Foreign Oscar Tracking: South Korea
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:37AM Korean cinema has really been a hotspot this past decade, what with Kim Ki-Duk (Time, 3-Iron, Spring Summer...), Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Mother, Memories of Murder), Park Chan-wook (Thirst, Oldboy... the upcoming Stoker) and Lee Chang-dong (Poetry, Oasis, Peppermint Candy) winning over critics and Asian film fans quite regularly. South Korea's steady stream of great performances by actresses isn't hurting their rep either... especially not with The Film Experience ;) Just the other day I was skimming over The Housemaid again and, gah, actressy heaven. All four female players were totally working those roles.
The Front Line, Sunny, and Poonsang
So we're curious as to what they'll submit this year. The Korean Film Commission has narrowed it down to six titles so one of these will be your Oscar contender:
- Poonsan (Juhn Jai-hong) is a romantic drama about a South Korean messenger and his pick-up from North Korea that he's to smuggle across the border.
- The Yellow Sea (Na Hong-Jin) is about a gambling addict taxi driver who takes an assassination job to pay off his debts. Trouble follows, naturally.
- The Front Line (Jang Hoon) The director used to be an assistant director to the great Kim Ki-Duk. Apparently there is now friction between the two of them in regards to the goings on of the Korean film industry. This is a big budgeted war drama taking place in 1951.
- Sunny (Kang Hyeong-cheol), is the year's biggest hit in Korea. And -- actress alert! -- it's about a group of girlfriends from school who reunite 25 years later to reminisce.
- The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo) is a black and white picture about a man wandering around Seoul, running into friends and ex girlfriends and the like. It played at Cannes.
- Hanji (or Scooping Up the Moonlight) (Im Kwon-taek) a government employee is assigned to revive the Hanji paper industry and he falls in love with it. Kwon-taek has been submitted once before with Chunhyang (2000)
It's tough to say what the Film Council will go for as there are a wide variety of factors in play from homefield success, through international auteur reps, to which films might appeal to AMPAS's sensibility. But the sad truth is that, whatever they choose, it's an uphill battle. Oscar has yet to nominate a Korean film... despite recent submissions as hugely acclaimed and well loved as Oasis (2002), Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring (2003), Secret Sunshine (2007) and Mother (2009).
Have you caught up with recent Korean successes like Mother, Poetry (my review), The Host or The Housemaid?
Asian cinema, Kim Ki-Duk, Oscars (11), foreign films
Reader Comments (19)
And about Portugal? There aren't finalists yet - only the chosen one is announced - but this year there are TWO BIG CONTENDERS: Mysteries of Lisbon and Jose and Pilar.
I haven't seen 'The Housemaid' yet, but I recently watched the 1960 original, very disturbing...
I'm a big fan of 'Spring, Summer,...'. It's a shame that it was ignored by the Academy.
I'm interested to see what Japan will come up with. I really liked 'Tokyo Sonata' a few years back, but I don't think it was their Foreign Language entry that year.
Nice post! One correction: It's Poongsan, and the name of the director is Jeon Jae-Hong. Yoon stars in it. Also, side note: one of the producer of the film is Kim Ki-duk.
I've only seen one of them (Hanji) but based on what I'm hearing, none of them are quite good enough, compared to our recent strong submissions. Although I have a feeling that you might like Sunny.
Poongsan is directed by Jeon Jae-hong, not Yoon Kye-sang. And Jeon used to be an assistant director to Kim Ki-duk as well!
I thought The Yellow Sea was decent enough. It reminded me of last year's nominee Incendies. It got rave reviews at Cannes, didn't it?
I loved "Spring, Summer," but they did pick a good winner in 2003, "The Barbarian Invasions." What ever happened to that superb actress who played the drug addict, Marie Josee Croze? It's a shame that the only Asian film they recently acknowledged was the mediocre Japanese film "Departures." It's as if whole countries in this category get a leg up on other countries because they have a history of being nominated in the past, just as some actors do. They still need to revamp Foreign and Docs.
