Modern Korean Cinema

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Jopok Week: Korean Gangster Films at the Box Office (2004-2011)

For the second part of my analysis of gangster films at the Korean box office I'm going to be a little more thorough and look past the top 10 since figures become more readily available.

Korean Gangster Films at the Box Office (2004-2011)

2004

Mob films failed to crack the top 10 in 2004 but a number performed strongly nonetheless. However, the two most successful only featured gang tropes within a myriad of generes. To Catch a Virgin Ghost (No. 12, 1,987,380) featured hoodlums but was mainly a comedy-horror premise while A Family (No. 14, 1,932,304) starring Soo-ae was a family melodrama above all else. Mokpo, Gangter's Paradise (No. 15, 1,795,700) is another standard Korean gangster comedy, just like the sequel Hi Dharma 2: Showdown in Seoul (No. 20, 1,272,000). The most interesting gang film of the year was probably Im Kwon-taek's 99th film Low Life (550,000) but it failed to make much of an impression at the box office, it was a period set film that shared more with his previous The General's Son trilogy than contemporaneous gangster films. Last was another gang comedy A Wacky Switch, which despite starring Jeong Joon-ho (previously in My Boss, My Hero and Marrying the Mafia) was a flop.

While those films that you would more readily categorize in the gangster genre did not make big impressions, a trend was beginning to emerge where films featured gangster characters or youth violence themes within more elaborate hybrids. Ghost House, Once Upon a Time in High School, Fighter in the Wind, and Arahan all made it into the top 11.

2005

Two gangster comedies made it into the top 10 in 2005, further proof of the enduring popularity of the formula. The second entry in the enormously successful Marrying the Mafia franchise (No. 3, 5,635,266) improved on the showing of the first and Mapado (No. 8, 3,090,467) transported a gangster and a crooked cop to an island and pits them against a band of old ladies, it would later spawn a sequel.

Further down the chart, Kim Jee-woon's immersive gangster film noir A Bittersweet Life (1,271,595) was a modest hit but became a more successful player on the international scene and still one of the most popular Koran exports. Mr. Socrates (1,261,965) and Never to Lose (989,573) also worked their way to mid-level showings. Jang Jin's Murder, Take One and Ryoo Seung-wan's Crying Fist, which featured gangster elements, were also solid hits.

2006

2006 was the biggest year for Korean films at the box office, led but the extraordinary success of Bong Jon-ho's The Host and a remarkably strong slate of films. Gangster films also performed strongly and there were many of them compared to previous years.

Top of the pile was the follow-up to My Boss, My Hero (2001). My Boss, My Teacher (No. 4, 6,105,431) nearly doubled the performance of its already very successful predecessor with Jeong Joon-ho's gang captain this time returning to school as a teacher instead of a student. Next was the third entry in the Marrying the Mafia (No. 6, 3,464,516) franchise, which came very soon after the previous installment (1 year) which had been made three years after the first. Though it was again very successul it would be a long wait for the next sequel.

Outside of the top 10 there was a number of very strong performers. The Busan-set Bloody Tie (2,104,716), starring Hwang Jeong-min and Ryoo Seung-beom, played well in the spring. Ha Yu's exemplary gang tale A Dirty Carnival (2,047,808) played to solid numbers. Jang Jin's deligthful gang-prison comedy-drama hybrid Righteous Ties (1,744,677) successfully paired Jeong Jae-yeong and Jeong Joon-ho with a clever script. Meanwhile the third and seemingly final entry in the My Wife Is a Gangster (1,690,465) franchise, which featured a new protagonist, performed well but fell far below the original's benchmark.

Other midlevel successes included Running Wild (1,016,152), The City of Violence (1,196,520), and No Mercy For the Rude (904,802). However Cruel Winter Blues (570,059) and Les Formidables (361,155) failed to set the box office alight.

Special mention goes to the enormously successful Tazza: The High Rollers (No. 2, 6,847,777) which I would classify as a con artist/professional thieves film which is a bit different but it's a fine line! All in all 2006 demonstrated that Korean audiences still had a huge thirst for gangster films, be they comedy, drama, or action.

2007

For the third year running two gangster flicks made it into the top 10, both of which incorporated heavy romantic elements into the mix but on opposite ends of the spectrum. Miracle on 1st Street (No. 5, 2,750,457) reteams the Sex Is Zero (2002) leads Ha Ji-won and Lim Chang-jung in a romantic comedy setting with Lim as a hapless hoodlum. Kwak Kyung-taek delivered the intense and fatalistic romantic opus A Love (No. 8, 2,123,815), which takes place within a gangster setting.

Song Kang-ho starred in of the best Korean gangster films ever made but The Show Must Go On (1,025,781), despite Mr. Song's enormous box office clout, barely managed to pass the one million admissions mark. Slightly lower down the chart was the gangster comedy The Mafia, the Salesman (947,510), the third Boss, My Hero film, and much further down was Hotel M: Gangster's Last Draw (237,183), another gangster comedy which floundered upon release.

The romantic-gangster pairing proved to be a potent match in an otherwise difficult year for Korean film in general. Notably, gangster comedies were absent from the upper echelons of the chart, save for Miracle of 1st Street, but this in effect signaled the end of an era.

