By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
As is their wont, the Gray Lady has yet again delved in to how cool Korea is these days. I swear the Koreans got some kinda secret “cool factory” somewhere around Seoul where they have studied what Western people think is cool and then simply used a formula to produce things that are, in fact, cool.
But I digress.
Park’s films are usually classed as “Asian Extreme,” something of a catchall term for a new crop of hyperviolent films made in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand that have garnered a cult following not just in Asia but also in Europe and the United States. The films take many of the elements of exploitation flicks and twist them — the violence is stylized and inventive, the plots often tinged with political attitudes.
Interestingly enough, the piece has this bit:
Some (of his films) deal with sex, at times of a rather unusual kind, like the protracted love scene between septuagenarians in “Too Young to Die,” which initially prompted the Korea Media Rating Board to declare the film unfit for public viewing.
When I was but a wee little expat (and significantly more clueless than I am now — if that is even possible, I know) I wrote about seeing this film on a bus on my way home from Busan.
While the bus run down to Busan was quite pleasant (a pleasant 5 hour
jaunt), the bus ride back was a different story. It was horribly long
(12 hours). And I got to see old, fat people have sex! I was in the
back and it was about midnight. I look up and what do I see on the TV
screen but a fat Korean couple going at it, butt nekkid. I wanted to
look away but couldn’t…and it wasn’t one of those brief shots you
might see in an arty American film. Imagine if in the movie “About
Schmitt” if we hadn’t just see a brief shot of Kathy Bates nekkid…but
if we had seen Jack Nicholson nekkid body on top of hers for about 3
minutes just going at it. It was kinda cute in a “good god that’s icky”
kinda way. I did want to say to the woman, “Move your hips just little
bit honey, don’t just lie there like a limp noodle.”
Be sure to read the rest of the NYT piece on your own.
39 Comments
just watched that movie last week. it’s impressive, but a lot seemed borrowed from the japanese genre of this type of movie. there was some of the extreme visual elements of “ichi the kiler” mixed with abandoned brutality of what would otherwise be normal people had they not been forced into a brutal situation (a la “battle royale”). still, there is an unquestionable korean element there. similar in a way to the korean “samaria” by kim ki duk that taps into a violence and brutality both just underneath the surface in public and often in physical form behind closed doors.
where to begin, urkel?
“wont”; “the Gray Lady” “delved”. Christ, man, go reread McGuffey’s if you have to; but lose the cutesy - poo, will you.
And stop hallucinating that everything that appears in the Times about Korea has something to do with some locust-valley lockjaw fetish with Korean cool. That might be accurate, in part, about Jamie Brooke, but the author of this piece is Ian Buruma, who is an accomplished scholar of East Asia who is way beyond the sort of fetishism with which you are so pre-occupied that one suspects it’s projection.
Hee-hee.
In general, this is my response to the attacks on my particular writing style:
Long ago, before the age of man, a terrible storm swept through Korea. Animal families were torn apart. The storm swept a talkative little mockingbird chick far, far from home. Her name was Tweet Tweet and she loved to tell stories. Her family loved her stories, too. They were fun and interesting. But Tweet Tweet found herself in a strange new land after the storm. The first animal she met was Mr. Rat. Tweet Tweet was friendly to Mr. Rat. She started telling the story of how she became so far away from home.
“Hello, Mr. Rat! Do you want to hear a story?”
“No,” Mr. Rat said.
“Why not? I’ve had a great adventure! I was sitting in my nest, talking to my mother when…”
“I don’t care. I hate stories. Stories are stupid. I like eating rotten food, not stories! GO AWAY!”
Scared, Tweet Tweet hurried away as fast as she could.
Soon, Tweet Tweet stumbled across Mr. Badger. She again started telling her stories.
“Oh, Mr. Badger, have I got a story for you! I’ve just got to tell someone what just happened to me!”
“Why?” Mr. Badger said. “What’s it about?”
“A great storm swept me away. I’m on my way home,” Tweet Tweet said.
“I don’t care. I only like stories about living underground. Above ground stories are stupid. You’re stupid. GO AWAY!”
Scared yet again, Tweet Tweet ran away as fast as she could!
Finally, it was getting dark and Tweet Tweet was cold and scared. She just wanted to go home. She came across Mr. Beaver, busy at work on his dam.