The Yellow Sea is a hugely tense action movie with some really spectacularly edited sequences but I don't think it's serious enough for Oscar consideration really. Every character in it that has more than two lines is able to withstand five thousand bullets and stab wounds to keep going and going and going... it's kind of like a better-made 80s Schwarzenegger movie.
I have been loving Korean cinema this decade, since Im Kwon Taek shared that direction prize at Cannes with Paul Thomas Anderson. That "Strokes of Fire" was such a beautiful movie. I've seen the movies by Bong Joon-ho (how can you live with snubbing Hye-ja Kim @Film BItch Awards?) and I love all them. I've seen Oasis, Secret Sunshine and Poetry, by Lee Chang Dong, and, in spite of Secret Sunshine not being a very good movie, all of them have stunning leading performances.
That said, I truly madly deeply love Hong Sangsoo movies. They are so beautiful, tender, romantic, and of course, cruel, that I can feel a very fresh feeling of a new nouvelle vague. His movies are very Rohmer-ish, delicate, talky. Love him. I hope The Day He Arrives is as good as his previous movies.
PETER SHRIVER: Knowing as the ICA (the organization responsible for picking the Portuguese submission) goes, I'm willing to bet they'll be stupid and ignore those two and favor one of those crazy depressing indies we're always known for. Like 'Sangue do Meu Sangue' ('Blood of My Own Blood') that will play at TIFF or something like that.
I want one of those two to be the submission as well; I'd particularly like to see JOSÉ E PILAR nominated (there's a petition demanding it as our nominee; have you signed it?) because although it is a documentary it has the pedigree to go far.
Cal -- "how can you live with yourself for snubbing Kim Hye-ja?" I can't. i plan on leaping from my balcony at any moment. Especially in moments when writing of Korean cinema.
Jorge -- i haven't seen either of the probable portuguese choices so i wouldn't know who to root for
I still haven't gotten around to Poetry, but I've seen and enjoyed the rest of them. Mother made my Top 5 last year and somehow manages to get better on a repeat viewing. That's impressive for a mystery/thriller like that. I need to get around to Poetry.
I'm hoping to see Poetry this coming weekend.
@OwenWalter: Marie-Josée Croze moved to France several years ago, where she's been busy making films. She got most noticed in the US for her role as the speech therapist in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Nathaniel, I believe they both premiere in New York this September so keep an eye out to see if you can catch one of them at least. But I'll warn you already: MYSTERIES OF LISBON is 4 1/2 hours long. It's one hell of a ride though.
Jorge -- LISBON is already open here but the running time scared me off. I just can't handle movies that indulgent.
As I've screamed from many a rooftop, I LOVE KOREAN FILMS!!!!! They are so exciting and visually brilliant. I haven't seen Poetry or The Housemaid, but I liked Mother (light like. It was a nice thriller with a great end scene) and The Host was amazeballs. So scary, I wish more monster movies were as great.
Sunny is playing in Koreatown (LA) right now at the korean movie theater. I hate summer because 2 of its 3 screens are clogged with Cowboys and Aliens and Capt America. Where are the Korean Blockbusters! At least it'd be a change of pace from every other theater.
Nathaniel, Jang Hoon is the director of The Front Line. I think the comments above were talking about the name of the director of Poongsan.
Jin -- okay. i have difficulty with these names. why are they spelled differently all the time?
I know, it looks crazy, right? Since we don't use roman alphabets, they just spell it whatever they think the name sounds like. There are some kind of existing common schemes and systems for that, but the same name in Korean may be represented by different alphabets.
Also when it comes to the name order (family name should be written first? last?), or how to spell their multiple-syllable given names, (some uses hyphen, some uses space, and some put it as a joined word) yes, there are conventions, but if they prefer otherwise, they can write it whatever they want. It's a mess.
I did see "Poetry" on Saturday, and was pretty impressed with it, particularly the acting of Yoon Jeong-hee and the cinematography. The major drawback I had with it was that the plot was too predictable at a few points. (When you can figure out that something's going to happen a good half-hour before it actually does happen, that's a bit too predictable.)