By Park Si-soo
What if the new Avengers movie portrayed Korea negatively?
How would Seoulites, for instance, feel about it after days of yielding their city for location filming?
If Marvel Studios says “tough luck,” so be it. But what about Mayor Park Won-soon and others who talked about value effects worth 2 trillion won from the “Age of Ultron”?
If Park loses his bid for reelection in June, he would be out of office in 2015 when the movie is out.
Besides, he didn’t exactly say whether it would be minus 2 trillion won or plus 2 trillion won. Right now, the secrecy in which the film is being made gives away little inkling about what the movie will be about except for the Ultron we know from the comics.
One thing for sure is this kind of movie goes with the good-prevailing-over-evil plot formula.
In the sequel, the Avengers are good guys, while Ultron is bad. Then, who would be the most likely candidate for the role of a bad guy from Korea?
It’s hard to blame us for being paranoid. Oftentimes, North Korea has been the villain country and its leaders — the deceased Kim Jong-il and his son Kim Jong-un— are bad guys.
Their villainy has a great deal resonance as they are among the most hated by Americans for firing missiles and conducting nuclear tests.
Besides, their psyche is hard to understand by western standards, which leaves the makers of the film with a great deal of room for interpretation and imagination. They wouldn’t be the first to use the North Korean leaders as bad buys.
Marvel also dropped what might be a hint to back this theory.
In the “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” now being screened here, there is some footage about a massive gathering in North Korea with portraits of its leaders.
Still, hopes are high.
“This is a cost-efficient chance to promote the country in the right direction,” said an official of the Korean Film Council. “We expect Seoul will appear in many other Hollywood movies in the near future.”
The Walt Disney Company Korea claims that any leak of information prior to the release will severely undermine the movie’s marketing appeal.
“The film’s scenario is a sort of top secret. So we have no idea about it,” a Disney spokeswoman said.
Mitchell Bell, Marvel’s vice president who visited Seoul last month to sign an agreement with the government on shooting, was not forthcoming about the plot.
When asked why Seoul was selected, he said “Its cutting-edge technology, breath-taking landscapes and unique architecture make it an ideal place for the film.”
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Marvel’s counterpart in the agreement, was sure that there would be no negativity about Seoul in the film.
“What I can tell you is that there will be no negative description of Korea in the film,” said Park Byoung-woo, a director of the ministry’s film and video content industry division. “Under this condition, the government will reimburse, as stipulated in the agreement, up to 30 percent of Marvel’s expenditure in Korea, which is estimated at around 3 billion won.”
That’s big money. We wonder whether there is a clause that bans any scenes of the North. Barring it, Korea would suffer from the lack of members in the international cast of villains. That could be boring as well.