Seoul Searching
Seoul Searching

Author: Frances Gateward

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0791479331

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Seoul Searching is a collection of fourteen provocative essays about contemporary South Korean cinema, the most productive and dynamic cinema in Asia. Examining the three dominant genres that have led Korean film to international acclaim—melodramas, big-budget action blockbusters, and youth films—the contributors look at Korean cinema as industry, art form, and cultural product, and engage cinema's role in the formation of Korean identities. Committed to approaching Korean cinema within its cultural contexts, the contributors analyze feature-length films and documentaries as well as industry structures and governmental policies in relation to transnational reception, marketing, modes of production, aesthetics, and other forms of popular culture. An interdisciplinary text, Seoul Searching provides an original contribution to film studies and expands the developing area of Korean studies.

Pop Goes Korea
Pop Goes Korea

Author: Mark James Russell

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press

Published: 2012-10-20

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1611725429

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"Mr. Russell's book is the first by a non-Korean to explain the rise of Korea's entertainment industries....the book could hardly be more approachable."—Wall Street Journal “For a country that traditionally received culture, especially from China but also from Japan and the United States, South Korea finds itself at a turning point in its new role as exporter.”—The New York Times From kim chee to kim chic! South Korea came from nowhere in the 1990s to become one of the biggest producers of pop content (movies, music, comic books, TV dramas, online gaming) in Asia—and the West. Why? Who’s behind it? Mark James Russell tells an exciting tale of rapid growth and wild success marked by an uncanny knack for moving just one step ahead of changing technologies (such as music downloads and Internet comics) that have created new consumer markets around the world. Among the media pioneers profiled in this book is film director Kang Je-gyu, maker of Korea’s first blockbuster film Shiri; Lee Su-man, who went from folk singer to computer programmer to creator of Korea’s biggest music label; and Nelson Shin, who rose from North Korea to the top of the animation business. Full of fresh analysis, engaging reportage, and insightful insider anecdotes, Pop Goes Korea explores the hallyu (the Korean Wave) hitting the world’s shores in the new century. Mark James Russell has been living in Korea since 1996. His articles about Korean and Asian cultures have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, International Herald-Tribune, and many other publications. He is currently the Korea/Japan Bureau Chief for Asian Movie Week magazine.

Two Lenses on the Korean Ethos
Two Lenses on the Korean Ethos

Author: Keumsil Kim Yoon

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-01-24

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1476617872

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A war-torn country only 60 years ago, South Korea has since achieved prodigious growth and global integration, experiencing rapid industrialization and seeing its cultural exports gain international popularity. Because of this rapid transformation, an investigation of the Korean ethos--the shared self-concept woven through the divergent social contexts of both South and North Korea--is challenging. This book provides an introduction to the Korean ethos, detailing its representation in key cultural words and in film. Part I explores definitive concepts (terms) generally regarded as difficult to translate, such as han (regret), jeong (feeling) and deok (virtue), and how they are expressed in Korean cinema. Part II analyzes film narratives based on these concepts via close readings of 13 films, including three from North Korea.

New Korean Cinema
New Korean Cinema

Author: Chi-Yun Shin

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9780748618514

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A wide-ranging analysis of modern South Korean cinema.

South Korean Film
South Korean Film

Author: Hyon Joo Yoo

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-01-01

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1501322583

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South Korean Film: Critical and Primary Sources is an essential three-volume reference collection representing three distinct phases in the development of South Korean national cinema, foregrounding how epochal characteristics inform the way in which the national cinema represents the penetrating thematic concern of auteur-ship, genre, spectatorship, gender, and nation, as well as the way in which these themes find expression in distinct visual styles and forms.

Korean Horror Cinema
Korean Horror Cinema

Author: Alison Peirse

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0748677658

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As the first detailed English-language book on the subject, Korean Horror Cinema introduces the cultural specificity of the genre to an international audience, from the iconic monsters of gothic horror, such as the wonhon (vengeful female ghost) and the gumiho (shapeshifting fox), to the avenging killers of Oldboy and Death Bell. Beginning in the 1960s with The Housemaid, it traces a path through the history of Korean horror, offering new interpretations of classic films, demarcating the shifting patterns of production and consumption across the decades, and introducing readers to films rarely seen and discussed outside of Korea. It explores the importance of folklore and myth on horror film narratives, the impact of political and social change upon the genre, and accounts for the transnational triumph of some of Korea's contemporary horror films. While covering some of the most successful recent films such as Thirst, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Phone, the collection also explores the obscure, the arcane and the little-known outside Korea, including detailed analyses of The Devil's Stairway, Woman's Wail and The Fox With Nine Tails. Its exploration and definition of the canon makes it an engaging and essential read for students and scholars in horror film studies and Korean Studies alike.

