ASIAN
530 - Media and Popular Culture in the Asia Pacific This
is my "labor of love." Over the course of the semester, I will be placing
my notes on this spreadsheet building what will be an on-going project to map
out a timeline of Asian film over historic time. The page is fairly open so aside
from not being a "definitive" timeline it will serve as an open notebook
that will be undergoing constant revision. The page is not meant to be taken as
a final reference but merely a starting point and is open to revision. Comments
and correction are certainly welcome. |
Date | Korea | Japan | China | Hong
Kong | Taiwan | ||
| 1890 | American traveler and lecturer Burton Holmes was the first to film in Korea as part of his innovative travelogue programs. In addition to displaying his films abroad, he showed them to the Korean royal family in 1899. The earliest public showing of a film in Korea is unclear. There are reports of a showing of a film to the public in 1897, and another in 1898 near Namdaemun in Seoul. An announcement in the contemporary newspaper, Hwangseong sinmun, however names a screening on June 23, 1903, as the first public display of a motion picture. This was a filmed advertisement meant to build acceptance for an electric street car line in Seoul recently completed by an American company. | During the period from the introduction of cinema in 1896 to the introduction of sound technology around 1930, Japanese cinema may have been at its most distinct from other national models of cinema with its borrowing from traditional Japanese drama and it suse of the benshi. However, films from France, Germany, and the U.S. also exerted influence on Japanese filmakers and audiences during this era. | '96 Motion pictures are introduced in China - Shanghai to be more precise. During the 1920s film technicians from the United States trained Chinese technicians in Shanghai, and American influence continued to be felt there for the next two decades. The first Chinese film, a recording of the Beijing Opera, The Battle of Dingjunshan, was made in November 1905. | ||||
| 1900 | Only fragments remain of Korea's early film history. The vast majority of Korea's early film footage was lost due to neglect or the destruction brought about by the Korean War, and not a single feature produced before 1936 survives in complete form today. Nonetheless, historical records paint a picture of a lively and creative industry that produced over 160 features from the early twenties until Japan's surrender to Allied forces in 1945. | '09 to WWII - Bound to Chinese Opera | |||||
| 1910 | From 1909 to 1920, a series of theaters were built in Seoul and in regional cities such as Pusan and Pyongyang. Most of these theaters were owned by Japanese businessmen, but a few Korean theater owners built up a significant amount of capital screening European and American imports. This capital would eventually be used to help finance the first domestic productions. Korea's first "film" (The Righteous Revenge), a kinodrama in which actors performed against the backdrop of a projected feature, debuted at Seoul's Danseongsa Theater in 1919. The public reportedly loved the show, but the long-term success of this and other kinodramas was hampered by intellectuals who criticized the mixed-media format as an insult to both theatre and film. | Liang Shaobo - "Father of Hong Kong Cinema": As in most of China, the development of early films was tightly bound to Chinese opera, for centuries the dominant form of dramatic entertainment. Opera scenes were the source for what are generally credited as the first movies made in Hong Kong, two 1909 short comedies entitled Stealing a Roasted Duck and Right a Wrong with Earthenware Dish. The director was stage actor and director Liang Shaobo. The producer was an American, Benjamin Brodsky one of a number of Westerners who helped jumpstart Chinese film through their efforts to crack China's vast potential market. | |||||
| 1920 | Korea's first silent feature was produced in 1923, and over the next few years, seven Korean film companies would appear. The masterpiece of this era is considered to be Na Un-kyu's Arirang (1926, pictured left). Na, only 25 years old at the time, produced, directed and starred in this film about a mentally unstable man who kills a wealthy landowner's son who is linked to the Japanese police. The title is taken from a popular folk song, which would become an anthem of sorts for the Korean independence movement. The film, admired for its aesthetic qualities as well as for its hidden political messages, became an inspiration for a wave of young filmmakers who hoped to make films based on principles of realism and resistance to Japanese power. Despite the increasing popularity of local cinema, however, Japanese censorship played a large role in limiting its growth. The colonial government required all foreign and domestic features to be submitted to a government censorship board for approval before being screened, and police were present at theaters for screenings. Although a few works extolling Korean nationalism reached audiences in the late 1920s, from 1930 censorship became much more strict, such that melodramas, costume dramas, and pro-Japanese films became more prominent. Several features were banned outright and subsequently destroyed. | '16 Shanghai is the center of Chinese Language Cinema | '01
to '37 - Taiwan Cinema is strongly influenced by Japan. From 1901 to 1937,
Taiwanese cinema was strongly influenced by the Japanese. This was during the
Japanese colonial era, and many conventions in Japanese films were adopted by
the Taiwanese filmmakers. The notion and use of the Benshi marks the work of legendary movie maker Lu Su-shang. The first Taiwanese benshi master was Wang Yung-feng, who had played on a regular basis for the orchestra at the Fang Nai Ting Theatre in Taipei. He was also the composer of the music for the Chinese film Tao hua qi xue ji (China, Peach girl, 1921) in Shanghai. Other famous Taiwanese benshi masters were Lu Su-Shang and Zhan Tian-Ma. Lu Su-shang, will not be primarily remembered for his benshi performances, but mainly because he wrote the History of cinema and drama in Taiwan, the bible of Taiwanese film history. Benshi masters were intellectuals: they spoke Japanese, had often travelled to Japan and/or China, and were poets writing their own libretto for each film. Notable films during this period include The Eyes of Buddha (1922) and Whose Fault Is It (1925). | ||||