2008

Just a look at the above posters will give you an idea of the kind of gangster films that made their way to theaters in 2008, namely works with dark themes and storylines. Na Hong-jin's magnificent The Chaser (No. 3, 5,071,619) featured a pimp trying to find one his girls who has been abducted by a serial killer. While not overly concerned with gang tropes it nonetheless succeeds in both lampooning low-level, unseemly hoodlums involved in the sex trade while also showing a pretty bleak picture of their existence in an interesting spin on the comedic representation of gangsters. The third installment in Kang Woo-suk's enormously successful Public Enemy franchise (Public Enemy Returns, No. 4, 4,300,670), starring Sol Kyung-gu, featured Jeong Jae-yeong as a vicious, cold-blooded gang boss antagonist.

Outside of the top 10 Open City (1,613,728) performed well and Jang Hoon's exceptional and fascinating Kim Ki-duk-scripted Rough Cut (1,307,688) was also a solid hit. Further down, Truck (540,485) was a modest performer.

Just like the previous year gangster comedies did not place high on the charts though. Unlike 2007, none seem to have been made unless you count the underperforming period comedy The Accidental Gangster and the Mistaken Courtesan and Ryoo Seung-wan's odd spy comedy Dachimawa Lee. Filmmakers seemed to have moved on from the fad.

2009

In 2009 Kim Yun-seok featured in another protagonist-antagonist film with some comic gangster tones in a relatively serious narrative. Running Turtle (No. 5, 3,025,586) was very successful and no other film in the top 10 featured gangster elements. Also performing well were gangster comedy City of Damnation (1,545,132) which featured Jeong Joon-ho as well as other stars from the My Boss, My Hero franchise, and the Cha Seung-won starring Secret (1,035,073). In limited release, Yang Ik-joon's extraordinary indie Breathless (121,670) had a strong run.

Not a big year for gangster films but they would soon come back in stronger numbers.

2010

2010 featured a number of straight gangster films but also a lot of very successful films that blended gangster conventions into larger narratives, in typical multi-genre Korean style. The Man From Nowhere (No. 1, 6,182,772) starring Won Bin, was a huge success. Moss (No. 3, 3,353,897) may not seem quite like a gangster film but in many ways I think it qualifies. Ryoo Seung-wan's phenomenal The Unjust (No. 7, 2,722,403) incorporated gangster elements in a larger thriller centered around the judicial and enforcement sectors and their criminal ties.

Barely outside the top 10 was Shim Hyung-rae's atrocious American-produced The Last Godfather (2,301,293), Na Hong-jin's excellent The Yellow Sea (2,142,742), the Ryoo Seung-wan produced Sol Kyung-gu vehicle Troubleshooter (1,843,510), and Sung Hae-sung's remake of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1,546,420). The Park Joon-hoon's starring romantic gangster comedy My Dear Desperado (688,832) was surprisingly effective and played better than expected.

Twilight Gangsters, and Kim Sang-jin's Attack the Gas Station 2, featuring gangster tropes had solid numbers. Perhaps my favorite comic gangsters briefly appeared in Jang Jin's uproarious The Quiz Show Scandal.

A big year for gangsters at the Korean box office, proof that the genre is endowed with a lot of staying power.

2011

The year is not over yet, but the latest installment in the long-running Marrying the Mafia franchise (No. 10, 2,370,074) continued to pull in strong numbers despite the recent disappearance of gangster comedy films from the box office charts. No other gangster films performed particularly strongly but a number have appeared, including many star vehicles. The Apprehenders, Hindsight, Pained, Moby Dick, I Am a Dad, and Countdown were all midlevel performers, some more disappointing than others.

2012

Gangster films seem to be here to stay with a number of high profile films set for release in 2012 including The Thieves and Nameless Gangster and I'm sure we will continure to see them in the future. More and more though it seems like gangster characters might feature in films but not dominate them, not necessary a bad thing.

Korean Gangster Films at the Box Office (1996-2003)

Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema. For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

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Saturday, December 10, 2011

Jopok Week: No. 3 (Neobeo 3) 1997

Though not as slick as later works like Shiri (1999) and Joint Security Area (2000), No. 3 was a presage of things to come in Korean cinema. A vibrant film made by young people, reveling in anarchy, chaos, poetry, and philosophy. More than the other successful gangster films of 1997, No. 3 ended up being a significant breeding ground for future stars of Korean cinema. Ask any western cinephile what Korean film stars they know and the most likely answers you’ll get are Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho. Choi, as one would expect, is quite excellent but the stand-out has to be Song. While he featured in Hong Sang-soo’s debut The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well the year before, it was in No. 3 that he made a name for himself.

Rather than focussing on plot, No. 3 is more of a character piece involving gangster Tae-ju (Han Suk-kyu), his aspiring poet girlfriend Hyun-ji (Lee Mi-yeon), an aggressive prosecutor (Choi Min-sik), and a very strange hitman (Song Kang-ho). Through a series of set pieces and discussions between characters, the film covers a huge amount of ground. It is self-reflexive in its use of black humor, underscoring the absurdity of modern Korean society. Much has been written and said about No 3 but I would like to draw on a coupe of points.

More than any Korean film that came before it, No 3 employs a myriad of stylistic tricks such as: Colors; chiaroscuro lighting; composition; monochrome; music; fastforwarding; point-of-view; slow motion; freeze frame; strobe; and breaking the fourth wall (like staring into camera). That last point in particular showcases how self-reflexive the film can be and braeaks up the narrative for the purpose of enticing the viewer to read the film differently. The film is also entrenched is Western literature, citing authors like Virginia Wolf and even having a wispy, diminutive characters named Rimbaud, after the famed romantic French poet. As Korea has changed throughout the 1990s, it has embraced new ideas and progressive Western thought.