Korean Film
Korean Film

Author: Eungjun Min

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2003-04-30

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0313072302

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Despite its rise in the global market, recent political progress, and a surging interest worldwide, Korean films are relatively unknown and rarely studied. This new work begins by investigating the history, industry structure, and trends of filmmaking in Korea, going on to examine how Hollywood films have affected both Korean mainstream and nonmainstream film industries in terms of both means of production and narrative. Moreover, the authors analyze the ways in which Korean films of recent years have represented the modernization process in Korea itself, as well as the ideological implications that arise from the cinematic constructions of Korean imagination. More than a mere chronological account of Korean cinematic history, ^IKorean Film^R attempts to consider the films as a popular cultural form that have a life beyond their theatrical runs: stars, genres, and key movies become part of any culture's identity, and in their narratives and meanings can be located evidence of the ways in which a culture makes sense of itself. Korea has never before been given such an extensive treatment of this central idea, and here for the first time, the nation's culture and cinema are merged into one discussion that both reflects and shapes our understanding of it.

The Changing Face of Korean Cinema
The Changing Face of Korean Cinema

Author: Brian Yecies

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1134599579

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The rapid development of Korean cinema during the decades of the 1960s and 2000s reveals a dynamic cinematic history which runs parallel to the nation’s political, social, economic and cultural transformation during these formative periods. This book examines the ways in which South Korean cinema has undergone a transformation from an antiquated local industry in the 1960s into a thriving international cinema in the 21st century. It investigates the circumstances that allowed these two eras to emerge as creative watersheds, and demonstrates the forces behind Korea’s positioning of itself as an important contributor to regional and global culture, and especially its interplay with Japan, Greater China, and the United States. Beginning with an explanation of the understudied operations of the film industry during its 1960s take-off, it then offers insight into the challenges that producers, directors, and policy makers faced in the 1970s and 1980s during the most volatile part of Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian rule and the subsequent Chun Doo-hwan military government. It moves on to explore the film industry’s professionalization in the 1990s and subsequent international expansion in the 2000s. In doing so, it explores the nexus and tensions between film policy, producing, directing, genre, and the internationalization of Korean cinema over half a century. By highlighting the recent transnational turn in national cinemas, this book underscores the impact of developments pioneered by Korean cinema on the transformation of ‘Planet Hallyuwood’. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of Korean Studies and Film Studies.

Im Kwon-taek
Im Kwon-taek

Author: David E. James

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780814328699

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Korean cinema was virtually unavailable to the West during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), and no film made before 1943 has been recovered even though Korea had an active film-making industry that produced at least 240 films. For a period of forty years, after Korea was liberated from colonialism, a time where Western imports were scarce, Korean cinema became an innovative force reflecting a society whose social and cultural norms were becoming less conservative. Im Kwon-Taek: The Making of a Korean National Cinema is a colleciton of essays written about Im Kwon-Taek, better know as the father of New Korean Cinema, that takes a critical look at the situations of filmmakers in South Korea. Written by leading Koreanists and scholars of Korean film in the United States, Im Kwon-Taek is the first scholarly treatment of Korean cinema. It establishes Im Kwon-Taek as the only major Korean director whose life's work covers the entire history of South Korea's military rule (1961-1992). It demonstrates Im's struggles with Korean cinema's historical contradictions and also shows how Im rose above political discord. The book includes an interview with Im, a chronology of Korean cinema and Korean history showing major dynastic periods and historical and political events, and a complete filmography. Im Kwon-Taek is timely and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Korean cinema. These essays situate Im Kwon-Taek within Korean filmmaking, placing him in industrial, creative, and social contexts, and closely examine some of his finest films. Im Kwon-Taek will interest students and scholars of film studies, Korean studies, religious studies, postcolonial studies, and Asian studies.