| 1930 | By 1935 the first sound feature Chunhyang-jeon (based on Korea's most famous folk tale, which has been filmed over a dozen times) was directed by Lee Myung-woo, with the assistance of pioneering sound technician Lee Pil-woo. Nonetheless, local filmmakers found it difficult to raise enough money to produce sound features, and Korean talkies faced much harsher criticism than the silent films which preceded them. It was only two years later, with the runaway commercial success of Lee Gyu-hwan's Drifter (1937) that sound films were established as the norm. In the same year, however, Japan invaded China, and the Korean film industry would come under increasing pressure to shoot films that supported the Japanese military and the war effort. By 1942, Korean-language films were banned outright by the government. | The 1930s/"Prewar" period saw the emergence of prominent figures like Ozu and Mizoguchi and many shcolars have deisgnated the decade as the first "Golden Age" of Japanese cinema. At this time Japan produced more film than any country outside of the U.S. Of course the cinema of this period did not escape teh increasingly martial atmosphere that pervaded Japanese society during the start of the Pacific War. Unlike Hollywood, silent films were still being produced in Japan well into the 1930s. Notable talkies of this period include Kenji Mizoguchi's Sisters of the Gion (Gion no shimai, 1936), Osaka Elegy (1936) and The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (1939), along with Sadao Yamanaka's Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937) and Mikio Naruse's Wife! Be Like A Rose! (Tsuma Yo Bara No Yoni, 1935), which was one of the first Japanese films to gain a theatrical release in the U.S. However, with increasing censorship, the left-leaning tendency films of directors such as Daisuke Ito also began to come under attack. | "Progressive" or "Left Wing" movement. The first truly significant Chinese films were produced starting from the 1930s, with the rise of the "progressive" or "left-wing" movement, in Cheng Bugao's Spring Silkworms (1933), Sun Yu's The Big Road (1935), and Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934). These "progressive" films were marked by an examination of either class struggles, and external threats, and/or a focus on "common people." | Sound and the "National Defense" Films: With the popularity of talkies in the early 1930s, China's many, mutually unintelligible, spoken dialects had to be grappled with. Hong Kong was a major center for Cantonese, one of the most widely spoken, and political factors on the Mainland provided other opportunities. The government of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party tried to enforce a "Mandarin-only" policy and was hostile to Cantonese filmmaking in China. It also banned the wildly popular Wuxia genre of martial arts swordplay and fantasy, accusing it of promoting superstition and violent anarchy. |
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| 1940 | 1945-1955: Only five films have survived from the period between the U.S. occupation of Korea and the end of the Korean War. Of them, the most famous is Choi Un-gyu's Chayu Manse! ("Hoorah! Freedom"), released in 1946. An ode to patriotism with strong anti-Japanese sentiments, the film proved to be a hit with audiences.During the Korean War, much of the country's film equipment was destroyed. Following the armistice agreement in 1953, President Rhee Syngman declared cinema to be exempt from all tax, in hopes of reviving the industry. Foreign aid programs provided South Korea with film technology and equipment, setting the stage for the rebirth of Korean cinema in the late-fifties and sixties. | World
War II and its Aftermath: As with most countries involved in the conflict,
direct government control of the film industry during World War II (by its own
government) and in its immediate afternath (by the American occupying forces)
colored the production of all movies in Japan. | '40
to '45 War - Flee to Hong Kong and other places. The Japanese invasion of
China, particularly Shanghai, halted this "golden run" in Chinese Cinema.
Production companies except Xinhua Film Company ("New China")
closed shop, and many of the filmmakers left Shanghai, moved to either Hong Kong,
the wartime Nationalist capital Chongqing, and elsewhere. | Influx of Capital and Talent from Mianland China: Postwar Hong Kong cinema, like postwar Hong Kong industries in general, was catalyzed by the continuing influx of capital and talents from Mainland China. This became a flood with the 1946 resumption of the Chinese Civil War and then the 1949 Communist victory. These events definitively shifted the center of Chinese-language cinema to Hong Kong. | |||
| 1950 | The
latter half of the 1950s can be considered a period of revival for the Korean
film industry, as the number of domestic productions increased from 8 in 1954
to 108 in 1959. The public also returned to the theaters, embracing such features
as the now-lost 1955 version of Chunhyang-jeon, which drew 200,000 viewers in
Seoul (over a tenth of the city's population), and Madame Freedom (1956), based
on a scandalous novel that had been published the year before in a local newspaper.
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the emergence of some of Korea's most talented
directors. These filmmakers worked during a time when the domestic film industry
enjoyed an unprecedented surge in box office receipts. However in 1962, military
dictator Park Chung Hee instituted a highly constrictive Motion Picture Law which
caused a severe consolidation in the number of film companies, and which strengthened
government control over all aspects of the industry. Although accomplished films
continued to be made up until the end of the decade, such restrictive policies
would ultimately have a severe effect on the industry's creativity.
| Post
1951: Another date that serves as a key marker in the study of Japanese cinema
is 1951, when Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon won several international awards.