“Oh, Mr. Beaver, can you show me the way home? I want to return home to my mockingbird family.”
“Only if you tell me a story…,” Mr. Beaver began.
I’m tempted to write a much more pointed story on the subject, just to get it out of my system.
Hey, if that’s your idea of onanism material, go for it, “dude”. Har, har!
That doesn’t even make sense.
Shelton, you’re like the white baduk.
Dogbertt.
Yes it does — the story is about someone who tells stories that there is an audience for, just not the one he/she has at that particular moment.
I am well aware that just like Tweet Tweet my manner of telling stories here at the Marmot’s Hole is not how a lot of the audience wants to hear them, but The Marmot’s Hole gives me the type size audience I want. Or put another way — while the Squeeky Wheels may not like my writing style, I think more casual observers might be a bit more kind.
And Robert — to date — has humored me, so I guess that’s really important.
Ah…the favored of Uncle Robert.
Well, since he has not deleted our Bumgarner-critical comments either, what do you make of that?
And Shelton, if people really liked your writing style, they’d actually leave comments on one of your blogs.
People leave comments here because The Marmot’s Hole itself is popular.
don’t mention his blogs, dogbertt, he may start linking to them again…
Well, I make of it that he’s a fair and honest man, that’s what I make of it.
I don’t want him to delete any negative comments of my material. In fact, I’d kinda be pissed off if he did.
The whole no-comment thing strikes me as a strawman. Fuck that. I don’t care if you, your cat or your anyone else comments on anything I write. So what. Boo-hoo-hoo no one commented on my post. Sheeesh!
Not a personal attack, just I have more important things to worry about than comments.
i was sort of hoping that he was giving you enough rope to hang yourself. however, i’ve now given up on that as the inventory surely dried up long ago.
notice, if you will, that everytime you post something without your comments on it, people often have a discussion on the topic. note that when you do make your comments on it all discussion turns to shelton and his childish comments. the proof is in the puddin’.
The whole no-comment thing strikes me as a strawman. Fuck that. I don’t care if you, your cat or your anyone else comments on anything I write. So what. Boo-hoo-hoo no one commented on my post. Sheeesh!
God, Robert…
It’s long past time to pull the plug.
I like your writing, Shelton.
“white baduk” . . . hehehehehe. That is at once a compliment, a joke and and insult.
His writing is fine Kev, it is his sensibilities that are in question.
Dogbertt,
I think everyone here understands my thoughts on Shelton’s writings (except, ironically, Shelton himself), but I wouldn’t make too much about the lack of comments on Shelton’s blog.
This is purely anecdotal, but I know from my sitemeter.com data that some of my posts that have the most hits, and/or are linked by other blogs, and/or get people to email me about the post, sometimes also have few or no comments left on the blog. And there are some comments on other blogs that I think are quite interesting yet I don’t feel moved to leave comments.
And as much as I think Shelton is inappropriate for The Marmot’s Hole, some of what he writes at migukin.com is worthwhile and appropriate for his blog.
By the way, Marmot, if you ever make Tweet Tweet a guest blogger, then I’m pulling you off the blog role.
Some (of his films) deal with sex, at times of a rather unusual kind, like the protracted love scene between septuagenarians in “Too Young to Die,”[...]
The “(of his films)” bit is incorrect - the article is talking about Korean films in general, not Park’s. He didn’t direct “Too Young to Die”.
Bulgasari,
But the rest of the aricle is mostly about Park. Great fucking article indeed - the rest of you should probably take the time and read this instead of bitcing about the blogger who posted it. Good find btw, Shelton.
Ray wrote:
Great fucking article indeed - the rest of you should probably take the time and read this instead of bitcing about the blogger who posted it.
Sorry, Ray, but I have to disagree with you. His opening paragraph was all that appeared on the blog before the “continue reading” part:
And sadly, that opening salvo was the same leftover Shelton reheated for another go:
Get over it with the “Gray Lady” bit, already.
I said stop it! (Okay, to be fair, the last one is from his blog, not this one, but still!).
And also, did we really need Shelton’s archived description of the old, fat people having sex that Shelton saw on a bus, which made up one third of the post?
