Old Masters and New Cinema: Korean Film in Transition

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Old Masters and New Cinema: Korean Film in Transition

Since the late 1980s Korean cinema has undergone salient changes in its industrial structure, modes of practice, and aesthetic orientation. Its remarkable transformation into a powerful cultural force in Asia has elicited considerable attention from both the commercial and critical sectors of the international film circuit. Recent discussions of Korean cinema have largely been centered on its market expansion and generic diversification over the past two decades. Accordingly, a strong spotlight has been cast on groundbreaking newcomers in the industry as catalysts for its rapid growth. The nationwide Shiri (Shiri, 1999) syndrome brought about by Kang Chegyu and similar phenomena triggered by Pak Ch’anuk’s Joint Security Area (Kongdong kyôngbi kuyôk, 2000), Kwak Kyôngt’aek’s Friends (Ch’ingu, 2001), and Yi Chônghyang’s The Way Home (Chibûro, 2002) well illustrate this tendency.1

Amidst the unprecedented success of the new generation of Korean filmmakers in both local and global arenas, one question remains to be investigated: how do old masters of Korean cinema define their art in this period of dynamic transition? My article addresses this vital and yet somewhat neglected issue by examining thematic and stylistic changes in recent films by Pak Ch’ôlsu (Park Chulsoo) and Im Kwônt’aek (Im Kwon-Taek), two prominent figures who began their directorial careers in earlier decades but have continued their search for their own film language to the present day. Pak’s Farewell My Darling (Haksaengbugunsinwi, 1996) and Kazoku Cinema (Kajok sinema, 1998) and Im’s Chunhyang (Ch’unhyangdyôn, 2001), while employing the conventional mode of storytelling as a structural scaffold, often break down the wall between diegesis and nondiegesis. They thereby undermine cinematic illusionism, which has long dominated Korean film. Pak continues his formal experiment in his latest work Pongja (Pongja, 2000) in which he blends social and virtual realities by means of a digital camera. In a similar spirit of border-crossing and hybridization, Im incorporates traditional Korean painting into the visual language of Painted Fire (Ch’wihwasôn, 2002). These veteran filmmakers’ playful attitudes toward the possibilities of the cinematic medium and especially their common concern with reflexivity and intertextuality reveal their changing views on life, art, and society. In light of their long contributions to the plot-driven mimetic tradition of mainstream cinema, Pak’s and Im’s innovative styles can be seen as ironic yet earnest responses to the shifting cultural milieu of today’s Korean film.

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