In somthing of a reversl of perry's black ships forcing Japan to open to the West
almost 100 years earliere, the success of Rashomon opened up the world to Japanese
movies. Since then Japan has been a major force in world cinema - almost certainly
the most internationally influential non-Western film industry until the advent
of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000. At this point, scholars
around the world began to investigate Japanese cinema, attempting to define its
qualities and to explore its distinction from other cinemas. | Communist Era - Soviet Influence and Propaganda Films. After the Communist takeover in '49, the government used motion pictures as a vital mass production art form and tool for propaganda. In 1950 Director Feng Bailu directs Liu Hulan (1950). Liu Hulan (1932-1947) was spy during the Chinese Civil War between the Guomindang and the Communist Party. She was born in Yunzhouxi village, in the Wenshui County of the Shanxi province. She joined the Communist Party in 1946 and proceeded to become the secretary of the All-China Women's Federation. She was actively involved in collecting support for the Communist Party of China from the villagers of Yunzhouxi. In January 12, 1947, the Guomindang government army surrounded her village because the village chief of Yunzhouxi, Shi Peihuai was assassinated. It was claimed Liu Hulan and other Communists did the murder. The army gathered all of the villagers into the town hall. Liu Hulan rejected to surrender and then was decapitated along with others involved. She died at 15. The movie is still standard viewing for all students in China. | In '49 we see shift to Hong Kong as the center of Chinese Language Cinema and the rise of a two tiered system: The postwar era also cemented the bifurcation of the industry into two parallel cinemas, one in Mandarin, the dominant dialect of the Mainland emigres, and one in Cantonese, the dialect of most Hong Kong natives. Mandarin movies had much higher budgets and more lavish production. Reasons included their enormous export market; the expertise, capital and prestige of the Shanghai filmmakers; and the cultural prestige of Mandarin, the official language of China and the tongue of the Chinese cultural and political elite. For decades to come, Cantonese films, though sometimes more numerous, were relegated to second-tier status. | '49 saw the growth of Mandarin films sanctioned by the government.Taiwanese cinema grew again after 1949, when the end of the Chinese civil war brought many filmmakers sympathetic to the Nationalists to Taiwan. During this era, the primary films produced were Mandarin films officially sanctioned by the government. As the government was attempting to unify the country by declaring Mandarin as the official language, the use of other dialects was controlled, and non-Mandarin films (e.g. Taiwanese language films) gradually declined. | ||
| 1960 | Without question, Korea's most shockingly original director is the late Kim Ki-young. Kim, renowned for his gritty domestic dramas, released his most famous feature, The Housemaid (pictured right), in 1960. This film -- the tale of a manipulative housemaid who seduces her master -- transgresses the laws of contemporary cinema to the same extent that its heroine tears apart the Confucian order of her household. As in many of Kim's features, the women in this film possess a great deal of power and become a direct, menacing threat to their male counterparts. Although Kim's work remained largely forgotten for many years, he was "re-discovered" in the 1990s and afforded his rightful place in Korean film history. Another significant talent to emerge from this era is Yu Hyun-mok, who captured widespread attention with his 1961 feature Obaltan (translated as "Aimless Bullet"). This film, which combines the social concerns and themes of Italian Neorealism with more expressionist sound design and visuals, expresses the pain and despair brought on by the destruction of the war and Korea's industrial development. Yu's work, which focuses on marginalized members of society, is highly stylized and the most obviously intellectual of the period. Lastly, Shin Sang-ok established himself as a major figure with early works such as A Flower in Hell (1958) and his best-known film The Houseguest and My Mother (1961). The latter work, told through the perspective of a young girl, portrays the struggles of a young widow who falls in love with her tenant, but cannot express her feelings due to a restrictive social code. Later in the decade, Shin would turn to color and a more sensual tone in works such as The Dream (1967), based on an ancient tale about a libidinous Buddhist monk, and a masterful work set in the medieval Chosun Dynasty: Eunuch (1968). In 1978, after having made some 80 films in his home country, he and his wife were mysteriously "kidnapped" and taken to North Korea. After working in the film industry there for eight years he moved to Hollywood, where he would produce The Three Ninjas and its sequels under the name Simon Sheen. | Akira Kurosawa directed the 1961 classic Yojimbo, which is considered a huge influence on the Western. Yasujiro Ozu made his final film, An Autumn Afternoon, in 1962. Technicolor arrived in Japan in the 1960s. Kon Ichikawa captured the watershed 1964 Olympics in his three-hour documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965). Nagisa Oshima, Kaneto Shindo, Susumu Hani and Shohei Imamura emerged as major filmmakers during the decade. Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, Night and Fog in Japan and Death By Hanging became three of the better-known examples of Japanese New Wave filmmaking, alongside Shindo's Onibaba, Hani's She And He and Imamura's The Insect Woman. Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes (1964) won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film Oscars. Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (1965) also picked up the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. | '67 to '72 Restrictions imposed during the Cultural Revolution. In the years following the Cultural Revolution, the film industry again flourished as a medium of popular entertainment. | Growth
in Hong Kong Cinema as the target audience is Mainland China. In '63 British
insist of sub-titles. Sub-titling requirement serves as the catalyst for export
