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A new age arrives with a new person. If you want to follow the direction of the South Korean movie industry, which has emerged as a dynamic force in the world, you might want to follow the moves of Seung-jae Lee, chief of LJ Film. This is not just for foreign observers. Most South Koreans are also raising the question -- what is happening to their movie industry, which appears to have been rising all of a sudden.
If you ask this question when visiting Chungmuro, where the Korean movie industry is clustered, you will be introduced to Lee who sports short white hair and round golden glasses and you will hear the following long and interesting story.
The people, who are being called ¡°presidents¡± in the movie-manufacturing sector of the Korean film industry, are referred to as ¡°producers¡±. Most of them possess their own film companies. The South Korean movie industry has witnessed a phenomenal growth over the past 10 to 15 years. The producer is a person who oversees the entire manufacturing process of filmmaking by deciding what kind of movie to make, under whose direction and how to persuade investors. More than thousands of moviemakers have been registered by the South Korean government, making the movie industry an attractive investment field, but only about 20 local film companies can produce a movie every year.
LJ Film, one of the top five moviemakers, however, has grown through a peculiar strategy, which appears as non-mainstream, and is being seen as a company which presents a new vision to the South Korean movie industry in 2005.
The emergence of the producers' role in the South Korean movie industry is closely related to the decline of the military regime which has lasted for decades. In Korea, the 1980s is being remembered as the period of pro-democracy movement. At that time, young people in universities became a dominant force in the movement. Among them, some shifted their interest to pop culture, including movies, while their political objectives were being realized in one way or another in late 1980s. They had one thing in common -- they were trained to see the reality in a critical manner and equipped with a strong will to reform and to carry it out.
The new generation caused a new sensation soon after they started in movie manufacturing and public relations. The effects were being felt from the early 1990s. New genres of movies and new directors emerged and local moviegoers who had shunned local films returned to local productions, which led to a series of new box office records.
Lee's working in the movie industry coincided with the emergence of the new trend. Lee joined a pro-democracy movement right after he went to the university in 1983, and languished in a prison for eight months during the early years of his marriage. He had since worked in a progressive publishing firm and joined the movie industry by working in public relations at Shincine Communication Co., Ltd. After leaving the firm, he produced Insh'alla (directed by LEE Min-Yong) in 1996.
The movie, which is about a love story between CHOI Min-Soo and LEE Young-Ae (she has become one of the celebrities), was shot using the desert in Morocco as the backdrop. Insh'alla was produced in what later would be recognized as ¡°Lee's style¡±, jumping onto a project which appears to be a non-mainstream and in a strange environment, but turning it into a success.
The second movie he produced was Birdcage Inn (1998), which was directed by KIM Ki-Duk, who debuted with Crocodile (1996), a low-budget film, was regarded as a strange and peculiar director and did not draw any interest from any producer. Lee went non-mainstream again. By producing Birdcage Inn, Lee found that Kim has a lot of stories and the ability to transcend harsh reality and beautiful fantasy. He also acquired the know-how for making a good film with a low budget. The partnership forged between Lee and Kim at that time made it possible for them to produce some of the crowning accomplishments of South Korean movie history.
After making his third film The Face (directed by SHIN Seung-Su , 1998), Lee produced his fourth film, Interview (directed by Daniel H. Byun, 2000). The film Interview is viewed as a modern film, which deals with vagueness of truths and lies by combining documentary and fiction. Lee is preparing to make his third film with director Byun with whom he has continued his friendship for a decade.
After the screening of the film, Interview, Lee established LJ Film, a film company named after the family names of him and his wife in 2000. He also attached a meaning - light and joy - to the name of the company. He combined new ideas with familiar ones in the structure and spirit of his film company.
Next to working together with experienced producers, Lee also works with staff who don't have on-hand experience, but are believed to have potential capability; and instead of investing into a single project which could become a success in a short period of time, he made various movies in a long-term investment perspective and introduced a principle of making investments based on the capability of the director.
This principle inevitably carries trial and error, and incurs huge costs until production is complete. When he set up his firm, he told his employees that it would take three years before "this system exerts its force", and it could produce phenomenal accomplishments five years after the introduction of the system.
He said he would support the management of his firm to enable his firm¡¯s vision to be realized. To follow up on the set strategy, sometimes, it was more difficult than foreseen, and at some point there was what appeared to be a crisis, but in the larger perspective the results turned out as he predicted. He still works based on his principle. The start of his vision was Address Unknown (directed by KIM Ki-Duk, 2000).
