The Untold Story of the Korean Film Industry: A Global Business and Economic Perspective (Cultural Economics & the Creative Economy)

255 Pages·2021·6.731 MB·English

by  Jimmyn Parc, Patrick A. Messerlin

CULTURAL ECONOMICS & THE CREATIVE ECONOMY
The Untold Story of the
Korean Film Industry
A Global Business and
Economic Perspective
Jimmyn Parc
Patrick A. Messerlin
Cultural Economics & the Creative Economy
Series Editors
Erwin Dekker, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
Andrej Srakar, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Michael Rushton, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
This series aims to provide originaland societally relevant perspectives on
the modern creative economy from the perspective of cultural economics
broadly understood. In the past decades it is increasingly realized that
value in the economy is realized in the creative industries and the more
traditionalculturalsectors.Thisserieswillaimtoshedlightonhowvalue
is created and realized and how the creative economy shapes the broader
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ofthingstocomeinthebroadereconomy,thisistrueforthewayinwhich
work is organized, how innovation happens, how entrepreneurs act and
the relevance of cities in the modern economy.
The series will provide a collection of works of leading cultural
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most broad sense and focus on the current open problems and topics in
cultural economics, covering micro, macro end methodological aspects.
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·
Jimmyn Parc Patrick A. Messerlin
The Untold Story
of the Korean Film
Industry
A Global Business and Economic Perspective
Jimmyn Parc Patrick A. Messerlin
Sciences Po Sciences Po
Paris Paris
France France
ISSN 2662-4478 ISSN 2662-4486 (electronic)
Cultural Economics & the Creative Economy
ISBN 978-3-030-80341-4 ISBN 978-3-030-80342-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80342-1
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Prologue: Why the Korean Film
Industry?
Since the birth of film in the late nineteenth century, this revolutionary
mediumhasdrawninagreatdealofattentionfromawiderangeofpeople
who seek to understand more about the workings of its industry. When
it comes to films, a large number of moviegoers have enjoyed watching
Hollywood blockbusters while French and Italian films still benefit from
theirreputationforbeingartisticandculturalworks.Therefore,numerous
academicarticlesandbookshavebeendevotedtocoveringHollywoodor
European films as well as their related film industries. To a lesser extent,
films from Japan and Hong Kong have also been at the center of interest
in more recent decades.
Among the film industries around the world that have received little
attention,theKoreanfilmindustryhasslippedbyundertheradaramong
many observers despite its consistent progress. Yet as it marks its one
hundredthanniversaryin2019,itsachievementsarecomingtoberecog-
nized. Notably, several films have received prestigious international film
awards. The most prominent example in this regard is the recent hit
film Parasite, which not only won the 2019 Palme d’Or at the Cannes
Film Festival but also went on to receive four Oscars in 2020 including
the prestigious Best Picture. As a result, several Korean directors such as
Bong Joon-ho and Kim Ki-duk as well as a number of Korean actors and
actresses like Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Byung-hun, Song Kang-ho, and Youn
Yuh-jung, have been known among film lovers.
v
vi PROLOGUE: WHY THE KOREAN FILM INDUSTRY?
In fact, it is not only moviegoers or audiences who are interested in
Koreanfilms,butalsoanumberofcountries,internationalorganizations,
and film companies have begun to pay close attention to the Korean film
industry and its market. For example, as Hollywood studios were the
first to realize the promising potential of the Korean film market in the
1980s,theypushedtheUSgovernmenttoopenupthemarketforfurther
opportunities. More recently, a number of foreign companies have been
interestedinbothdistributingKoreanfilmsandinvestingintheindustry.
Even the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-
tion(UNESCO)haswitnessedtheKoreanfilmindustry’sinfluencegrow
initsmultilateralforumsincethatcountryopenedupitsmarkettoforeign
companies.
The history of the Korean film industry is nothing short of profound
since the release of its first Korean film The Righteous Revenge in 1919.
DuringtheJapaneseoccupationperiod(1910–1945),filmswerecensored
and the Korean film industry was under the influence of the Japanese
authorities. Following the country’s liberation in 1945, the Korean film
industry began to make tentative steps on its own, but the Korean War
(1950–1953) interrupted these efforts. While the film industry managed
to emerge from the ashes of the Korean War and endure decades of
military rule, it would come to face a greater challenge. By the 1970s,
the industry was in a steep decline as few Koreans went to see domestic
films let alone even foreign titles. Having hit rock bottom by the 1990s,
Korea’sfilmcompaniesthenunderwentadecadeofpainfulanduncertain
industrial restructuring before experiencing an impressive revival around
the new millennium. After a brief plunge between 2007 and 2008, the
film industry bounced back and has since consolidated its success. Today,
Koreanfilmsenjoyastrongshareofthedomesticmarketwhiletheoverall
film market that includes foreign films is very healthy.
What has been behind such ups and downs? A number of existing
studies often raise the issue of censorship by the Korean government or
even the lack of cultural creativity and diversity. However, they cannot
fully answer the question by relying exclusively upon an analysis of the
industry’s cultural characteristics. Rather it becomes evident when exam-