to the West. The sixties see the rise of the Shaw Brothers. Shaw Brothers expansion into the wuxia genre could perhaps be seen in relation to the popularity of the Japanese chanbara films flooding into the Hong Kong market such as Yojimbo (1962) which became popular through their violence and realistic fight choreography (along with the strong leading man such as Zatoichi). Run Run Shaw was aware of the trend in Japan and the USA’s action cinema and influenced his directors by “scheduling mandatory screenings of Japanese and yakuza films for his staff” to try and influence their style through the popular and more advanced Japanese cinema. Shaw had been influenced to such a degree from Japanese filmmakers that not only did he hire directors and technicians such as director Inoue Umetsugu, but he also sent his staff to Japan to learn various filmmaking techniques such as efficient set design and camera work. Shaw realised he could make money off this style of film and this helped boost the investment in Shaw’s wuxia films. Golden Harvest’s mode of production was the opposite of Shaw Brothers. Instead of fixed contracts, Golden Harvest decentralised production, working through a system of independent organisations that "contrary to Shaw Brothers' emphasis on huge scale and absolute control, which was typical of the studio system, Golden Harvest preferred "an independent production system where stars and directors could agree mutually profitable deals with the studio." For example, Golden Harvest would maintain “satellite” companies such as Concord Productions where Bruce Lee had broken records with his breakthrough film The Big Boss, this arrangement put Lee on an equal footing with Raymond Chow, as opposed to simply being a hired actor. The result undermined Shaw Brothers’ studio system where actors began to realise that fixed contracts were potentially fatal to their careers. Before Golden Harvest, Shaw Brothers had a virtual monopoly on the industry with no real threats to their dominance but with Golden Harvest supporting independent studios, stars knew they could make more money elsewhere. Wuxia films had gone out of fashion with a further desire for realism and change from ancient Chinese tales, so kung fu had become the most popular genre of film in Hong Kong. What Bruce Lee achieved outside the studio system was the ability to easily set his film in modern times and create a modern hero that could be more significant for the audience. Bruce Lee stood for a modern day martyr of Chinese self-respect, an updated version of the heroic model from Chang Cheh films that attempted to destroy the effete leading man. Bruce Lee emphasises that his fighting is real, (often demonstrated through real life tournaments) and the audience "are aware that his kung fu skills are not the result of supernatural strength or special effects.". | '63 Rise of "Health Realism," Kung Fu and Dramatic Dramas.The 1960s mark the beginning of Taiwan's rapid modernization. The government focused strongly on the economy, industrial development, and education, and in 1963 the Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC) introduced the "Health Realism" melodrama. This film genre was proposed to help build traditional moral values, which were deemed important during the rapid transformation of the nation's socioeconomic structure. During this time, traditional kung-fu films as well as romantic melodramas were also quite popular. | ||
| 1970 | The 1970s: In the seventies, the film industry entered a long period of declining admissions and increased levels of government censorship. In 1973 the Korean Motion Picture Promotion Corporation (the precursor to the Korean Film Council) was formed in an effort to revive the industry, and in the following year the Korean Film Archive was founded, but as an industry Korean cinema would not reverse its commercial slide until the mid-1990s. Nonetheless a number of interesting works from this period display a high degree of originality in their exploration of personal (and, often on a symbolic level, political) themes. Highlights include some of the most distinctive works by Kim Ki-young (Insect Woman, Iodo, Woman Chasing Killer Butterfly, and more); the debut work by gifted director Lee Jang-ho, The Hometown of Stars; and Road to Sampo, the last film by celebrated filmmaker Lee Man-hee, who died in 1975 in his mid-forties. The seventies also saw witness to the short but dazzling career of Ha Kil-jong, described by many as one of the most talented directors ever to work in Korea. Ha directed seven features including his best-known work March of Fools (1975) before his early death in 1979 at the age of 38. | Nagisa
Oshima directed In the Realm of the Senses (1976), a World War II period
piece about Sada Abe. Staunchly anti-censorship, he insisted that the film would
contain hardcore pornographic material; as a result the exposed film had to be
shipped to France for processing, and an uncut version of the film has still,
to this day, never been shown in Japan. However, the pink film industry
became the stepping stone for young independent filmmakers of Japan. | '70s
is a decade of transformation. We continue to see the, although eroding, dominance
of the Shaw Brothers. We see the rise of Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho (formerly
of Shaw Brothers), Golden Harvest and the rise of Jackie Chan.The rapidly growing
permissiveness in film content that was general in much of the world affected
Hong Kong film as well. A genre of softcore erotica known as fengyue became a local staple (the name is a contraction of a Chinese phrase implying seductive decadence). Such material did not suffer as much of a stigma in Hong Kong as in most Western countries; it was more or less part of the mainstream, sometimes featuring contributions from major directors such as Chor Yuen and Li Han Hsiang and often crossbreeding with other popular genres like martial arts, the costume film and especially comedy. Violence also grew more intense and graphic, particularly at the instigation of martial arts filmmakers. Attention moved from movies (which were Mandarin based [Shaw]) to TV (which was Cantonese based [Golden Harvest]). TV Stars made the transition to the big screen. TV shows were directed at the local audience, the programs were broadcast in Hong Kong’s most common dialect; Cantonese and when television stars moved into filmmaking such as Michael Hui they opted to make Cantonese movies over Mandarin (with one reason being that the local audience had become accustomed to these local entertainers speaking