One of the more interesting relationships in the film is the one between Tae-ju, the titular gangster No. 3, and Dong-pal, the aggressive, foul-mouthed public prosecutor. They engage in a couple of discussions which explore the nature of their conflicting lifestyles. In one, Choi criticizes people who judge a crime’s act rather than it’s perpetrator, a significant question in moral philosophy. Regarding a crime, do we evaluate it in terms of the act, the perpetrator, or the consequence, as the utilitarians do? I dare not get into any deep discussion on this subject, lest I expose myself as clueless charlatan but I am fascinated by this distinction.

On the surface it seems pretty simple as we tend to judge crimes on the act themselves, but it’s easy to consider a few variations which expose the weakness of such a proposition. Conspiracy to murder is an offence that carries a heavy sentence and does not necessarily feature any act at all if it doesn’t come to fruition. In such a case, we judge a defendant on intent and the potential grievous harm that would have been inflicted. Looking at the other side of the coin, it is also possible to judge an act on its consequence rather than the thought and action that led to it. Utilitarian philosophy, chiefly a product of John Stuart Mill’s mind, and in large part responsible for today’s judiciary system, concerns itself with the aftermath of an act. How much good came out of it versus bad? The deliberation as to the balance of the consequence judges the severity of the crime or the benevolence of the good deed. The most famously cited example for this is the dropping of the hydrogen bomb on Hiroshima during WWII. Over 100,000 people died, the act it is responsible for the largest toll of human suffering in any single act. However, the argument stands that countless more people were saved because of it. Therefore judging on the consequence of the act, the bombing was just.

Dong-pal in No. 3 is part of the legal system that means that he should be principally concerned with crimes but he seems to go beyond his mandate by harassing criminals whose intentions are to commit crimes. Normally this role is occupied by detectives which his character, with his moral philosophy, violent physicality, and foul language would seem to be a better fit for. Late in the film Dong-pal shares a drink with Tae-su’s girlfriend Hyun-ji, who says “What I hate is not a sinner, but a sin itself.” This is in direct opposition to Dong-pal’s philosophy but she asks him to help Tae-su and look on him as a younger brother. Instead of vilifying the sinner, is it possible to reform him. Essentially I think the point is to what extent is society to blame and can a figure of authority like Dong-pal prevent crimes by reforming the perpetrator and therefore removing the bad intentions? Perhaps I’m reaching a little far with this but since the fall of the autocratic Chung Doo-hwan administration in the late 1980s, the role of authority in Korean society has changed an enormous amount.

More than just about any other Korean gangster film, No. 3 features a very strong and well fleshed-out female character in Hyun-ju. The boss’ wife, while less clearly drawn, acts as a classic femme fatale who, as a result of her domineering affair with Rimbaud, plays a part in setting off the irreverent and chaotic climax, one of the greatest sequences in 90s Korean film.

While later Korean gangster comedies would frequently lampoon hoodlums, cutting them down in size, No. 3 does so in a more interesting fashion. Tae-ju briefly becomes No. 2 in his gang after displaying his loyalty and wit but he is demoted after being stabbed and Ashtray takes his place. Ashtray is a big lump of a character who brutally beats people with his namesake, which he stores down his pants, and does little else. The violence is shocking and far from glorified and demonstrates how unseemly this facet of Korean society can be. Darcy Paquet’s piece, posted earlier today for Jopok Week, on ‘The Rise and Fall of the Korean Gangster Comedy’, explores what went wrong with later gangster comedies after this promising start.

No. 3 features a number of wonderful scenes, including a great playground fight between Han Suk-kyu and Choi Min-sik, and just about every scene with Song Kang-ho who is hilarious and delightfully strange. There’s much more to be said about this film than what I have explored but I will wrap up my discussion here. I look forward to revisiting director and writer Song Neun-han's minor Korean gangster masterpiece in the near future.

Jopok Week: The Rise and Fall of the Korean Gangster Comedy

By Darcy Paquet

(This essay was originally published in Korean translation in the film weekly Cine21, in January 2009.)

Han Suk-kyu in No. 3 (1997)

Sometimes I wish that Song Neung-han's No. 3 had been made four or five years later than it actually was. I imagine it being released in 2002 or 2003, and stunning both critics and audiences with its distinctive characters and elegant staging of one gangster's epic, self-inflicted fall. I guess it would have sold between 5 and 6 million tickets, providing a bridge between popular hits My Wife Is a Gangster and Hi, Dharma and the "well-made" auteur films of 2003: Memories of Murder, A Tale of Two Sisters, Oldboy (never mind that it would have been impossible to assemble the same cast in 2002 as in 1997). If I could rewrite the recent history of Korean cinema, this is how I would assemble the plot: No.3 would have saved the Korean gangster comedy.

As it was, No.3 appeared ahead of its time. Korean audiences were not as tuned in to local films in 1997, so word of mouth was slow to spread, and it did not perform very well commercially. More importantly, the model of a commercial genre merged with a strong auteur sensibility did not really exist at that time. Song Neung-han stands as somewhat of a lonely pioneer. This is not to say the film did not have influence: it helped to launch the career of Song Kang-ho, and it bears some elements in common with the films of Kim Jee-woon, Bong Joon-ho, and Choi Dong-hoon, among others.

