286,975
11.	Hansel & Gretel (Korean)	12.27	223	53,616	288,086

(Source: KOBIS - Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

More Crummy Than Bread Crumbs -- Hansel & Gretel Loses Its Way

Some day, Im Pil-sung is going to make a really great movie. ANTARCTIC JOURNAL, his first film, was not. And, sad to say, HANSEL & GRETEL is not one either.


The story is simple enough (and I will try to avoid spoilers). Eun-su (Cheon Jeong-myeong) is driving through the countryside, on his way to meet his mother, when he gets into a car accident. His is thrown from the car and passes out. When he wakes up, there is a girl with a red cloak and a lamp who guides him to her house in the forest.


The girl's house and family are very odd and unnatural. Lots of candy and sweet food, even though no one does any baking. Lots of bright colors and strange designs. And there are apparently some strange, nasty things that go bump in the night.


Eun-su also soon discovers that he cannot get away; there is no way out of the forest. After a couple of days, the kids' parents disappear, to be replaced by a more malevolent fellow. Gradually the mystery is revealed, along with plenty of blood and general ickiness.

The good? Well, the designs are the usual bright and freaky stuff we always expect from Ryu Seong-hee (OLDBOY, I'M A CYBORG BUT THAT'S OKAY, THE HOST). And there are parts (especially in the middle) where the surrealism is interesting and promising.


Unfortunately, the bad far outweighs the good. The story is too odd to be taken seriously as a drama, but not fantastic enough to be interesting in it's own right. Eun-su is not a very interesting character and does not draw you in at all. The psychology underlying the surreal story is puddle deep. Furthermore, the characters keep saying the same things over and over again... Very annoying.

In addition, like all Korean horror movies, a large chunk of the second half is filled with endless explaining and crying and explaining and crying. Ugh. Why do the bad, evil people at the heart of the story do the things they do? Who cares... they are just bad and evil. No nuance.

Which is too bad. I like Im. I think he is underrated. Considering how tepid and similar far too many Korean movies were these days, it is great to see someone trying to do something different and off-beat. I think he was trying to do something like PAN'S LABYRINTH, but Im's story is horribly underdeveloped.

If you are interested in seeing more of the film (despite my mean review), the movie trailer is at Youtube. You can also see the trailer at the movie's official website here.

Random Notes - Vol 3, No. 1

There was a potentially interesting story a couple of days ago in the Korea Herald about President-Elect Lee Myung-bak's transition plans, in particular about PE Lee thinking about getting rid of Korea's numerous press regulations. Which would be quite welcomed, at least by me. The Korean government's endless meddling in media (and so much else) is always annoying.

Not controlling the press. Allowing universities to set their own admissions policies. If PE Lee really going to pull the government back and reduce its clumsy, authoritarian tendencies, I think it would be very good for Korea.

My story on AFN getting kicked off of cable here in Korea has finally been published at The Hollywood Reporter. I am not exactly happy about the headline, but the story itself was fun to write (especially tracking down John Lee, AFKN engineer 1958-64).

As my story says, AFN is being taken off the local cable systems solely because of copyright concerns (unlike a lot of the more conspiratorial and even bizarre theories I have seen floating around). While the American networks are not exactly happy about anyone with an antenna being able to see their programs, what really pissed them off was the cable companies adding AFN to their selection of programming -- in effect, getting paid for an unauthorized retransmission.

Actually, it is quite unusual for AFN to be available on free-to-air TV, in the heart of a bustling metropolis. Most US Military bases are not in such heavily populated areas. Certainly AFKN was not in that sort of situation when the channel went on the air in 1957.

With a large military and military-related population to serve in Korea (and in particular, a large population that would need evacuating in the event of war), free-to-air AFKN was the most efficient way to make emergency announcements (at least in the pre-Internet era).

Anyhow, the pics AFN sent me did not make the online version of the story, so here are a couple for you.

HANSEL & GRETEL review to come tomorrow.

Korea Weekend Box Office - Dec. 29-Jan. 1

Hi all. Sorry for not mentioning that I was taking some time off for the holidays this year. The time away was much appreciated though. Now I am back and ready for 2008.

Hollywood is certainly starting off 2008 strong, with nearly 70 percent of the boxoffice. Top film over the holidays was THE GOLDEN COMPASS, which has made over $15 million since it opened on Dec. 18. NATIONAL TREASURE 2 is also doing well, with around $8.2 million since Dec. 20.

Top Korean movies is SEX IS ZERO 2, with about $12 million since Dec. 13 (with about $1.1 million of that coming over the long holiday weekend).

Very sad to see HANSEL & GRETEL open so poorly. Just $1 million since it opened on Dec. 27. Very disappointing on a lot of levels. I missed the press screening because I was on holiday, but I hope to get a review up on this site in the next few days.

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance	Total Attendance
1.	The Golden Compass	12.18	397	332,053	2,167,087
2.	National Treasure 2	12.20	338	237,722	1,105,853
3.	Sex Is Zero 2 (Saekjeuk Shigong Sijeun 2 - Korean)	12.13	319	158,320	1,658,665
4.	I Am Legend	12.12	313	145,944	2,274,330
5.	American Gangster	12.27	318	137,895	165,587
6.	Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium	12.19	287	133,782	446,776
7.	My Love (Nae Sarang - Korean)	12.20	293	133,508	749,388
8.	Hansel & Gretel	12.27	245	117,121	140,455
9.	Rainbow Eyes (Gamyeon - Korean)	12.27	261	113,846	142,701
10.	August Rush	11.29	189	98,266	1,894,308

(Source: KOBIS - Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Hrm... Looks like KOBIS has updated its website. Looks nice enough, but it still does not work well at all with Safari. More information than ever, though.