Cantonese through television drama series and variety shows). These television performers could achieve this at Golden Harvest which supported local independents such as Michael Hui‘s company. If it was Michael Hui who consolidated the new trend of Cantonese films in the industry, it was Jackie Chan who successfully combined the waning martial arts film with social comedy to create a new style of film. As previously noted, the kung fu movie was in crisis since "in terms of genre, it is true that the 1970s was unbalanced by the tendency of the industry to mass-produce martial arts pictures." Poorly made kung fu films from independents which devalued the quality of the high budgeted Shaw Brothers output as people were growing sick of these Bruce Lee imitations and the constant barrage of kung fu films based on the tired motif of revenge. Shaw Brothers themselves were far from being inventive, reusing successful older formulas that were selling for example Chang Cheh’s films "were increasingly mechanical, running like clockwork, with action sequences and characters being repeated" The want for change clearly paved the way for the Cantonese comedy and more specifically the kung fu comedy. This was not exactly a realistic form of fighting but an over extended style of Peking Opera since "Chan and his contemporaries drew on the Peking Opera influence. Indeed, they intensified it, partly by absorbing Lee's lesson that the action should be filled with emotion, partly by creating long routines displaying varied techniques and presenting a smoothly accented rhythm." With the 15 minute fight at the end of Drunken Master (1978) filled with athleticism and comedy, Chan had re-energised the martial arts fight scene building on the advances Bruce Lee made such as erasing constructive editing to demonstrate that there was no camera trickery involved. Jackie Chan realised the importance of narrative and characters to match the action and so created an interesting hero that would not face his problems with violence but with self-mockery and endurance. This was a regular person who beat his opponents through luck and determination, rather than natural kung fu talent and so this was a hero that working class Hong Kong audiences could relate to unlike the advanced Shaolin masters of Shaw‘s late 70s output like in Executioners From Shaolin (1977). Chan even reinvented classical Cantonese tales to relate to the wave of localised films targeting specifically the Hong Kong audience. His comedy take on the Cantonese popular series, Wong Fei Hung in Drunken Master was an indicator of Cantonese cinema moving into modern times and eventually in Police Story (1985) he set the action in the present day city and with this sense of time and place, Jackie Chan represented modern Hong Kong. On the other hand some of Shaw’s biggest directing names over the decades such as Inoue Umetsugu from Japan or Chor Yuen from Guangzhou, China could not infuse their films with the same levels of Hong Kong familiarity such as the natives Hui and Chan. Even their stages and sets in the studio helped add to distance the audience from the social realism of Hong Kong. | ||||
| 1980 | An
infusion of new directorial talent in the early eighties would bring about a modest
revival in the film industry. Although attendance remained at low levels, the
eighties witnessed a slight relaxation in censorship and an increasing recognition
from the international film community, culminating perhaps in Kang Su-yeon's Best
Actress award at the 1987 Venice Film Festival for her role in Surrogate Mother. Many critics would argue that the most significant name of the decade is Im Kwon-taek. Although Im had already directed over 70 features by 1980, it was with Mandala (1981) that he emerged as Korea's best-known filmmaker. Moving away from his earlier, commercially-oriented style, Mandala focuses on two monks in order to explore the meaning and place of Buddhism in Korean society. Im has become known for his efforts to capture and enshrine the older, forgotten elements of Korean traditional culture. His most popular and acclaimed feature, Sopyonje (1993, pictured left), brought about a revival in the Korean vocal art known as pansori. To date, Im has directed 100 features and he remains a central figure in Korean film. In the 1980s, the Korean film industry undertook the first steps of a major transformation with several important developments. Firstly, military leader Roh Tae-woo enacted a new constitution in 1988 which led to the gradual easing of political censorship. One early film to take advantage of this was Park Kwang-soo's Chilsu and Mansu (1988), which cleverly invokes images of a street demonstration in its memorable final scene. Park would go on to direct more acclaimed films, such as Black Republic (1990), To the Starry Island (1993) and A Single Spark (1995). Meanwhile back in 1984, a revision to the Motion Picture Law loosened some of the regulatory restrictions on Korean filmmakers. Independent production, which had formerly been illegal, was permitted under certain circumstances, and the government also repealed laws which had kept the film industry consolidated under a few large companies. The end result of this is that by the late 1980s a new generation of young producers had entered the film industry, and their new approaches to filmmaking would eventually have a major effect on Korean cinema. However the news was not all positive for local filmmakers. In 1988, a change in policy lifted import restrictions on foreign films, and allowed Hollywood companies to set up branch offices on Korean soil. Up until this time, the screening of movies from Hollywood or Hong Kong had always been strictly controlled and limited by the government in various ways. These new laws would mean that for the first time, Korean films would have to compete directly with Hollywood product. Over the next few years, domestic films would gradually lose their market share, reaching a low point in 1993 when Korean cinema made up only 16% of overall attendance figures. The Screen Quota System, whereby theaters were obliged to screen Korean features for 106-146 days out of the year, remained the only protectiong against foreign competition at this time. However in 1992, Marriage Story by first-time director Kim Ui-seok opened to rave critical and popular reviews, heralding not only the introduction of a new popular genre (the sex-war comedy), but also a new era. With this film, Samsung, one