Kang Seong-jin, Yu Oh-seung, Lee Sung-jae, and Yu Ji-tae in
Attack the Gas Station (1999)

Some critics point to No. 3 as the starting point of the Korean gangster comedy, but it seems to me that the character and attitude of the sub-genre sprung from another source: Kim Sang-jin's Attack the Gas Station (1999). It's not just that Attack the Gas Station was a huge commercial success that featured a prominent brawl with gangsters. It tapped into the mindset that would provide the foundation for later works. Anthropologist Nancy Abelmann and education professor Jung-ah Choi analyzed the film in an essay published in the anthology New Korean Cinema in 2005. To them, the core attitude of the film is contained within the reason given for robbing the gas station: 'geunyang,’ loosely translated as "just for the hell of it." The casual self interest and rejection of social responsibility contained within that word were representative of broader changes in Korean society, they argued. For decades, the state had asked Koreans to subordinate the personal and the indulgent for the greater good. 'Geunyang' was a rejection of this logic.

This "geunyang" attitude also reverberated throughout the gangster comedy, re-emerging, for example, in the poster copy for the 2001 film My Boss My Hero ("That's right, more gangsters... Got a problem with that?"). It may not have been a noble sentiment, but it imparted to the films their particular energy. Many critics considered the famous gangster comedy quartet of 2001 – Kick the Moon, My Wife is a Gangster, Hi Dharma!, My Boss My Hero – to be a shameful regression in the development of Korean cinema, but the films themselves are interesting in many ways. My personal favorite is My Boss My Hero, for the way it combines melodrama with an ironic sense of moral outrage (given the fact that it is gangsters fighting school officials, in the name of social justice) leading up to a very Korean-style emotional climax. Hi Dharma is structured more like a Hollywood film, even if it feels very local in its details (its setting in a Buddhist temple, Korean games, provincial accents, etc.). Both films benefit from a good sense of comic timing and effective narrative plotting, and they are genuinely funny – an achievement that is more difficult to attain than many people assume.

Jeong Joon-ho in My Boss, My Hero (2001)

My Wife is a Gangster may not have been as well crafted as the two films mentioned above, but it remains the iconic example of Korean gangster comedy. Perhaps the most defining characteristic of these early gangster comedies was their high-concept nature: you could summarize the plot in a single sentence, and even that one sentence could motivate viewers to see the film. A friend once told me about a film director from the Philippines, who after hearing just the title of My Wife is a Gangster, burst out laughing and said, "I gotta see that film!" The movie itself could have been improved in many ways, but its central character played by Shin Eun-kyung (thrown into relief by the great supporting role by Park Chang-myun) is one of the most enduring characters of contemporary Korean cinema.

Taken individually, any of these films would have been interesting but not especially noteworthy – but the emergence of a new trend created something that was greater than the sum of its parts. Viewers who went to see a "new gangster comedy" approached it with a particular set of expectations, and directors could play off those expectations in interesting ways. Internationally as well, the Korean gangster comedy (however briefly) become a sort of brand. It's rare for a film industry to successfully create a specialized sub-genre of its own, but there are both commercial and creative advantages to keeping such sub-genres alive.

Park Sang-myeon and Sin Eun-kyeong in My Wife Is a Gangster (2001)

Ultimately, however, the girls high school horror film (launched in 1998 with Whispering Corridors) would prove to be far more successful at perpetuating itself than the gangster comedy. To ensure that a specialized sub-genre lives on, it isn't necessary to produce only good films. In fact, even a string of unremittingly bad films can keep a sub-genre alive if they attempt something new and create a sense of forward movement.

Initially, Marrying the Mafia (2002) provided some hint that the gangster comedy might enjoy a long life, but somewhere along the line, producers began to view the Korean gangster comedy as a lemon to be squeezed until all the juice was gone. I sat through all of those "lazy sequels" that appeared in the subsequent years – films which introduced nothing new to the genre and merely cashed in on fading memories of old jokes. If the plots of the early films could be summarized in one intriguing sentence, the plots of the later sequels could be summarized as "more of the same." Sometimes a big hit can do more damage to the lineage of a sub-genre than a commercial flop, if millions of viewers buy tickets only to see for themselves that the creativity is gone.

Seong Ji-roo, Yoo Dong-geun, and Park Sang-wuk in
Marrying the Mafia (2002)

It's perhaps understandable that film critics might look down on the gangster comedy, but it's sadder when the people actually producing the films don't consider them worthy of good craftsmanship. Personally, I regret the fall of the gangster comedy – I think it had a good start, and it could have evolved into a tradition worthy of pride. But now, I think it is too late. With deepest apologies for the sexist metaphor, the Korean gangster comedy is like a Chosun-Dynasty era yangban family that has failed to produce a son. It will be no easier to revive it, than to start a completely new lineage.

Darcy Paquet is the founder of Koreanfilm.org, and the author of New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves (2009).

Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema. For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Jopok Week: Masculinity and Beauty in A Bittersweet Life and The Man From Nowhere – Part II

Questions of Masculinity and Beauty in the Jopok Films A Bittersweet Life (2005) and The Man From Nowhere (2010)

(contd.)

