South Korean Box Office Scores

With Korean cinema’s continued run of popularity with the local audiences, it was a strong yet steady year for the Korean film industry in 2002. It won 45.2% of the market share in Seoul, only a hair shy of the 46.1% from 2001. Although 2001 featured five box office hits that topped the competition, 2002 spread a string of mid-level hits throughout the year. Top earners included “Marrying the Mafia”, “The Way Home”, and “Sex is Zero”. But the talk of Korean cinema happens to be “Oasis”.

“Oasis” is a compelling story of forbidden lovers fighting the stigma of an unconventional relationship and trying to ignore the hypocrisy of their families. Lee Chang-dong wrote and directed the film; however, it is a step away from his previous films “Green Fish” and “Peppermint Candy”. During the summer, Lee won the Special Director’s Award for “Oasis” and Moon So-ri won the Marcello Mastroni Award for young actress at the Venice Film Festival; also, the film won Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actress at the MBC Film Awards. In a recent article by Daily Variety’s David Rooney, he states, “Commercially, this is a tough prospect, but awards attention could help overcome its difficult subject matter and open art-house avenues.” Though the film didn’t fair as well against “Marrying the Mafia” and “The Way Home” at the box office, “Oasis” is certainly receiving international attention. It was also chosen to be the Oscar contender from Korea.

Box office hit “The Way Home” was a surprise because it was a low-budget rural film. Its director, Lee Jeong-Hyang, has now become Korea’s most commercially successful woman director. The story is about a seven-year-old boy whose mother leaves him with his mute 77 year-old grandmother. The child is enraged about his mother leaving and he takes his frustrations out on his grandmother by misbehaving.

On a more controversial note, “Too Young to Die”, a story about a couple in their 70s, raised many eyebrows in Korea. The film is based on a true story about a man and a woman who meet, fall in love, and rediscover sex in their early seventies. The film received the “restricted rating” due to explicit sex scenes. The outraged public rallied for changes in the rating system; finally, the film received a “R-18” (under age 18 prohibited).

For the remainder of 2003, filmmakers may cut budgets due to some expensive flops in 2002. Audiences should also expect North Korea to be a popular theme in films this year.

China Chasing Oscar and Expanding Industry

All good news this year for China’s film industry in 2002: total box office is up 12% and China is expected to launch its second national film distribution. However, Shanghai Media and Entertainment group, currently the countries only national film distributor, held up the proceedings, so the nation’s second film distribution isn’t expected out until the first quarter of 2003. Though the majority of the box office hits were from Hollywood, China’s “Hero” was up for an Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film 2002”, but lost honorably to “Nowhere in Africa.”

Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” grossed $12 million and is China’s biggest film export of the year. The film is set in Ancient China before the first emperor ruled and the six Kingdoms are plotting to kill the most powerful emperor, Qin Shihuang. When an insignificant official defeats Qin’s three main enemies, Qin summons the hero to the palace to recount his story. “This is a part of Chinese history that people should know about,” Zhang told The Straits Times in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Miramax is distributing the film in the United States. Besides the Oscar nomination for the People’s Republic, China may be giving the United States a run for its digital theater screens. The government gave the industry $20 million as incentive to boost the number of digital screens. If China continues to move at the rate it’s going, 100 screens by the end of 2003, that would put the Chinese ahead of the Americans.

More big news for 2002 included the launch of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s Star Group entertainment channel in the southern province of Guandong. Star is the second international channel to break its way into Chinese televisions. Because of the international success of “Hero”, the rise in digital screens, and western influence reaching the television industry, we can expect China to quickly become an international player in both film and TV.

Japan Jumps Down

Hollywood swept the Japanese box office this past year. Even though Studio Ghibli’s animated feature “Spirited Away” grossed a whopping $250 million in Japan in 2001, won the Academy Award for “Best Animated Feature” this year, and gave Japan a lot of fame and notoriety for Disney’s American release of the film, American films still overshadowed local films in 2002. The box office for 2002 went down 7.5% from 2001.
Not all American films won the hearts of the Japanese, though. “We Were Soldiers,” “Windtalkers,” “Hart’s War” and “XXX” all bombed. Lukas Schwarzacher, Daily Variety Reporter, advised, “If there was any lesson to be learned from the box office pattern in 2002, it was that Japanese audiences prefer romances, drama and lighter entertainment over war epics and hard-boiled action, American style.” The poignant drama “I Am Sam” rewarded its distributor, Shochiku, with almost $30 million, proving the film doesn’t have to be a blockbuster to rake in a good amount of cash.

The leader for Japan’s local market was Studio Ghibli’s animated feature “A Cat Returns,” which faired well—but not as well—as it’s previous success “Spirited Away.” The story is about a Japanese girl named Haru who seems to get herself into a lot of trouble. One day, she saves a cat, who turns out to be the prince of the Cat Kingdom, from being run over by a truck. To repay her kindness, the king of the Cat Kingdom has decreed that the whole kingdom be at her service. Unfortunately, none of the cat’s gifts are for humans. Finally, to add to her troubles, she has to marry the prince that she saved.

For the upcoming year, we can expect the local market to step it up a notch to contend with the American films. Recently, Japanese major distributor Toei, who has never released a foreign film before, has teamed with distributor Gaga Communications to release the thriller “Double Agent” in June on 200 screens in Japan. The film premiered in Korea on Jan. 23 and sold over a million tickets in its first three weeks.

Singapore Far From Sinking

Singaporean cinema sparkled in 2002. Unlike Japan’s box office, Singapore had two Singaporean produced films that nabbed two top 10 spots. The rest, though, was held by Hollywood.

At No. 4, “I Not Stupid” made $3.8 million, and at No.10, “The Eye” earned $1.99 million. In a recent interview with Clarissa Oon of the Straits Times, Raintree Pictures’ chief executive officer Daniel Yun “was pleased that ‘I Not Stupid’ and ‘The Eye’ held their own against the big guys.” Moreover, “he attributed ‘I Not Stupid’s’ success to word of mouth, which helped buck negative impressions of homegrown movies as ‘slapstick’.”

From Singaporean filmmaker Jack Neo came successful 2002 comedy “I Not Stupid”. LoveHKFilm.com explains, “Jack Neo’s ‘I Not Stupid’ succeeds as a biting social satire of the highly competitive Singaporean culture.” The film examines competitive Singaporean culture through the eyes of three young boys in their trials and tribulations of making the grade in Singapore’s arduous educational system. When the three boys fall into the EM3 (English Mother-tongue 3) category, society automatically considers them useless. And, this label only makes their attempts to improve even more frustrating.

On the opposite spectrum, “The Eye” is an Asian horror film that proved scary enough to pull into a top spot. From the Pang Brothers came the story of Mun, played by Angelica Lee Sum-kit, a young Hong Kong woman who has been blind since she was a child. Her life drastically changes, though not necessarily in a good way, when she receives a cornea transplant, restoring her sight. Drastic problems occur because she is unable to adjust to her new-found sight, and, oh yeah, she can see dead people now.

All in all, more Singaporeans went to the cinema in 2002 than in 2001. There was an increase of about 3%, and “this is part of a general surge in movie-going since 2001 after five years of decline,” said Oon. Singaporean film industry members accredited the increase to the appeal of special effects blockbusters.