ining the history of the Korean film industry that it has been shaped
by economic and business decisions—both foreign and domestic—which
suggest the need for an analysis centered upon these issues, including
those raised by film policies.
PROLOGUE: WHY THE KOREAN FILM INDUSTRY? vii
This book constitutes a search for the main contours of an effective
filmpolicy,onethatisbothfriendlytocultureandeconomicallysound.In
thisrespect,Koreaisthecentralcharacter:byensuringabetterandstable
economic and regulatory environment, it has provided its film compa-
nies with the opportunity to take the lead in the successful reshaping of
the domestic film industry. Korea’s film policy therefore appears as an
attractive benchmark for other countries as they seek to develop their
own film industry. This result is important since, in almost every decisive
aspect, it challenges the approaches generally suggested when faced with
thegrowingdominanceofHollywood,suchasusingquotasandsubsidies
for developing and advancing the domestic film industry.
Highlighting the uniqueness of the Korean film industry and its poli-
cies is a meaningful task, but it may place the reader in a narrow box. In
addition, while many studies have focused on Korean cinema, very few
have taken on a broader and comparative assessment of its film industry.
Such a gap in the literature has missed the important example that the
Korean film industry holds for others that wish to achieve a similar level
of success as well as enrich their cultural industries. To pursue this goal
with more rigorous and insightful research, we compare the Korean film
industry and its policies with its counterparts in the global film industry.
By doing so, it shows the status of the Korean film industry in an inter-
national setting in terms of production, consumption, and market. Such
an expanded comparison reveals the sharp differences in their film poli-
ciesandhelpstounderstandwhycertainpolicieshavebeeneffectivewhile
othershavenot.GiventhattheKoreanfilmindustryemergedfromalmost
zero to one of the important global players today, it is meaningful to
examine how Korea has overcome such challenges while others have not.
This book has thus been developed entirely within an international
framework. It compares Korea with the five most important markets in
the world, specifically China, France, Japan, the United Kingdom (UK),
andtheUnitedStates(US).1Furthermore,thisstudyprovidesacompara-
tiveanalysisoftheeffectsregardingthewholerangeofpolicyinstruments
1Togetherthesesixmarketsaccountformorethansixtypercentoftoday’sinternational
box office revenues. The only large film industry not included in this study is India due
tolackofreliabledataforthismarket.However,thisabsenceisnotasignificantproblem
for the period covered by this book: in 2018, the Indian film market is still smaller than
Korea or France in terms of box office revenues and is much less integrated into the
global film markets than the six countries covered in this study.
viii PROLOGUE: WHY THE KOREAN FILM INDUSTRY?
used by these countries toward their film industries: import and screen
quotas,subsidiesandtaxreliefs,aswellasregulatorymeasuresandinstitu-
tions.Bycomparingthesesixfilmmarketsoverthepastfourdecades,this
bookoffersacomprehensiveviewoftheKoreanfilmindustry’simpressive
growth. Today, this industry is a powerhouse which has “outperformed”
all of the major film industries around the world in almost every conceiv-
able economic criterion—a point not fully realized even in Korea. More
cruciallyfromaculturalperspective,Korea’s“quantitative”successeshave
notbeenachievedtothedetrimentinthe“quality”ofitsfilms.Thisstudy
presents evidence showing that the average quality of Korean films over
the last decade fares better than that of French, UK, or even US movies.
Thisbookreliesonavastdatasetcompiledspecificallyforthispublica-
tion.Inparticular,itmakesuseofdataontheamountofsubsidiesandtax
relief schemes granted to film industries, on the laws and implementing
measures that regulate these industries, on the institutions in charge of
film policies, and on film quality in the key countries covered. Gath-
ering these data has required the recourse to primary sources since these
measures have almost never been explored in a comprehensive manner
within the existing literature. Data have been collected over long periods
of time, from twenty to seventy years, depending on the topic and avail-
ability. Such a long time frame ensures more robust results—too many
studies of the film industry rely upon short time periods, which fail to
identify major changes that may happen down the line given the high
volatility of the film industry. Long periods also possess the significant
advantage of revealing changes that are not perceptible if the time period
is too short.
Incompletingthisbook,wewouldliketothankourresearchassistants,
Dr. Yeon W. Lee and Dr. Wenyan Yin. We would also wish to extend
our gratitude to Dr. Kyuchan Kim for his support, critique, and insights.
Furthermore,wewanttoexpressourappreciationtoKoreanFilmCouncil
(KOFIC)andCentrenationalducinémaetdel’imageanimée (CNC)for
sharingtheirknowledgeanddatawithus.SpecialthanksgoestoStephen
Rangerforhiseditingandcommentsforthisbook.Finally,wearegrateful
to Springer Nature for their early reviews of parts of the manuscript and
helpful comments, and in particular to Ruth Jenner who recognized the
value of this book.
Finally,wewouldliketothankallthescholarswhoconductedresearch
on the Korean film industry. Without their previous works, which have
PROLOGUE: WHY THE KOREAN FILM INDUSTRY? ix
been the base of this book, we would not have been able to produce this
work.
This work was supported by the Laboratory Program for Korean
Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and
the KoreanStudies PromotionServiceof the Academy of KoreanStudies
(AKS-2015-LAB-2250003).
Jimmyn Parc and Patrick A. Messerlin
Sciences Po Paris