Lee's friends and acquaintances were concerned when Lee said he decided to make Address Unknown as the first production of his firm, LJ Film. At that time, Kim was seen as a strong character, but his future seemed uncertain because he was perceived as an eccentric. No one in the South Korea's movie industry would have imagined the future prospect of this internationally highly regarded film director at that time.
Lee believed that he could produce a meaningful outcome if he made at least three films with one director and he was willing to do so with KIM Ki-Duk. This principle gave birth to a new phenomenon in Korea - name branding of a director under LJ Film. The concept was based on the judgment that a movie director can become a cultural product, who has brand value, and Kim had great potential to become a cultural product. Kim has been rapidly rising up due to LJ Film's stable basis for filmmaking and its consistent brand making strategy and investment.
His four films -- Address Unknown, Bad guy, The Coast Guard and Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring -- advanced to competitive categories at top international film festivals. Bad Guy became Kim¡¯s first film to enjoy significant local popularity. Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring is widely seen as a climax and turning point of his filmography. The film, which has an appealing story line and displays Kim's film world beautifully, was made in conjunction with Germany¡¯s Pandora Film and sold jointly with Germany¡¯s Bavaria Film International.
By combining with a renowned foreign film company, his movie Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring won awards in four categories at the Locarno International Film Festival and was distributed across the world. The movie made box office hits across the world, raking in more than US$8.6 million, registering a phenomenal profit ratio of 800 percent over its local investment. The strategy to make Kim a brand name was completed. And LJ Film laid the foundation for future growth, which is seen as an example the South Korea movie industry should follow.
The year 2004 saw the creation of two films directed by two other directors with whom he had shared joys and sorrows for a long time. This Charming Girl (directed by LEE Yoon-Ki, 2004) is a film combining mature direction with a fine performance of the lead actress, and it became a favorite at international film festivals, including The Sundance Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival.
Daniel H. Byun, who made the film, Interview also filmed Scarlet Letter (2004), a peculiar melodrama, after he studied in France. This year, Lee attempted a new business model as the South Korean movie industry showed unusual signs. Despite the fact that two local movies made box office records, drawing one fourth of South Korea's 47 million people for each movie in early 2004, the overall profit ratio vis-a-vis investment was in the red. Of many culpable factors, Lee recognized the limitation of South Korea's small population and market size. The answer was clear -- now South Korean movie industry had no choice but to seek foreign markets. In short, a global project -especially aimed at the United States - has become Lee's new direction.
Lee called back a producer, whom he sent to Los Angeles four years ago to study when he established his firm. He made an investment in this producer who was equipped with creativity and international business experience, and allotted him an appropriate role. He also changed structures around filmmaking projects including actor management. Lee repeatedly declared that confidence and continuous investment in people is the key to succeeding in the film industry, which is a knowledge-based industry. It was at this time that Lee emerged as an opinion leader in the local movie industry. For Lee and his LJ Film, the year 2005 will be marked as a time of a new direction and another success story.
Regarding the U.S., he is searching for Korean-American or Asian-American directors and producers, and plans to make five to ten low-budget art movies. Lee is also developing various kinds of projects to link up with the mainstream movie market in the U.S.
In April, he also agreed with Germany¡¯s Pandora Film and Japanese company Kadokawa Holdings to make joint investments in the production of a movie tentatively titled as Isang Yun, An Injured Dragon, which is about the life of a South Korea-born world class musician. It is highly likely that North Korea will participate in this project and if so, it will stir up a sensation in the international movie industry.
For his local projects, Lee is going to crank in four movies in the first half of 2005, including Love Talk directed by LEE Yoon-Ki, and six other movies, including a remake of the Japanese film, Black House in the second half of 2005. These movies are connected to foreign countries in one way or another. No one knows how all these upcoming projects will develop, but it is clear that everyone is determined that this is the right way. For this reason, Lee's moves are becoming news not only in the South Korean movie industry, but in the international movie industry as well.
It is said that a new big force is arising from the non-mainstream market. Producers in the non-mainstream have changed the local movie industry over the past decade. Lee, who opted to go non-mainstream as a producer in the past, is now designing another new decade for the local movie industry.
Selection from, wheneverCINE 06, 2005 vol.1, n. 45 |
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