Old Masters and New Cinema: Korean Film in Transition :: Free Essays Online

Old Masters and New celluloid Korean Film in Transition Since the late 1980s Korean picture show has undergone salient changes in its industrial structure, modes of practice, and aesthetic orientation. Its remarkable renewal into a powerful cultural force in Asia has elicited coarse attention from both the commercial and critical sectors of the international film circuit. novel discussions of Korean cinema have largely been centered on its market place expansion and generic diversification over the past two decades. Accordingly, a strong spotlight has been cast on groundbreaking newcomers in the patience as catalysts for its rapid growth. The nationwide Shiri (Shiri, 1999) syndrome brought about by Kang Chegyu and similar phenomena triggered by Pak Chanuks Joint Security Area (Kongdong kyngbi kuyk, 2000), Kwak Kyngtaeks Friends (Chingu, 2001), and Yi Chnghyangs The manner Home (Chibro, 2002) well illustrate this tendency.1 Amidst the unprecedented succes s of the new coevals of Korean filmmakers in both local and global arenas, one enquire remains to be investigated how do old masters of Korean cinema define their art in this period of dynamic transition? My bind addresses this vital and yet somewhat neglected issue by examining thematic and stylistic changes in recent films by Pak Chlsu (Park Chulsoo) and Im Kwntaek (Im Kwon-Taek), two salient figures who began their directorial careers in earlier decades but have continued their search for their own film language to the present day. Paks Farewell My Darling (Haksaengbugunsinwi, 1996) and Kazoku picture (Kajok sinema, 1998) and Ims Chunhyang (Chunhyangdyn, 2001), while employing the conventional mode of storytelling as a morphological scaffold, often break down the wall between diegesis and nondiegesis. They thereby corrupt cinematic illusionism, which has pertinacious dominated Korean film. Pak continues his formal experiment in his latest work Pongja (Pongja, 2000) in wh ich he blends social and virtual realities by means of a digital camera. In a similar life of border-crossing and hybridization, Im incorporates traditional Korean painting into the visual language of Painted ignore (Chwihwasn, 2002). These veteran filmmakers playful attitudes toward the possibilities of the cinematic medium and especially their common allude 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, Paks and Ims innovative styles can be seen as ironic yet earnest responses to the shifting cultural surroundings of todays Korean film.