Anyway, back to your Gray Lady musings. Maybe Spewer’s right and you do have masturbatory fantasies about the Gray Lady (or small birds). In that case, Shelton, expert advice on quality Asia-related journalism is not the only professional help you need.
Look, since you missed it the other twenty-nine times I wrote it, here it is again:
1. Your cutesiness in your writing is not endearing to anyone except possibly your mother and your aunties. To us, particularly to people who have enough interest in Korea to reguarly read a blog like Marmot’s Hole, your musings are annoyingly trite.
2. More to the point, they appear to be attempts to mask your utter lack of knowledge about the place. Your observations about Korea are pedestrian, pedestrian as in the “gee whiz” attitudes of an English teacher fresh off the boat.
3. This is the part you have missed because you didn’t like the constructively critical/insulting lead-up: if you want to be a journalist, you are going to need a far stronger knowledge base—so go to grad school and try to write instead of teaching at a hagwon and writing a blog—and a new style that focuses on substance.
And again, if your primary motivation in being a “writer” or “journalist” is to have your name in print, then just give up now. People want to read someone with something to say, not a byline they wish to gawk at.
Great, now I’ve had TWO comments on this post. That means I won’t be able to comment on the Ebonics-Japanese dictionary, the shit of which was off the hook.
I am surprised to read the bit about how there were no political taboos in cinema in Korea anymore, aside from North-South relations. First thing that sprang to mind was THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG. I remember Korean journalists at an early screening telling me that the film was “irresponsible”, and in general being completely unable to separate the film’s politics (or what they perceived as being the film’s politics) from its artistic qualities.
Also, it is more than a bit of a stretch to say his films are “enormously popular.” JSA was a huge hit, sure, but OLDBOY and LADY VENGEANCE maxed out around 3 million tickets… solid outings, but not “enormously popular” in a country where THE KING AND THE CLOWN sold 12 million tickets (and JSA sold 6 million). LADY VENGEANCE in particular benefited from having a very strong marketing campaign, which is why it had a huge opening weekend (1.4 million tickets in the first four days, iirc), but then plunged pretty quickly.
I’m surprised Buruma put a focus on guilt in Park’s work and his student days without looking at the effects of Park attending a Jesuit-founded university.
Plus Buruma repeats the tired old lines about the screen quota (and gets the numbers wrong) and government support of the film industry.
> This taste for the grotesque and the absurd can also be found
> in the stylized Chinese, Korean and Japanese theater, which
> depend on deliberately exaggerated effects and theatrical gestures
Uh, as opposed to Punch and Judy? Or (outside of theater) The Brothers Grimm? I’d be surprised if many cultures lacked a “grotesque and absurd” tradition.
> “Joint Security Area” is a melodrama that perfectly expresses
> the modishly left-wing nationalism that grips many young
> South Koreans today: North Koreans are depicted as mostly nice,
> gentle people; much of the brutality is in the South; and the partition
> of Korea is the work of foreigners.
Ouch. That is a good bit of analysis, though. I have felt the same way about JSA since watching it, but have never been able to express myself so susinctly. Part of that political angle, however and imho, comes from the production company. JSA was produced by Myung Film, a very good film company that has a rather specific political viewpoint. Now part of a company called MK Pictures, that same producer is working on the NO GUN RI movie (based on the AP account), and a film called SONG OF ARIRAN, about the Korea communist Kim San/Jang Ji-rak (cannot recall if it is based on the Nym Wales book or not).
In general, I think Park Chan-wook talks a good game, but ultimately is a fairly empty vessel. Or perhaps it is better to say he is quite talented, but not a good storyteller. He needs an original work to base his ideas on (JSA was a book, Oldboy a comic book) because when he goes off on his own, his stories become much more sketchy.
In general (2), as much as I love Buruma’s work and his insights, overall, this essay revealed his limited knowledge of Korea. And this essay comes perilously close to Orientalism (especially the conclusion).
In general (3), I wish Shelton would get off his NYT-Korea kick. It is obvious that he knows nothing about how the New York Times works or how its editors and writers view Korea. Apparently he does not know who Ian Buruma is either, which is a depressing thought (if one is going to post one’s thoughts to the world, is it that hard to run a Google search first?).
Did Ian Buruma actually write six pages about Park Chan-wook?
