Geek Mourning

A bad couple of days of the inner-nerd -- both Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan have passed away. Both actors had long, prestigious careers... But I don't know much about that because I loved them for their work on my nerdy cult-classic favorites.

Montalban played the dastardly Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek, once in the original TV series and once in the movies -- STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, of course. The television episode was fun, but it was the Star Trek movie that so impressed me (and so many nerds of my generation).


McGoohan has a slightly brainier role in a more obscure but much more important classic -- the 17-episode series THE PRISONER. Each week, McGoohan's character, No. 6, would try to escape from a mysterious island populated with former spies.


And the opening sequence was one of TV's all-time greats.

"I am not a number — I am a free man!"

and

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!

But for me, the great exchange from the opening was when No. 6 and No. 2 were talking, and No. 6 tried to figure out what was going on:

MCGOOHAN
Who is Number One?

NUMBER TWO
You are Number Six.

Because all it took was a little comma to totally change the meaning:

MCGOOHAN
Who is Number One?

NUMBER TWO
You are, Number Six.

Be seeing you...

Still No Oscar for Korea

Not a big surprise, but it looks like that once again Korea will be going Oscarless this year. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nine films that have made it to the next round of voting for the Best Foreign Language Film category, and Korea is nowhere to be found.

To make matters worse, a Japanese film did make it (Yojiro Takita's DEPARTURES).

Korea this year was pushing CROSSING, a weep-fest about the plight of North Korean defectors, and the trials they face trying to escape. A worthwhile topic, to be sure, but CROSSING was not a very good film. Heavy-handed and shallow. Rumor has it that the Korea Film Council's latest boss, Kang Han-sup, a Lee Myung-bak appointee, was pushing CROSSING hard, as part of his reforms to the Council.

Oh well, maybe next year.

No Korean film has ever been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Although I would argue the Oscars are so silly and irrelevant, this is hardly an "honor" they should worry about. The list of great films that were never even nominated is long (City of God), as is the list of poor films that won.

Jan. 22, that list of nine films will be further winnowed down to the five final nominees.

Korea Weekend Box Office - Jan. 9-11

Just two Korean movies in the top-10 last weekend... But they were the most popular two films, so at least they made it count. Same as last weekend, A FROZEN FLOWER followed by SCANDAL MAKERS.

So far in 2009, Korean movies are accounting for 53.5 percent of the box office. So are we happier?

Not much notable, otherwise. BE KIND REWIND opened only in 11th, but that is not really a surprise. REWIND's opening weekend of 17,000 admissions was slightly better than THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP's opening of 12,000. Not sure if that makes me happy, because Michel Gondry is doing better, or depressed, because it did better than THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (which I really liked).

Things should get more interesting next weekend, as the pre-Seollal holiday films start to get released.

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	A Frozen Flower (Ssanghwajeom - Korean)	12.30	540	3.60	16.50
2.	Scandal Makers (Gwasok Seukaendeul - Korean)	12.04	417	2.77	38.06
3.	Madagascar 2	1.08	456	2.40	2.75
4.	Transporter 3	1.08	320	2.32	2.74
5.	Bolt	12.31	322	0.63	4.16
6.	Yes Man	12.18	237	0.60	8.08
7.	Defiance	1.08	201	0.52	0.61
8.	Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea	12.17	208	0.30	9.09
9.	Journey to the Center of the Earth	12.18	258	0.26	8.89
10.	The Day the Earth Stood Still	12.24	234	0.10	10.28

(Source: KOBIS - Figures represent 98% of nationwide box office)

2008 Movie Recap

CJ CGV, South Korea's biggest multiplex chain, just put out its report on the movie business in 2008. And, not surprisingly, it was mostly bad news.

(Note: CGV's numbers may not be as official as the Korea Film Council's, but they are good enough for this post. KOFIC's official numbers should be out in the next couple of months.)

Nationwide attendance dropped 5.7 percent to 149 million, down from 158 million last year and 167 million from 2006's record-setting year. Although it is worth noting that even 149 million is still the third-best year ever for box office revenues in Korea.


