Lauded abroad, shunned at home: Director Kim Ki-duk keeps trying for local acceptance
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For foreign cinemaphiles, award-winning independent filmmaker Kim Ki-duk's celluloid offerings are generally perceived to be a breath of fresh air, allowing a brief respite from the dominant formulaic CGI-laced products from Hollywood.
So, why does this master auteur, who has fans all over the world and more international film festival awards than you can shake an Academy Award at, still struggle so mightily to win the love of Korea's audiences?
According to Korea's film pundits and vociferous online community, there is no mystery as to why the director's work fails to appeal in this country: Kim simply does not make films which local audiences want to see.
The reason for this could lie in Kim's "school of hard knocks" upbringing, which not only gave him a very different view of the world compared to his peers, but excluded him from the creative conditioning process of Korea's directorial assembly line.
Unable to study at the proper arts schools and universities, and without family and film industry connections, Kim never stood a chance of joining the country's filmista elite. Yet, he still managed to enjoy foreign box office success and critical recognition at the top-rated Venice and Berlin film festivals – a fact which undoubtedly gets under the skin of many Korean film industry luminaries.
Born in 1960 in Gyeongsangbuk-do (North Gyeongsang Province), Kim's family spent the first nine years of his life in Korea's breadbasket before leaving for Seoul. An agricultural school student, he dropped out at age 17 to work in a factory, later serving in the marines from age 20 to 25.
Two years employment at a church for the visually impaired influenced him so deeply that at one point, he even contemplated becoming a preacher. In 1990, Kim set off for Paris, spending three years eking out a living drawing sketches of passerbys on the streets.
Kim readily agrees that he did not follow the normal course of Korean life: "While others learned about theories in school, I learned about people in a factory. It's what has made me what I am today". But for the enfant terrible of Korea's film industry, it was while in Paris that he reached a turning point in life.
"Korea could give me nothing at the time because I didn't have much education", he said. "I was so busy and tired from factory work that I couldn't even see movies. In Paris, I could make a living just by sketching people in the streets. I also had time to see movies for the very first time".
Moved by such films as Silence of the Lambs and Leos Carax's, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Kim's time in "The City of Light" was well spent creatively, laying the foundation for his art-house style and cinematic success.
Renown for producing dark tales featuring extreme violence and sex, Kim readily admits to shining the spotlight on issues which middle and upper-class Korean society would prefer remain hidden. Accusations of misogyny, cruelty to animals and marketing negative images of Korea abroad for personal gain has led to a local backlash against his films, with a rift developing between the director, Korea's filmgoing public and industry movers and shakers. This mutual antagonism has reached the point where Kim insists on using the term "export" to describe his film releases in the home market.
"My films are sold to more than 20 countries worldwide, and even though I have only 20,000 to 30,000 fans in Korea, if the total number of fans overseas is included, I have about 10 million", he said. "Given that Korea accounts for just 2 to 3 percent of the total, I think it's correct to use 'export' for the local release".
Sponge House, the Korean distributor of Kim's films which released "Time" and will open "Breath" after film festival screenings in the spring and summer of this year, said it signed a distribution contract with the director containing terms no different to those for imported films.
But Kim's box office troubles at home are not a recent occurrence. One of his earlier films, "Address Unknown" -- about the lives of people living near a U.S. Army base in Korea -- was well-received abroad and screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2001. Locally, the film sold only 10,000 tickets before being yanked from theaters after a week. "The Bow", was shown at Cannes but opened in just one cinema here and did not even have a press screening. The film attracted a nationwide audience of 1,400.
Kim's frustration with the local film industry has long been simmering but reached boiling point just before the release of his 13th movie "Time" in August last year. The director publicly vowed never to release another film in Korea again unless 200,000 people turned up at the box-office. The threat brought howls of protests from critics and the media, and when ticket stubs were counted after the film's eight-theater release, only 30,000 fans had shown their support.
This snubbing supposedly "guaranteed" that filmlovers in Korea would never see another Kim Ki-duk movie at a cinema here again. But Kim, buoyed by the fact that 30,000 fans had actually shown up, backflipped on his decision and announced that "Breath" -- starring Taiwanese actor Chang Chen ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Eros") -- would receive a Korean release as a way of thanking his diehard fans.
Kim said that his latest film was named "Breath" because it follows a storyline akin to the process of inhaling and exhaling while mirroring the ying and yang principle. The plot revolves around the life of a married woman, who discovers her husband is having an affair and in the midst of depression falls in love with a man on death she meets during her work.
As a low-budget production that cost around $266,000 to make, the film was shot in keeping with the director's normal 10-day schedule. According to Cineclick Asia, "Breath" was the center of attention at the recent European Film Market of the Berlin International Film Festival, and has already been sold in 10 countries, including, Brazil, Spain and Russia.
