Korean films lack imagination

I appreciated a Korean film informing the audience how serious Korean youth unemployment is. In the film, a young female applicant had high aspirations of getting a job after graduating from university, but her search ended in failure. Having a meager degree from a local college was a visible drawback. Her neighbor, a declawed gangster, sympathized with her pitiable circumstances and helped her get a job. The film cynically satirized the terrible conditions that young people must overcome to land jobs. It was a memorable film depicting the harsh reality for job-seekers.

By Oh Jung-hun

I appreciated a Korean film informing the audience how serious Korean youth unemployment is. In the film, a young female applicant had high aspirations of getting a job after graduating from university, but her search ended in failure. Having a meager degree from a local college was a visible drawback. Her neighbor, a declawed gangster, sympathized with her pitiable circumstances and helped her get a job. The film cynically satirized the terrible conditions that young people must overcome to land jobs. It was a memorable film depicting the harsh reality for job-seekers.

An enthusiastic fan of Johnny Depp, I recently rushed to the theatre to catch his latest movie, ``Pirates of the Caribbean ― On Stranger Tides.” This never-ending storytelling comes from limitless imagination. From the ``Matrix” trilogy to ``The Lord of the Rings” series produced by Hollywood, Korean fans become absorbed by the weird world and imaginary narrative and eagerly await subsequent episodes. A Korean audience, transcending age or gender, was completely entertained by these fantasies and adventure films. All of them surrendered to the power of imagination.

It is rather absurd to compare Korean films with those from Hollywood. The former leans on realistic sources to attract audience’s attention and is apt to repeat the stereotypical story. Without fail, heroes are confined to the common roles of detectives, gangsters, and murderers because they are able to draw emotionally-electrified effects mixed with adventurous, risky, thrilling and aggressive excitement. Likewise, the recent film ``The King of Arrest,” in the end does not dare to cross over the banal barrier of hide-and-seek (the chaser and the chased). The partial changes are only observed in the levels of horror or humor. Obviously, I thought that it also revealed the limits of Korean films only duplicating same sources on realism.

Historically, Korean films once reached dramatic heights with the release of ``Swiri" by Kang Je-kyu and ``Joint Security Area JSA” by Park Chan-wook. Both films portrayed the harsh realities of the ideological division of Korea with a distinctive texture. They described the unprecedented trials of cold-blooded heroes who were brainwashed with ideology, yet melted in the face of brotherhood or lover’s affection. In fact, they are still remembered as the most successful films among others derived from realistic observation mixed with plausible imagination.

History is no longer confined to the remembrance of the past. Its fabric can be brought back into fashion by tailoring or adapting a sort of imaginative dissection in films. Out of the sources of realism, Korean films should provide Koreans with diverse perspectives to correct their insightful myopia, which is often gripped by the lack of imagination. It is time for Korean films to drill into the depths of imagination. Of course, some Korean movie directors were pioneers in experimenting with imaginative plots. Not only did they open more mysterious worlds, but also instilled in their films metaphysical insights on religious, social and philosophical matters. In this vein, their capacity to produce films was so remarkable that it enabled them to become winners or candidates at well-known film festivals.

In this context, Korean movie director Park Chan-wook embarked on the so-called vengeance trilogy with a new clout of his own imagination. ``Old Boy,” the second in the series, won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, where Quentin Tarantino was president of the jury. His final installment, ``Lady Vengeance” and ``Thirst,” (known as ``Bat” in Korean) won much acclaim as ``I’m a Cyborg” in Korea. All of his works were obviously by-products of his unlimited imagination.

Korean films continually need to recharge the abundance of imagination. Recent productions in Hollywood have been pretty much left to the audience’s imagination. ``Avatar” peaked by using 3D technology, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Not only did this give the audience unique view, but also built an intriguing illusionary world. Moreover, like ``Pirates of the Caribbean,” all kinds of sources such as legend, fairy tales, fable, mythology and other inherited stories can be merged into a director’s imagination. Personally, I hope that Korean films grow to be more attractive than those from Hollywood in regards to imagination. In addition, I am aspiring that a second Korean wave of imaginative film-making will spread throughout the world.

The writer is a high school teacher at Bucheon City, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at dicapripk@hanmail.net.