of South Korea's five major conglomerates, would become the first of the so-called chaebol to enter the film industry. In time these conglomerates would transform the structure of the business, introducing a vertically integrated system whereby the financing, production, exhibition, distribution, and video release of films were all controlled by a single company. Although many chaebol including Samsung dropped out of the industry after the 1997 ("IMF") financial crisis, major conglomerates such as CJ, the Orion Group (Showbox), and Lotte remain the industry's most powerful players in the present day. Several directors who debuted in the 1980s continued to produce interesting work in the 90s. Notably, Jang Sun-woo, who shot his first feature Seoul Jesus in 1986, presented audiences with a series of challenging and controversial films ranging from Road to the Racetrack (1993), a dark and meandering portrait of two Korean intellectuals having an affair, to A Petal (1996), about the lasting effects of the Kwangju Massacre in 1980. | Hayao Miyazaki adapted his manga Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind into a feature film in 1984. Katsuhiro Otomo followed suit with his Akira in 1988. Shohei Imamura won the Golden Palm at Cannes for The Ballad of Narayama (1983). Akira Kurosawa directed Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985). | Fifth Generation: Beginning in the mid-late 1980s, the rise of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers brought increased popularity of Chinese cinema abroad. Most of the filmmakers who constitute the Fifth Generation had graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 and included Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kaige, Zhang Junzhao and others. These graduates constituted the first group of filmmakers to graduate since the Cultural Revolution. Zhang Junzhao's One and Eight (1983) and Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984) mark the beginnings of the Fifth Generation. The most notable of the Fifth Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou who are acclaimed by Chinese viewers and Western arthouse audience. It was during this period that Chinese cinema began reaping the rewards of international attention. Extremely diverse in style and subject, they share a common rejection of the socialist-realist tradition worked by earlier Chinese filmmakers in the Communist era. The Fifth Generation movement effectively ended in the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and some of more notable works with political overtones were (and some still are) banned by Chinese authorities. | The
1980s and early '90s saw seeds planted in the '70s come to full flower: the triumph
of Cantonese, the birth of a new and modern cinema, superpower status in the East
Asian market, and the turning of the West's attention to Hong Kong film. The
'80 to the early '90s is a productive period. We see the rise of directors like
Tsui Hark and Wong Jing. We also see an increase in interest in the work of John
Woo and Chow Yun-fat as well as the comedy of Stephen Chow. | '82 saw the rise of New Wave Cinema with Edward Yang's "Down to Earth." Due to its honest portrayal of life, New Wave films examined many of the important issues facing Taiwan society at this time, such as urbanization, the struggle against poverty, and conflicts with political authority. For instance, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's A City of Sadness portrays the tensions and the conflicts between the local Taiwanese and the newly arrived Chinese Nationalist government after the end of the Japanese occupation. Edward Yang's Taipei Story (1985) and A Confucian Confusion (1994) talk about the confusion of traditional values and modern materialism among young urbanites in the 1980s and 1990s. The New Wave Cinema films are, therefore, a fascinating chronicle of Taiwan's socio-economic and political transformation in modern times. | ||
| 1990 | However
beginning in 1996, a new generation of directors began to take over the industry.
Arthouse master Hong Sang-soo made his debut with the award-winning The Day
a Pig Fell Into the Well (1996, pictured right), which weaves the experience of
four characters into a single story. In this and his subsequent films, Hong built
a reputation for his honest depiction of the cruelty and baseness of human relations.
The year 1996 also saw the debut of controversial filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, known
for his rough but visually striking film style (largely self-taught) and his tendency
to shoot films very quickly on a shoestring budget. Unlike most other leading
Korean directors, Kim's films such as The Isle (2000) were first championed internationally,
rather than by local critics. Then in 1997, Lee Chang-dong made his debut with
Green Fish. A former novelist, Lee would eventually win a Best Director award
at Venice for Oasis (2002), and also served as Korea's Minister of Culture and
Tourism from 2003-2004. At the same time, a group of younger, more commercially minded filmmakers were also making their debut. In 1997, the release of the hit film The Contact by Chang Yoon-hyun marked a resurgence of box-office popularity for domestic features, leading up to the unprecedented success of Kang Je-gyu's 1999 film Shiri. Since then, Korea has entered a boom period that ranks as one of the most sudden and notable developments in recent world cinema. Local audiences have rushed to embrace local films, so that by 2001 the 60-70 Korean films made each year sold significantly more tickets than the 200-300 Hollywood and foreign titles that were released. In the international arena as well, festival screenings and international sales expanded at breathtaking speed, as more and more directors began to make a name for themselves. One could argue, however, that the current boom being enjoyed by Korean cinema is less of an extraordinary circumstance, than a case of the industry finally reaching its natural state. Since its earliest beginnings, Korean cinema has been hampered by Japanese colonization, national division, civil war, authoritative military governments, strict censorship, and highly restrictive, distorting film regulations. Only in the 1990s did Korean cinema finally enjoy a supportive government, a stable economic environment and a sensible film policy. Although the amazing commercial boom that has powered the film industry in recent years may well fade to more modest levels, one hopes that Korean cinema will never again face such extreme disruptions as it did in the 20th century. In 1999, Shiri drew an estimated 6.2 million admissions nationwide. Also, first year that a local film outsold an import "The Mummy" and outsold the 1998 blockbuster Titanic | Shohei