A Bittersweet Life

The question of who dies or survives is not a superficial question. For Sun-woo, ultimately he is the author of the circle in which he becomes ensnared. This truth is reflective of A Bittersweet Life’s very insular world. The gangsters in this film hardly interact with the daytime, if they can help it; whatever dealings with the international world that the criminal organisation may have the film does not show or mention. The irony is that Sun-woo could not help it: Sun-woo is assigned to look after his boss’ much younger girlfriend Hee-soo for several days while he is away because he is suspicious of her having a boyfriend. Like a rope that has reached its breaking point, Sun-woo's meeting with Hee-soo unravels the strands of loyalty and honour that had sustained his good standing with his boss. After tasting a different rhythm and colour of life by accompanying Hee-soo in her day-to-day activities as a student, Sun-woo makes the decision to not kill Hee-soo and her boyfriend. But what is a gesture of goodwill in the sweet light of day is a death wish in the underground shadows of noir.

The themes of loyalty, betrayal, and revenge; the narrative development of a woman triggering the protagonist's “downfall”; and the jungle of marginalised characters encountered to get to the boss are all there. But Kim revels in playing with these conventions to bend the jopok under his spell. One of the film’s distinct characteristics is the segment that bridges Sun-woo’s escape from his boss’ henchmen and his last killing spree. In this unexpected, comical sequence, which could be a short film unto itself, Sun-woo meets a Laurel and Hardy-like pair of gunrunners and has a great seated showdown with their boss. It is a bold move because this sequence basically brings to a standstill the dramatic action of revenge, but it showcases Kim’s distinct perspective of things and references the great peculiarity of his previous films like The Quiet Family (1998) and The Foul King (2000). In this way, Kim demonstrates an incredible confidence in his interpretation of noir as a narrative template as well as visual pleasure. From a bloody standoff on an ice rink, a muddy buried-alive punishment that turns into a veritable resurrection, the visual motif of lamps and turning on/off lights as a more literal illustration of noir lighting and mise en scène, to the final meeting with his boss at the Melville-esque lounge with the words la dolce vita between them in the background in all its irony, A Bittersweet Life is full of cool, masculine attitude and mood.

The Man From Nowhere

The Man From Nowhere is much more diversified in terms of the scope of criminal activities with which one must contend. It brings together the Chinese mafia, a Thai assassin, child trafficking, drug trafficking, and organ harvesting to create the formidable criminal web in which pawnshop owner Tae-shik unwittingly finds himself through his acquaintance with a little girl, So-mi, who lives in the same apartment complex as him. Unlike Sun-woo in A Bittersweet Life, Tae-shik has a backstory – and a tragic family one at that – which informs his conscious reaction to the things that happen to him and the things he witnesses with regards to So-mi. Even if his actions yield unexpected results, his objective to rescue So-mi never falters. That he ends up having to confront a big-time criminal organisation and put a stop to their illegal activities in the process is ultimately secondary but convenient and dramatic in a narrative sense.

How Tae-shik gets embroiled in the criminal organisation run by brothers Man-seok and Jong-seok is complicated. While some regard this complexity as a flaw, it actually reveals the film’s smartness in terms of keeping up with these complex, globalised criminal times. The parallel strands of Tae-shik finding more about Man-seok and Jong-seok’s extensive criminal operations and the police finding more about Tae-shik’s international special agent background reflect the reality of a more connected, complicated, diverse world. Lee’s desire to reflect this multilayered reality may also help to explain his decision to have Tae-shik’s most electrifying fights be against Ramrowan, the Thai assassin who works for Man-seok and Jong-seok, instead of the brothers themselves. Aside from the splendid choreography, the most striking detail about their confrontations is the surprising absence of extra-diegetic music. The sequence that consists of the silence of their first fight in a bathroom and the pulsating sounds of the dance floor as they stand and face each other as if to initiate a duel, despite the crowd of people dancing obliviously around them, is an effective example of visual and aural contrast and also foreshadows Tae-shik and Ramrowan’s even more vigorous knife fight towards the end. At the same time, Tae-shik and Ramrowan’s confrontations rise above the story to occupy a whole other dimension unto itself, which accounts for the film’s stylisation. In this sense, unlike his colleagues, Ramrowan serves less to drive the plot than to affirm and spectacularise Tae-shik’s character. Ultimately, nothing topples Tae-shik’s coolness and moral sense of self, which affirm each other throughout the film: so guarded of his past, but it tempers his actions in the present.

Angels with Dirty, Pretty Faces

David Thomson writes of Alain Delon in Le samouraï, “[T]he enigmatic angel of French film, only thirty-two in 1967, and nearly feminine. Yet so earnest and immaculate as to be thought lethal or potent.” This description of Delon’s taciturn, schizophrenic assassin in Le samouraï is perhaps not the first image of a killer that comes immediately to mind. It certainly does not apply to the majority of assassins or gangsters in cinema, past or present. In fact, it applies only very rarely. Not even Ryan Gosling in Drive (2011, Nicholas Winding Refn) fits this bill, regardless of the frequent comparisons made between this film and Melville’s work; marvelous attempt, but not quite. Only Louis Koo in Election 2 (2006, Johnnie To) – stunning, menacing, and intensely still all at the same time – is a worthy match. In contemporary Korean cinema, Lee Byung-hun and Won Bin.

Fans and critics alike frequently discuss these actors’ attractiveness, in terms similar to the ones that Thomson uses above to describe Delon: “feminine,” “earnest,” “immaculate.” Any filmmaker who casts these actors must somehow take into account their attractiveness and proceed accordingly, so that part of the interest in these actors in a jopok film – with all of its grimy, sordid violence – consists in seeing how the film uses their attractiveness: is it downplayed, made more conspicuous? For the actor, such as Delon, these gangster/noir films are a way to overcome or make rough one’s attractiveness and to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor.