Much more damning, however, was the dramatic fall in admissions to local films. South Korean movies accounted for just 42.5 percent of the box office, their lowest level since 2000. Ouch.

So out of 149 million admissions, Korean films took in just 63.4 million. That's down a whopping 41 percent from 2006, Korean movies' best year ever.

On the other hand, pretty good news for Hollywood, which had its best year ever in Korea, with 85.7 million admissions -- up 10 percent from last year, the previous best for non-Korean films.


As for the top films themselves:

1. The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Korean) - 6.9 million
2. The Chaser (Korean) - 5.1 million
3. Mamma Mia - 4.6 million
4. Kung Fu Panda - 4.6 million
5. Gang Cheol-jung: Public Enemy 1.1 (Korean) - 4.4 million
6. Scandal Makers (Korean) - 4.3 million *
7. The Mummy 3 - 4.2 million
8. Iron Man - 4.2 million
9. Forever the Moment (Korean) - 4.1 million
10. Indiana Jones 4 - 4.0 million

(* Scandal Makers is still in theaters, and has already topped 5 million admissions, but this chart was just for 2008)

Korean movies were, once again, the most popular in the land and five of the top 10. And nine of the top 20.

Isn't the Korean market interesting, though? The Mummy 3 and Mamma Mia did better business than The Dark Knight. Hah! Given how well The Chaser did, I think you cannot argue that Koreans do not like dark films. But for some reason, Batman just does not resonate with Koreans as much as with Americans. Considering how well Transformers did last year (the best foreign movie ever in Korea) and Iron Man, maybe Koreans just prefer big metal heroes... which would bode well for the Robot Taekyun V movie.

So what is ahead for 2009? Heck if I know. But it is starting strong, with Scandal Makers still doing well and A Frozen Flower starting the year strong. Plenty of films are lining up for the annual Seollal lunar New Year rush. And I don't see anything too exciting coming out of Hollywood for the next few months (except possible Watchmen on March 5).

So there is a good chance that Korean movies will get a good start to 2009. Then you have the new Park Chan-wook film coming out in April, Bong Joon-ho's Mother in May, and Choi Dong-hoon's fantasy film Jeon Woo Chi later in the summer. The big-budgets films Laundry Warrior and Haeundae later in the year. Plenty of reasons to be optimistic in 2009.

Korea Weekend Box Office - Jan. 2-4

UPDATE: I just noticed that KOFIC changed their numbers some time over the last couple of days. I hate that. So I have changed the numbers in the chart and throughout my post.

ORIGINAL:
Yoo Ha's adult tale of courtly and bedroom intrigue in the Goryeo Dynasty, A FROZEN FLOWER, got off to a hot start last weekend, taking in 575,000 745,000 admissions over the weekend and 1.28 1.52 million since it was released on Dec. 30. That works out to nearly 4 over 5.1 billion won over the weekend and 8.6 10.25 billion won overall (or about $3.2 $4.2 million and $6.9 $8.2 million). That is pretty strong, especially for an adult film that young people could not get into.

SCANDAL MAKERS continues its torrid pace, earning another 2.6 3.4 billion won to bring its one-month haul to 32.4 33.5 billion won ($26 $27 million).

Following those two Korean films, you have a long list of Hollywood majors, mostly doing minor business. Except for No. 5, where Miyazaki's PONYO ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA made another 760 971 million won, bringing its total to 8.3 8.4 billion won ($6.6 million).

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	A Frozen Flower (Ssanghwajeom - Korean)	12.30	580	5.15	10.25
2.	Scandal Makers (Gwasok Seukaendeul - Korean)	12.04	429	3.42	33.55
3.	Bolt	12.31	343	1.59	2.84
4.	Yes Man	12.18	283	1.07	6.94
5.	Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea	12.17	359	0.97	8.48
6.	The Day the Earth Stood Still	12.24	312	0.86	9.96
7.	Journey to the Center of the Earth	12.18	366	0.81	8.40
8.	Twilight	12.11	109	0.17	8.56
9.	Australia	12.11	113	0.14	6.30
10.	Lost and Found (Dalkomhan Geojitmal - Korean)	12.18	128	0.082	3.07

(Source: KOBIS - Figures represent 98% of nationwide box office)

In a hopeful sign for the future, I'M SORRY DOKDO did pretty sorry business. Opening on 26 screens, DOKDO opened in 22nd, with just 12 million won ($10,000). So much potential for snark... But I will try to control myself. Suffice it to say, I think we just found a good metric for how strongly Koreans really feel about this fake controversy -- i.e., not very much.

