Dr. Q's MKC Rants - North Korean Agents: From Creepy Spooks to Pretty Boys

North Korean Agents: From Creepy Spooks to Pretty Boys

By Kyu Hyun Kim, Associate Professor of Japanese and Korean History, University of California, Davis

There were times during my younger days when I wondered whether South Korean filmmakers had to invent North Korean Communists if they did not exist in real life. Of course, the more you actually study the relationship between anti-Communist ideology and the postwar (post-1953, not post-1945) South Korean culture, the more you realize that it was complex, multifarious and full of contradictions. Anti-Communism has never been a monolithic edifice: neither was it a watertight cage from which no fluid leaked. 

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Review: The Slick, Manipulative and Disappointing Secretly Greatly

When a filmmaker makes a great debut, expectations are bound to be quite high for the follow-up. Such was the case for Jang Cheol-soo, who took the world by storm with his terrific island revenge saga Bedevilled in 2010. When word first surfaced of his next feature, which would see him adapt the popular webcomic Secretly Greatly, the initial buzz was one of excitement. However, as it progressed through casting and then production, it became more and more clear that this would be a completely different kind of film, and certainly not one aimed at the audience that was so enthralled by his debut.

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Korean Box Office: World War Z Scares Up Huge Opening (06/21-06/23, 2013)

A blockbuster came in stronger than expected this weekend, lifting the box office to a powerful 2.35 million admissions over the frame, a 50% jump over last year. Meanwhile, the news was not so great on the domestic front, as the market share shot down from 64% to 23%, as new titles continue to flounder in the marketplace.

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Korean Box Office: Man of Steel Not Quite Great Enough for Secretly (06/14-06/16, 2013)

Business was up again this past weekend as just over 2.5 million tickets were sold, though this was largely a result of two blockbusters ducking it out for the top spot. Each scored over one million, a achievement in itself though not the first time it's happened. Meanwhile, the local market share stood at 45%, ecent given the time of year and on par with last year's figure. However, with only two Korean titles in the top 10, one wonders what that figure might look like with a stronger mix of local fare on the marquees.

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Korean Box Office: Secretly Greatly Not-so-Secret in Great Debut (06/07-06/09, 2013)

The fortunes of the Korean film industry took a dramatic turn this weekend following the release of a major local film which set a slew of new records. Business was booming with almost 3 million admissions recorded over the frame, a significant jump over last year's 2.2 million and almost twice as much as last week. However, the better news was that the local market share lept to 77% (compared with 54% in 2012), following a spell when the domestic industry was having difficulty competing with Hollywood.

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Secretly Greatly	13/06/05	68.90%	2,064,586	3,491,507	1341
2	Star Trek: Into Darkness (us)	13/05/30	11.30%	284,135	1,261,090	412
3	Horror Stories 2	13/06/05	5.60%	172,776	347,311	337
4	Furious 6 (us)	13/05/22	3.40%	97,707	1,708,497	291
5	The Croods (us)	13/05/16	2.60%	82,563	819,621	272
6	Olympus Has Fallen (us)	13/06/05	2.10%	60,573	113,476	283
7	Montage	13/05/16	1.70%	50,518	2,060,999	297
8	After Earth (us)	13/05/30	1.20%	37,122	524,612	270
9	The Great Gatsby (us)	13/05/16	1.00%	28,758	1,391,906	132
10	Nazuma Eleven GO (jp)	13/06/05	0.50%	16,267	30,210	99

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