For A Bittersweet Life, Lee Byung-hun’s looks were crucial for Kim Ji-woon. In a 2009 master class, Kim elaborated on his choice of Lee to play Sun-woo: “One of the reasons I cast him was that in French noir, the most [well-known] protagonist was Alain Delon. I thought that Lee Byung-hun is the Korean actor who most resembles him. Alain Delon doesn't have a lot of dialogue, either. I worked it in because I thought he was the one who could bring the eyes and aura of Alain Delon.” Accordingly, Kim shot Lee in close-ups and extreme close-ups throughout the film to express the gamut of overwhelming emotion that Sun-woo must go through without resorting to dialogue. In turn, Lee brings the eyes, aura, and walk that recall the steely coolness of Delon. Lee's walk alone conveys a myriad of things, such as in the opening scene where he descends from the sky lounge to the underground bar – the camera closely following from behind – for the first fight scene. Or in the scene where Sun-woo walks towards Hee-soo to take her home – the camera also closely behind – and then does a quick about-face when he sees her male friend get there before him. The performance is wordless, but Lee gets the giddiness of a schoolboy in love as well as the shyness, vulnerability, and embarrassment that go with it.

For The Man From Nowhere, Lee Jeong-beom also made symbolic use of Won Bin’s pretty boy looks. Lee speaks of casting Won Bin in a 2011 interview, “In the beginning I had an older character in mind. But Won's face drew me to him even more. He has a beautiful face, but when he is not speaking his face is cold. For example, in the scenes with the child his youthful side would show, while in the action scenes his face grew colder.” Lee, like Melville with Delon, drew amply from and enhanced the mysterious allure of Won Bin walking quietly but determinedly, looking, and listening intently, or simply standing still in order to create the emotion and mood of scenes. The film introduces Tae-shik in such a way, which makes the fight scenes and aggressive dialogue all the more impactful. Ultimately, why The Man From Nowhere works despite its borrowings of kidnapping, busting a drug/trafficking ring, and an ex-special agent rekindling his deadly training plots is due largely to the charismatic tension between the jopok genre and Won Bin’s pretty boy-ness. The first part of the film relies heavily on this tension, with Won Bin’s face half covered by his hair, while the rest of the film and his subsequent haircut are the consequences of the full-on collision between Won Bin and the ultra-violent, ultra masculine world of jopok.

But what distinguishes Lee Byung-hun and Won Bin from Delon are the “manly tears,” so prevalent in South Korean films, jopok films included. In both A Bittersweet Life and The Man From Nowhere, Lee and Won each have their moment of manly tears, something that would never happen to Delon’s characters. What are the roots of this motif (see Pierce Conran’s previous post on MKC)? Perhaps it goes back to the issue of reviving not just the screen image of Korean masculinity but a particular one that taps into Korean cinema’s history of melodrama and aestheticises masculinity and emotion simultaneously.

Part I of Masculinity and Beauty in A Bittersweet Life and The Man From Nowhere

Rowena Santos Aquino recently obtained her doctorate degree in Cinema and Media Studies. She is a contributing writer to Asia Pacific Arts. She has also contributed to other online outlets, such as Midnight Eye and Red Feather, and to print journals, including Transnational Cinemas and Asian Cinema. She also loves football. She can be found musing about film and football on her twitter page.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Jopok Week: Kim Sung-su's Beat (비트, Biteu) 1997

1997 was a pretty big year for Korean gangster films, no less than three of them wound up in the year-end top 10. Song Kang-ho had his breakout performance with No. 3, Lee Chang-dong released his excellent debut Green Fish, and Jung Woo-sung, Ko So-young, Lim Chang-jung, and Yu Oh-seung made a name for themselves in Kim Sung-su’s Beat. 1997 was also an important year because of the disastrous IMF crisis in Korea. After numerous big corporations failed the country had to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund to the tune of over $50 billion. After nearly a decade of enormous year-on-year gains, Korea’s economy drew flat and nearly dipped into a recession.

Many critics and academics, assert that “the revival and popularity of the jop'ok cycle in the post-IMF period can be seen as a consequence of and a response to, the national economic crisis” (Shin, 2005: 123). Friend (2001) in particular is mentioned in this argument. While I agree to some extent that the prevalence of social identity crises and anxieties in young men depicted in contemporary Korean cinema can be attributed to this cataclysmic financial event, I believe there is much evidence that would argue that this trend was already in evidence before the crisis.

None of the aforementioned films could have been designed with the crisis in mind since it happened in July, months after all of the productions had wrapped. The gangster film made its comeback earlier in the decade with Im Kwon-taek’s The General’s Son trilogy, of which the first two installments topped the Korean box office charts for 1990 and 1991 (as far as locals films are concerned). Earlier this week, as I examined gangster films at the Korean boxoffice, I also noted that three gangster films from 1996 wound up in the top 10 as well. However, the works from 1997 are more notable as they bear much more similarities with the supposed post-IMF crisis gangster cycle of films. Each has its own stake to that claim but I want to talk about Beat which was not only produced before the crisis but I believe to be the precursor to Friend. Aside from a similar narrative, they share the same themes and explore similar social mores and anxieties of the young male in modern Korea.