Now let's never speak of this film again.

2008 Anti-Wrap-up (A Wrap-Down?)

Hrm... End of the year. I guess I am supposed to offer some sort of wrap-up of 2008. Or top-whatever lists. Or some sort of words of wisdom.

Too bad I don't really have anything like that. At least nothing earth-shattering or brilliant or controversial.

The movies had their worst year in quite a while, with Korean films dropping to their lowest level of support since 2002 or so (still waiting on the final figures). THE CHASER was probably my favorite film of the year, although it was more of a B+ than an A. THE GOOD THE BAD THE WEIRD was fun but not great (and a little shaky in spots). Hong Sang-soo's and Kim Ki-duk's latests were duds. Most everything else felt... well, typical. Some good, some bad (some terrible)... but nothing really weird. Nothing surprising. Artistically, things are in a bit of rut.

But despite their money problems, the fact is attendance is still way up from what it was 10 years ago, new movie theaters are still being built. And, most importantly, good films are still being made. Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook have their new films coming soon. And there are a lot of really interesting, big projects in the works. Sorry I cannot talk about a couple of the more fun ones I know. But things like the cgi animation of Robot Taekwon V or Bong Joon-ho's Snow Train are just way too cool. Certainly Hollywood's interest in Korea is bigger than ever. And I would not overlook the behind-the-scenes stuff going on with China and Japan, either.

People claim that financing is so tough, but last year saw over 100 films released -- still way more than a few years ago, and probably more than is healthy. Yes, some previously popular sources of financing have dried up. But most of them probably were not so good anyhow, and the industry has a whole is stronger without it. Stupid money investing in bad movies helps almost no one (except the crew members, who could use all the help they can get).

The music industry has, for the most part, completely adjusted to the digital age. I don't see anyone seriously expecting CD sales to recover any time soon. Now the business is more about all-round celebrities, with money coming from a hundred sources aside from CD sales. Kind of sucks for the indie artists... But then, it always did for them.

The new system just highlights how hollow the business model is for real, live bands. The fact that there are more and better indie bands in Korea than any time I can remember, despite the end of CD sales, indicates to me that something very different drives music. Who knows, maybe with a little luck and hard work, the live music scene might get its act together in 2009 and try to present something to people that the pop music industry is not supplying.

(Since I am not much of a K-pop guy, I will refrain from commenting on the music itself this year, aside from saying it seems pretty much the same as always. But as I said before, my choice for most interesting CDs of the year is posted over at London Korean Links).

Korean TV continues to move toward independent productions. Lee Byung-hun has his IRIS series coming. Bae Young-joon has an interesting new project on the way (which I guess is not necessarily a TV thing... not sure what it is from that article, but I assume it will have a TV angle) (Taewangsasinggi vs. the Wondergirls?).

I guess if I were to summarize 2008, we are in a period of change... but then, aren't we always? Internationalization is growing ever more important (but again, not really an original insight). I am not saying the stories here are uninteresting... It is just that I have been talking about them all year. It may be the end of a calendar year, but it does not feel like any kind of natural break in the Korean entertainment scene. Maybe by later in 2009 we will have a better idea what the next big things are.

Goodbye Skunk

Last Skunk Hell concert ever tonight. Show runs about 6-10pm and is free.

I wrote a little more about the show over at the Gig Guide, if that sort of thing interests you. That venue (in one form or another) has been one of the more important ones in Korea for live music since I arrived in town a long, long time ago. Kind of strange to think about the club closing.

Oh, and Happy New Year.