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New York Times Names Kang Je-gyu 'Steven Spielberg of East Asia'

New York Times introduced movie director Kang Je-gyu as the Steven Spielberg of East Asia, comparing his latest work "Taegukgi" with "Saving Private Ryan".
In the Internet edition review article of the "Taegukgi", which was published Friday, NYT pointed out that Kang's continuing box-office success with movies such as "The Gingko Bed", and "Shiri" closely fits into the mold of Spielberg. The article depicts the movie as Mr. Kang's version of "Saving Private Ryan", but being far more ambivalent and ambiguous than Spielberg's in that both North and South are portrayed as brutal, abusive regimes.

It also praised that "the theme of brotherly sacrifice is a popular one in Asian cinema, but it is used here for more than its melodramatic appeal" adding that the film will offer Western viewers "rare access to another country's innermost anxieties and contradictions".

On Friday, in three theaters in Washington that showed the movie, including the Fairfax Town Center, tickets were sold out one hour prior to viewing time due to the rush of Korean-Americans who were waiting to watch the movie. "Taegukgi" will be airing in forty different theaters in seven cities including Washington, New York, and Los Angeles.

In the case of the Fairfax Town Center, the screening was originally scheduled to play three times a day. With the tickets being sold out from the first day, however, the center decided to increase the number of the screening.

Of all Korean movies that were screened in U.S., the biggest success was Kim Ki-duk's "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring" with 300,000 people watching it during the 21 weeks that it played, earning profits of almost US$2,316,000.

The Korean Embassy is planning to host a five-week-long "Korean Film Festival" in accordance with the opening of the movie in Washington.

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