Imamura again won the Golden Palm for The Eel (1997). Takeshi Kitano
emerged as a significant filmmaker with works such as Sonatine (1993),
Kids Return (1996) and Hana-bi (1997), which was given the Golden
Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Takashi
Miike launched
a prolific career, making up to 50 films in a decade, building up an impressive
portfolio with titles such as, Audition (1999), Dead or Alive (1999)
and and one of my personal favorites The Bird People in China (1998). Hirokazu
Koreeda launched an acclaimed feature career with Maborosi (1996) and
After Life (1999). Hayao
Miyazaki directed, Porco Rosso (1992) was the highest-grossing film
in Japan that same year, and Princess Mononoke (1997) which also claimed
the top box office spot until Titanic (1997) beat it. Anime: Mamoru Oshii released the internationally-acclaimed philosophical sci-fi action film Ghost in the Shell in 1996, based on the manga by Masamune Shirow. Satoshi Kon directed the award-winning psychological thriller Perfect Blue, based on a novel by Toshiki Sato. The film was theatrically released to decent commercial and considerable critical success in America and several other countries around the world. Hideaki Anno also gained considerable recognition after the release of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which started as a TV series in 1995 and concluded with the theatrical release of The End of Evangelion in 1997. Evangelion is widely considered to be one of the most influential anime of all time. | Sixth
Generation - Directors like Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle) and Jia Zhangke (Unknown
Pleasure) produce movies that are edgy. The recent era has seen the "return
of the amateur filmmaker" as state censorship policies have produced an edgy
underground film movement loosely referred to as the Sixth Generation. These films
are shot quickly and cheaply, which produces a documentary feel, with long takes,
hand-held cameras, ambient sound; more akin to Italian neorealism and cinéma
vérité than the often lush productions of the Fifth Generation.
Unlike
the Fifth Generation, the Sixth Generation brings a more individualistic, anti-romantic
life-view and pays more attention to contemporary urban life, especially those
affected by disorientation. Many of their films have highlighted the negative
attributes of China's entry into the modern capitalist market. |
In particular, Wong
Kar-wai's work in the 1990s has made him the most internationally acclaimed
and award-winning filmmaker yet to come out of Hong Kong. | Second Wave: Ang Lee brings international attention to the Wuxia form with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. We see the rise of such notable directors as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, Edward Yang and actresses such as Shu Qi. In 1999, the multi-national production Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon achieved massive success at the Western box office despite, it is argued, pandering to Western tastes. Nevertheless, it provided an introduction to Chinese cinema (and especially the Wuxia genre) for many and increased the popularity of many Chinese films in the West. Ang Lee is perhaps the most well-known of the Second New Wave director. His early films Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) focus on the generational and cultural conflicts confronting so many modern families. His Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) revived the (as mentioned previously) the Wuxia genre successfully. Although not in the tradition of New Wave or Second New Wave, it is a commercial success which placed Asian films firmly in the international domain. | ||
| 2000 | If 1999's South Korean box office smash Shiri (Swiri) was dubbed by the local press as 'the little fish that sank Titanic', then Joint Security Area (Gongdong Gyeongbi Guyeok JSA) might as well be known as the blockbuster that ate Shiri for lunch. Within two weeks of its release during the fall of 2000, Joint Security Area took in one million admissions, a feat that had taken Shiri three weeks to accomplish, and went on to become the biggest box office draw in Korean history-- that is, until the gangland saga Friend (Chingu) bowed into theaters a few months later. And though it is not as action-oriented as Shiri, Joint Security Area is an engaging and emotionally resonant military drama indicative of the continuing maturity of South Korean cinema. In 2000 Joint Security Area drew an estimated 5.8 million admissions nationwide. | Battle Royale was released, based on a popular novel by the same name. It gained cult film status in Japan and in Britain. | |||||
| 2001 | Comedies dominated the summer and early fall of 2001, with a trio of smash hits that have easily outgrossed every Hollywood film to get a release. Among these, is My Sassy Girl, a movie based on a series of real-life incidents published on the internet in serial form. | Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement to direct Spirited Away (2001), breaking Japanese box office records and winning the U.S. Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Hirokazu Koreeda claimed film festival awards around the world with Distance. | Big
Shot's Funeral: The movie is both a satire of American media values or of