Min (Jung Sung-woo) is a high school student who likes get into fights with his friend Tae-su (Yu Oh-seung). He is sent to a new school and makes a new friend, Hwan-gyu (Lim Chang-jung), and meets Ro-mi (Ko So-young) while Tae-su gradually falls in with the local mob. As the narrative progresses Min is torn between joining Tae-su down his criminal path and a more virtuous life with the upwardly mobile Ro-mi.

As many films would do subsequently, such as Die Bad (2000), Friend, Conduct Zero (2002), and Gangster High (2006), Beat examines apathetic youth violence and how it can lead to gang integration. Though in addition to quantifying the role of male peer pressure, machismo, and home situations in this violence, it also throws in something remarkably modern: brand fetishization. Min’s love interest, Ro-mi, asserts early on that anyone interested in “sex, screen, or sports is a loser” and she is relentlessly studious though she presents a vain and feckless exterior to her equally studious classmates. Min wears a Nike shirt modeled after the Chicago Bulls player Dennis Rodman and covets Tae-su’s motorbike. Inaddition, early on in the film Min is auctioned off at a bar by Hwang-gyu and Ro-mi buys him for $100. This in effect commodifies him, which can provide an interesting reading of Jung Woo-sung’s star status. He’s never been viewed as a consummate actor and relies more on his looks and physique. Aside from fetishizing him, Ro-mi’s purchase of Min switches the genders roles as he becomes her servant. She is very frank with him and puts him down at every opportunity though eventually she can’t help herself, she loses her composure and falls for him.

It’s interesting to consider the purpose of the brand worshipping in Beat as it coincides with frequent references to America. Examples include Min’s shirt, Hwang-gyu’s rapping and ostentatious clothing, and especially Ro-mi’s use of English aphorisms and her made up enrollment in a New York university. While the ideal of America may no longer be quite so vaunted in these times, back in 1997 it very much embodied a dream of escape, personal gratification, and the pursuit of happiness. Min dreams of achieving something, though it is not clear what, and moving past his childhood marred by his promiscuous and absentee mother. For Ro-mi, her lie, machinated by her parents who wish to live vicariously through her, hides the truth of a psychiatry stint.

Much of the first half of Beat focusses on the extraordinary pressure put on children to succeed academically. Ro-mi’s stay at a mental institute seems to result from this, though it is never explained. Of course it was probably triggered by her friend’s suicide on a subway platform before her very eyes, after failing a test. She probably blamed herself as immediately before she had boasted of a top score, keep in mind her friends believe that she does little work at all and socializes most nights.

Min’s stay in high school may be brief but he suffers similar problems as his mother berates him for not doing better but clearly she is not a good motivator and her behavior, which incongruously coexists with her aspirations for him, may be what leads him to his violent behavior, though at heart he seems rather sweet-natured. Eventually he disrupts the school order by smashing up the teacher’s office which, after a brief rush of power and adrenaline, gets him thrown out of the system and will eventually lead to gang integration, despite an honest and initially rewarding attempt at a business venture with Hwang-gyu which gets violently shut down by the government as their establishment is demolished. The sequence brings to mind the brutal repression of the student demonstrations of the 1980s.

I’m rambling a bit but the more I think about Beat, the more impressed I am by it, it seems to combine some of the social relevance of the Korean New Wave, which unofficially ended a year earlier with Jang Sun-woo’s A Petal, and the aesthetics and themes of modern Korean film. In light of this analysis the leap between Beat and Friend seems far less pronounced, indeed production values sem to be the greatest disparity. Though the film is no stylistic slouch as it employs Wong Kar-wai’s cool step motion film style that he employed throughout the 1990s, though later Korean films would be far more important to developing Korean film style. There also something to be said about the homoerotic vibe between Min and Tae-soo, I suppose it might be a facet of their shared machismo and hyper-masculinities. Beat stands as one of the first great jopok films of new Korean cinema, see it if you get a chance.

★★★★☆

See Also:

Born to Kill (1996)

The General's Son (1990)

The General's Son 2 (1991)

The General's Son 3 (1992)

Further Reading:

Shin, Chi-yun, "Two of a Kind: Gender and Friendship in Friend and Take Care of My Cat," in New Korean Cinema, ed. Shin Chi-yun and Julian Stringer (New York, NYU Press, 2005), 123.

Jopok Week: Born to Kill (본투킬, Bon tu kkil) 1996

By Kieran Tully

I must admit, I probably approached Born to Kill (1996) in the wrong manner, one in which I thought it would be a good companion piece to Beat (1997) given their similarities. After all, both films star Jung Woo-sung as an unstoppable fighting machine; are about gangsters; feature a leading love interest; are from the late 80’s and possess the style, music, and colour associated with the 80’s; and have titles beginning with the letter B. At the end of the day, that is all they share in common. Maybe it wasn’t fair to come in expecting something similar in quality to Beat. Ultimately, Born to Kill is not as good a film and on a week celebrating Jopok, I recommend you stick to something else.

The film is about a professional killer (named Kil, which did get a laugh out of me when referring to its Korean meaning) who seems to be totally detached from society. The only connection he makes with others is with the end of his silver dagger or the sole of his boot. We soon learn the back-story of Kil (played by Jung Woo-sung) and come to understand he was an orphan, once raised by a crime lord. Somehow he got out of this environment and is now taking hits for money. Guess who is next? The kingpin who raised him. It is a dilemma that tries to give the film some kind of backstory but ultimately it falls flat. There is a lot of gang rivalry, with double cross after double cross, and Kil always ends up being caught in the middle of them. The most interesting Jopok aspect of the film is Kil’s sole use of a large Bowie knife rather than guns, bats, or 2x4’s. This leads to 3 things: lots and lots of stabbings, some intense eye-gouging scenes, and an important role in understanding who he is and how he became Kil.

