Book Review

I recently bought a new book on Korean Cinema called “Contemporary Korean Cinema: Identity-Culture-Politics”. I haven’t gotten a chance to read it fully, but it mentions a few early Korean films from as early as 1962 and how they impacted Korean Cinema. Reading this book reminds me of some of the other books that I have that I’ve recommend to the group that I’ll talk about again.

The main book I want to talk about right now is “Korean Cinema: The New Hong Kong”. The first comment I’d like to make is that Korean Cinema is nothing like Hong Kong Cinema so comparing the two is really absorb. The thing that made Hong Kong Cinema so popular was their action film. Mainly a lot of action film from John Woo staring Chow Yun-Fat or Jackie Chan, other directors as well like Jonnie To or Benny Chan. Followed by their drams with directors like Wong Kar-Wai and others. (I don’t want to name them all, there’s just too many). The Thing about the current “Korean New Wave” is that they were mainly controlled by government censors which have been loosened which is why were getting so many great Korean Films now.

As I read the book I found it of very little use for my report I was writing for a class. As I read it seemed to me like it was just a collection of reviews of Korean movies. At the very back of the book they list some of the Authors credentials as being a part time film critic with 750+ movie reviews. Bottom line this book is a collection of reviews for Korean films he either like or didn’t.

Some of the highlights of the books as stated in the book are
- a brief history of South Korea and it’s Film Industry
very brief indeed, with only a mention about Japanese occupation,
Government censorship and reform in the 80’s

- a look at present state of Korea’s filmmaking industry and how it resembles the dot com era
it just normal business I thought, companies won’t invest until they know they’ll make money off of the project.

- an examination of Characteristics of the newest “Korean New Wave”
As in any “New Wave” movement in film it just means that they’re showing more films about the social/political changes happening within the country.

- A look at the stars of Korean Cinema,
I hated the part when he compared actors to Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts. I believe if you’re watching foreign films you don’t want to compare them to “American Actors”

- How moviegoers can go about seeing Korean Movies
All he say is here is go to film festivals and shop on the internet for DVD and make sure to by an all region DVD player. Not the most helpful information, I thought.

Your’re best bet would be to find it at a used bookstore if you’re lucky or look for it at your local library but if you want to have it then go ahead and get it.