an encroaching capitalist mentality within communist Chinese society. Rosamund Kwan, Ge You, Ying Da, and Donald Sutherland. Multi Layered... East meets West, Parody of Commercialism and explored the line between artistic intgrity versus selling out. Feng Xiaogang is one of mainland China's most successful filmmakers. The film Tianxià Wú Zéi [A World Without Thieves]) recorded ¥100,000 in box office on its premier night in Beijing. It is claimed that within ten days of release the total box office in Mainland China exceeded ¥80 million. This figure rose to ¥100 million on the last day of 2004. This is considered a milestone in the Chinese film industry. He has just come out with a new movie called The Banquet and is working on commericals for the upcoming Olympics. With regard to the east meets west angle, director Tyler can't seem to get into the "mind" of the emperor - which is a show of western perception and a parody on the remotness or a re-articulation of western Orientalist narrative. Feng runs the risk early of caricaturing Tyler as the representation of the West and Ge You the east and Lucy in that liminal space in-between. In the pivotal scene with Ying Da Lucy is addressed in English as it is the polite and tradtional thing to do. She is not seen as "Chinese." Arguably not his best use of Ge You who is featured in all his movies. Falls as a movie when: A "bond" develops between Tyler and Yoyo... I don't really feel it, No chemistry between the tentative Lucy (Kwan) and the awkward Yoyo (Ge You)... This is a joint Chinese/Hong Kong Co-Production. Reflective about the changes occuring in the mainland... economic changes impacting values and society. Columbia's Hong Kong based arm, Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia | ||||
| 2002 | After the smashing success of his breakthrough film Joint Security Area (2000), director Park Chan-wook had the opportunity to make just about any kind of movie he wanted. His ultimate decision was to go back to a scenario he had written in the mid-1990s: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a grim, violent tale about the kidnapping of a young girl and the father who sets out for revenge. Back in 1995, Park didn't have a chance of finding someone to fund such a film... after JSA, however, he was practically handed a blank check. The end result is wondrous and horrible, a movie that will give you nightmares but leave you in awe of its power. | Hero | |||||
| 2003 | 2003 was a watershed year. Along with Silmido, movies such as the horror classic A Tale of Two Sisters, the sci-fi classic Natural City, the dramatic recreation of Korea's Gyeonggi Province's bout with a serial killer in Memories of Murder competed for box office viewership. 2003 also saw the release of the anime feature Oseam. Oseam is based on a popular story by novelist Jeong Chae-bong. It generated a disappointing box office figure in May 2003, despite the high anticipation in some circles. Commercially speaking, it suffered from the bad fortune of having debuted only one week after the highly anticipated Korean release of Miyazaki Hayao's Princess Mononoke. 2003 also saw the theatrical run of Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring and certainly no less significant is the same year of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy. The talented writer-director of Joint Security Area (2000) and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Pak Chan-wook, determined not to repeat the commercial failure of Sympathy, has carefully plotted his counterattack, recruiting Choi Min-shik (Chihwaseon, Failan, Shiri) and Yu Ji-tae (One Fine Spring Day, Ditto, Nightmare), organizing the movie around their star personalities, and devising a mystery plot that revolves not around the question of "whodunit" but that of "whydunit." Lastly, 2003 also saw the release of one of my favorite Korean period pieces (alongside such greats as Painted Fire, The King and The Clown, and Chunhyang) is the enigmatic remake based French novelist Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses in Untold Scandal. Eighteenth-century epistolary novels don't generally form the basis for record-breaking opening weekends at the box-office. This rule is no less true in Korea than in other countries, but 2003 has been a year of surprises - a watershed year. After a resounding flop with his second film Asako in Ruby Shoes in 2001, director E J-yong took Les Liaisons Dangereuses and situated in Korea's Chosun Dynasty. This unconventional fusion of 18th century French and Korean cultures has resulted in a stimulating and convincing adaptation - I know I love it. | In 2002, Dolls was released, followed by a high-budget remake, Zatoichi in 2003, both directed and written by Takeshi Kitano. The J-Horror films Ringu, Kairo, Dark Water, Yogen, and the Grudge series were remade in English and met with commercial success. | Darkest year in Hong Kong Cinema. SARs empties the theaters and output declines. We also see the death of two of Hong Kong's finest: Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung. | ||||
| 2004 | Silmido and Tae Guk Gi become the first films to sell 10 million tickets. Being the director of a watershed hit like Shiri (1999) can give you some strong advantages when making your next film. It gives you the ability to attract top-name actors and crew. It becomes much easier to raise large sums of money from investors. Park Chan-wook (JSA) and Kwak Kyung-taek (Friend) chose to shoot smaller, more personal works after their record-breaking hits, but Kang Je-gyu took full advantage of his position and aimed for the stars. Tae Guk Gi, which premiered close to five years after Shiri, ranks as the most expensive Korean film ever at $12.8 million. | Godzilla: Final Wars, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, was released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Godzilla. Hirokazu Koreeda claimed film festival awards around the world with Nobody Knows. Mamoru Oshii released Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (known in Japan simply as "Innocence",) which, like the first film, received noteworthy critical praise around the world. Satoshi Kon also released three quieter, but nonetheless highly successful films in 2001, 2003 and 2006 respectively: Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika. | A
World Without Thieves House of Flying Daggers | ||||
| 2005 | 2005 also saw the release of Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and Hur Jin-ho's ambivalent April Snow. | Director Seijun Suzuki made his 56th film, Princess Raccoon. | The Promise | ||||
| 2006 | 2006 was the year Park Chan-wook departed in style and release I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK. | The Banquet | |||||
| 2007 |
Notes: Chinese-language
cinema: For
decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world
(after Bollywood and Hollywood) and the second largest exporter. Unlike
many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little to no direct government
support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It is a thoroughly
commercial cinema: highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres
like comedy and action, and relying heavily on formulas, sequels and remakes.
Sources: Japan
Notes: Korea
Notes: page
last updated 03 November 2007 |