Naturally, Kil soon crosses paths with the gorgeous bargirl Soo-Ah (Shim Eun-ha) and eventually falls in love with her. It’s a story we’ve seen before, even in 1996. So, what’s new? Kil has never been with a girl, doesn’t drink, or even socialise except for with his pet monkey Chi-Chi. Luckily. Soo-Ah is brazen enough to intrude into his life and literally forces herself into his apartment, his bed, and soon, his heart. Without much effort, she inspires him to break free from his self-imposed shell, that is until she finds out what he does to put all that cash in the fridge. This leads to some complications, sacrificial beatings, and even a water-launched attack scene at a fishing village that Kim Ki-duk surely made an homage to in The Isle (2000).

Summing up the plot has already become tiresome as it’s fairly generic. I was surprised at how little happens in the film, as Kil constantly stares off in silence. However, the film genuinely picks up pace every-time Shim Eun-ha is on screen, and while it’s not her most accomplished performance, her talent is clearly evident. For an actress with such a small filmography, any fan of hers must seek out this film, even if the subtitles are well below par. Speaking of which, the picture quality of what seems like the only available copy is quite poor, as the colours look slightly off and there are frequent imperfections in the picture. The biggest mistake in the film was the decision not to allow Shim Eun-ha more singing time on-screen. A smile came across my face whenever she did appear, so I must give her credit for that.

The film lacks drama, which is something Beat never had a problem with. Maybe it was the addition of a 3rd main character that stopped this from moving forward at a faster pace, or in any direction. The action has some nice set pieces, with a reasonable last stand in a night club (mind you, there was no flying kick or glass shattering throw we haven’t seen before). Jeong Doo-hong is involved as he is with nearly every Korean gangster film, but fights disappoint. Jung Woo-sung himself improved greatly in just a year for his star role in Beat, both in terms of acting and martial arts performance. The two leads are relatively well rounded, but the middle segment of the film where this is developed doesn’t really fit with the rest of the movie. Its major downfall is that it doesn’t go far enough to establish the ‘multimoods’ Korean film has become famous for. It’s just a short romantic tale in the midst of a gang war, and while it was my favourite part, it simply belongs in another film.

The film is written by a combination of Song Hae-seong (Director of Failan, 2001; A Better Tomorrow, 2010), Lee Moo-yeong (Writer of Joint Security Area, 2000; Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, 2002), and Director Jang Hyeon-soo, who began his career as a screenwriter on genre pics, often involving gangster storylines, including the acclaimed film noir Rules of the Game (1994), with Kang Je-kyu and Park Joong-hoon. Since then most of his entries have been romantic tales, including his latest offering, the romantic sex-comedy Everybody Has Secrets (2004). Unfortunately their individual talents don’t quite feature here. The middle segment did work quite well, but the problem is the weak gangster bookends that encapsulate it, with fairly average action scenes and a convoluted story. Given this is Jopok week, I feel bad focussing on the negatives of those parts, but simply put there are many more entertaining and creatively made Korean gangster films out there. Some elements of religion are added for depth, and Soo-Ah’s slimey agent could have been explored further.

The film was edited by the notorious Park Gok-ji, who along with being the wife of Park Heung-sik, has edited classic gangster films such as The General's Son 2 (1991), The General's Son 3 (1992), No. 3 (1997), My Wife Is a Gangster (2001), A Better Tomorrow, and to an award winning extent on A Dirty Carnival (2006). What I found even more interesting was when I discovered she had edited just as many successful romantic classics, such as Seopyeonje (1993), The Gingko Bed (1996), The Contact (1997), Lies (2000), and Failan. Utilising both genre approaches here, she does an OK job, but slow motion is heavily over-used and strange sound effects are littered over a synthetic soundtrack. I know at the time it was common to slow down and stylise entire fight scenes, such as the opening scene in Nowhere to Hide (1999) or the closing to Beat, which both worked great, it’s just unenthusiastic in Born to Kill. But hey, for a year where Gok-ji edited The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well and Crocodile, I will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Born to Kill was the 8th highest grossing Korean film of 1996, not too bad considering a week after it opened, the mammoth beast of Two Cops 2 launched, a film that would go on to take the number 1 position for the year, reeling in 6 times the box office earnings of Born to Kill (Figures refer to Seoul admissions, courtesy of Koreanfilm.org). There were definitely better things to come for Korean film and specifically Korean gangster films. Noticeably, production values picked up from the late 90’s, and stories became larger and more interesting as they encompassed all aspects of gangsterhood. The ‘New Korean Wave’ was often mislabeled as ‘New Hong Kong’ cinema when it emerged, but if that label does indeed apply to some Korean films, Born to Kill is probably one of them – given its style and content (though quite poor). Go watch Beat instead as it’s great fun, but if you are looking for a darker, less emotional ride or are a fan of Shim Eun-ha, check out Born to Kill.

Kieran is Marketing and Festivals Manager of the Korean Cultural Office in Sydney, where he coordinates a weekly film night (Cinema on the Park) and the Korean Film Festival (KOFFIA). He is currently completing a Masters of Arts on Asian Film in Australia, has worked at more than 15 film festivals across Sydney, and writes about film on the blog Tully’s Recall.