The names in this program are rarely mentioned at international festivals, but on the other hand the entertaining films shown in it are extremely popular



Even though the worldwide festival elite is traditionally more inclined towards Korean hardcore art and not a single edition of Cannes could be imagined without the workaholic Sang-soo Hong (last with HaHaHa and this year with The Day He Arrives), as well as Ki-duk Kim (Arirang), the Korean mainstream is mostly uninteresting to festival selectors, not counting specialized manifestations such as the Far East Film Festival held in Udine, which is oriented towards East Asia’s commercial productions. Nevertheless, things are slowly changing and more space is devoted to films such as The Host or the ingenius horror Bedevilled. Probably the most ambitious Korean project of last year, The Yellow Sea by Hong-jin Na, co-produced with 20th Century Fox, had its European premiere in Cannes.

So it is not unusual that the holy trinity of contemporary Korean author film - Chan-wook Park, Joon-ho Bong and Jee-woon Kim– could not resist Hollywood’s call and are preparing their first projects in English with popular Hollywood stars. Only Chan-wook Park is not ready yet for author experiments, so his newest 33-minute long film Night Fishing made in collaboration with his brother Chan-kyong Park, under their common pseudonym Parking Chance, was the first film advertised as an “iPhone film”. Nevertheless, that was a clever marketing trick; in reality the film cost 130.000 dollars and 80 people worked on the production. It seems to be too much for such cheap equipment. In the end it turned out that the authors used eight iPhones all equipped with special lenses and in post-production the material was digitally processed and some CGI tricks were added. So much for its poor storytelling medium! Nevertheless, one can agree that the directors’ bizarre combination of shamanism and high technology is refreshing.

Even though domestic audiences remain unacquainted with the newest film craziness by Jee-woon Kim (I Saw the Devil), films such as Mother and Poetry represent the ultimate works of 2010. Thus, it is a bit unexpected that this program should mostly be oriented towards Korean crowd-pleasers. Just as the Far East Film Festival in Udine gave priority to the excellent debut by Kwang-sik Kim (My Dear Desperado), who began his career as an assistant to the genius Chang-dong Lee (Oasis), and the nutty Hyun-seok Kim (Cyrano Agency), this program, organized in collaboration with the Korean Embassy, follows a similarly unpretentious path. The names from this program are rarely mentioned at international festivals, but on the other hand the entertaining films shown within it are extremely popular. After the films YMCA Basketball Team and Take Off, the tradition of Korean sports film is continued by two titles from this program – Forever the Moment and A Barefoot Dream. The latter film puts the genre into a social Benetton-like context because its hero is a former member of the Korean soccer team who trains the junior soccer team in East Timor. On the other hand, Shin’s action film aspires to be the Korean Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but comes closer to the concept of True Lies. Hyeng-cheol’s Scandal Makers follows the patterns of Hollywood romantic comedies. Le Grand Chef, a film adaptation of the comic book by the same title, is a typical film for the soul and palate, something like the Korean version of Lee’s Eat, Drink, Man, Woman - at least when it comes to the choice of ingredients. (Dragan Rubeša)