With expectations riding high for Kim's latest offering, critics and moviegoers alike are waiting to see whether "Breath" will go someway towards bridging the divide which exists between the director and his home market. If "Breath" turns out to be a hit, then Kim may well be on his way to reviving a more mainstream relationship with the Korean film industry.
So, why does this master auteur, who has fans all over the world and more international film festival awards than you can shake an Academy Award at, still struggle so mightily to win the love of Korea's audiences?
According to Korea's film pundits and vociferous online community, there is no mystery as to why the director's work fails to appeal in this country: Kim simply does not make films which local audiences want to see.
The reason for this could lie in Kim's "school of hard knocks" upbringing, which not only gave him a very different view of the world compared to his peers, but excluded him from the creative conditioning process of Korea's directorial assembly line.
Unable to study at the proper arts schools and universities, and without family and film industry connections, Kim never stood a chance of joining the country's filmista elite. Yet, he still managed to enjoy foreign box office success and critical recognition at the top-rated Venice and Berlin film festivals – a fact which undoubtedly gets under the skin of many Korean film industry luminaries.
Born in 1960 in Gyeongsangbuk-do (North Gyeongsang Province), Kim's family spent the first nine years of his life in Korea's breadbasket before leaving for Seoul. An agricultural school student, he dropped out at age 17 to work in a factory, later serving in the marines from age 20 to 25.
Two years employment at a church for the visually impaired influenced him so deeply that at one point, he even contemplated becoming a preacher. In 1990, Kim set off for Paris, spending three years eking out a living drawing sketches of passerbys on the streets.
Kim readily agrees that he did not follow the normal course of Korean life: "While others learned about theories in school, I learned about people in a factory. It's what has made me what I am today". But for the enfant terrible of Korea's film industry, it was while in Paris that he reached a turning point in life.
"Korea could give me nothing at the time because I didn't have much education", he said. "I was so busy and tired from factory work that I couldn't even see movies. In Paris, I could make a living just by sketching people in the streets. I also had time to see movies for the very first time".
Moved by such films as Silence of the Lambs and Leos Carax's, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Kim's time in "The City of Light" was well spent creatively, laying the foundation for his art-house style and cinematic success.
Renown for producing dark tales featuring extreme violence and sex, Kim readily admits to shining the spotlight on issues which middle and upper-class Korean society would prefer remain hidden. Accusations of misogyny, cruelty to animals and marketing negative images of Korea abroad for personal gain has led to a local backlash against his films, with a rift developing between the director, Korea's filmgoing public and industry movers and shakers. This mutual antagonism has reached the point where Kim insists on using the term "export" to describe his film releases in the home market.
"My films are sold to more than 20 countries worldwide, and even though I have only 20,000 to 30,000 fans in Korea, if the total number of fans overseas is included, I have about 10 million", he said. "Given that Korea accounts for just 2 to 3 percent of the total, I think it's correct to use 'export' for the local release".
Sponge House, the Korean distributor of Kim's films which released "Time" and will open "Breath" after film festival screenings in the spring and summer of this year, said it signed a distribution contract with the director containing terms no different to those for imported films.
But Kim's box office troubles at home are not a recent occurrence. One of his earlier films, "Address Unknown" -- about the lives of people living near a U.S. Army base in Korea -- was well-received abroad and screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2001. Locally, the film sold only 10,000 tickets before being yanked from theaters after a week. "The Bow", was shown at Cannes but opened in just one cinema here and did not even have a press screening. The film attracted a nationwide audience of 1,400.
Kim's frustration with the local film industry has long been simmering but reached boiling point just before the release of his 13th movie "Time" in August last year. The director publicly vowed never to release another film in Korea again unless 200,000 people turned up at the box-office. The threat brought howls of protests from critics and the media, and when ticket stubs were counted after the film's eight-theater release, only 30,000 fans had shown their support.
This snubbing supposedly "guaranteed" that filmlovers in Korea would never see another Kim Ki-duk movie at a cinema here again. But Kim, buoyed by the fact that 30,000 fans had actually shown up, backflipped on his decision and announced that "Breath" -- starring Taiwanese actor Chang Chen ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Eros") -- would receive a Korean release as a way of thanking his diehard fans.
Kim said that his latest film was named "Breath" because it follows a storyline akin to the process of inhaling and exhaling while mirroring the ying and yang principle. The plot revolves around the life of a married woman, who discovers her husband is having an affair and in the midst of depression falls in love with a man on death she meets during her work.
As a low-budget production that cost around $266,000 to make, the film was shot in keeping with the director's normal 10-day schedule. According to Cineclick Asia, "Breath" was the center of attention at the recent European Film Market of the Berlin International Film Festival, and has already been sold in 10 countries, including, Brazil, Spain and Russia.
With expectations riding high for Kim's latest offering, critics and moviegoers alike are waiting to see whether "Breath" will go someway towards bridging the divide which exists between the director and his home market. If "Breath" turns out to be a hit, then Kim may well be on his way to reviving a more mainstream relationship with the Korean film industry.
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