Robert - You did not bother to follow the link? Yes he did. He was in Korea in January to conduct the interview (and I’m still kicking myself because I did not find out about it until two days after he left Korea… missed my chance to meeet him).
Yes, I followed the link. I was simply expressing surprise that anyone could write that much–and the NYT would print that much–about Park. I mean, I “kinda” like Park as much as the next guy (loved Old Boy, thought Lady Vengeance sucked balls), but still…
Robert - I guess my sarcasm was as lost on you and yours was on me. At this rate, I’m going to have to start using emoticons. :-p
NYT Magazine is as much about the author as it is about the subject (at least sometimes). Buruma could cough up phlegm on a napkin, and I’m sure most New York publications would print it in a heartbeat. Usually his phlegm is more erudite than anything I could write, but in this case, it was a pretty weak article.
And considering he just wrote an article on Robert Crumb for the New York Review of Books, I would have to guess that Mr. Buruma is working on some sort of book about pop culture at the moment.
Ahssa!
Methinks I struck a sore spot.
I liked the JSA.
But the Old Boy was a garbage. I walked out after 20 mins. What a garbage!
The wheels on the bus go round and round.
I have gotten endless fun reading the savagings of Mr Bumgarner. I think its time that you let the cat out of the bag, someone must be taking the piss here.
1. Nope. I honestly don’t care if anyone responds. A-sa! Right back atcha big guy.
2. Andreu: That’s the whole crux of this isn’t it? Are they teasing me, deathly serious, or simply don’t like my writing style (in the extreem)?
Nothing changes here. Commenting on Shelton’s writing is an “extreem” waste of time. We’ve all made our points. He’s not going to change. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not Mr. Marmot hears us and takes action.
2. Andreu: That’s the whole crux of this isn’t it? Are they teasing me, deathly serious, or simply don’t like my writing style (in the extreem)?
Oh, fucking A!!! What the hell is the matter with you? Did your mother drink when she was pregnant? Did you fall from the monkey bars one too many times? Was the oxygen cut off for too long in a harrowing diving incident? …
Why are you unable to comprehend what is being very clearly written?!
How pathetic is this, Shelton? Yeah, it is fun to read some of the comments (which occasionally go overboard), but Jeebus Echi Crisco, you take the one glimmer of hope (this time from Andreu) that is expressed here and use it as a reason to ignore everything else.
I gave you constructive criticism—CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM—that’s like construction paper except it’s criticism, but you can still make something with it.
Shelton, get out of this coccoon of denial you have wrapped yourself in where you can just pretend that the criticisms are a bunch of meanies. No, I and a few others have offered HELPFUL advice, which you just choose to ignore.
Do you even SEE the constructive criticism and the advice? This is what is so freaking annoying about your posts—you refuse to listen to or acknowledge what’s wrong and instead come back full-force with more of the same.
The one thing you have going for you—the one thing—is your drive and enthusiasm. If you EVER want to be a writer, you will have to channel that into something else that is in a completely different direction from where you’re going. No, it won’t be easy, but if it were easy, then everybody would be doing it.
Some say Park Chan-wook takes the violence in his movies to an “extreem,” but I think he’s more like a warmed-over David Lynch. Sheeesh!
If Shelton didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.
right. like he’s someone’s narcissistic split personality. perhaps the marmot’s-that would explain his favored blogger status.
if the shoe fits…
Hee hee. Boo-hoo-hoo. Sheeesh!
because when he goes off on his own, his stories become much more sketchy.
I guess you didn’t like Mr. Vengeance or Lady Vengeance?
Robert said:
(loved Old Boy, thought Lady Vengeance sucked balls),
Damn, opinions are all over the place. I liked Lady Vengeance a lot, though it could have been a little less fast-paced while still retaining its intensity…and maybe a little less odd camera angles and tricks. Just curious - what didn’t you like about it?
Shelledin:
I honestly don’t care if anyone responds. A-sa! Right back atcha big guy.
Well, I wonder if Robert feels the same about this blog.
“I swear the Koreans got some kinda secret “cool factory” somewhere around Seoul where they have studied what Western people think is cool and then simply used a formula to produce things that are, in fact, cool.”
It’s quite possible they have a “cool factory” but if so where’s the goods? K-pop, Old Boy and K-hop?