The trailer for Kang Woo-suk’s ultra-nationalist anti-Japanese The Da Vinci Code wannabe blockbuster “Hanbando” (Korean Peninsula) is out—click on over to the film’s website and enjoy.
For more on the film and an interview with its director (in English), check out Twitch. Just a sample:
And the initial concept, then?
Kang: I wanted to learn a bit more about the external circumstances that influenced our history. Take the situation 110 years ago for example, Queen Min’s assassination and the poisoning of Emperor Gojong started with foreign powers toying with us, so it’s essentially the same thing that’s happening today. I think we’re confronting the issue of foreign influence in our matters with too much ease, so I thought dealing with the matter through a film would be a good idea. If you think about the Dokdo Issue and everything around it, then the idea Japan might claim the Gyeongeuiseon Line as their own too could be plausible. When the script first came many directors like Lee Joon-Ik said the ‘book’ (slang for script in Chungmuro) was fun, but the idea Japan would proclaim Gyungeuiseon as their own was a little too excessive to accept, so they were a little worried. But looking at Japan’s recent behavior people will find the chances of something like that happening a little more likely, and I think they’ll accept the film.
Look, not that I’d want foreign powers to base policy decisions based on the nonsense Hollywood spews on a regular basis, but please, for the love of Christ, can we bring our troops home now? I mean, look at the film’s tagline, for God’s sake (i.e., “We’ve never been the owner of this land/country”). There’s no need for Washington to encourage such an attitude with a worthless (and thankless) military presence.
38 Comments
I was going to post a comment about how this sort of thing really isn’t going to help Japan and Korea relax, but upon watching the trailer, I realised it’s just fun fluff.
Kind of like a movie about America invading Canada starring John Candy.
“We’ve never been the owner of this land/country.” How ignorant. So Koreans are so utterly hapless that they have never influenced or had any control over their own destiny? This sounds like a movie KJI will enjoy….
Sorry, I just had to add this. I read the English review of the movie, and it still looks fun. But what the hell is this?
the slow and gradual move towards right-wing nationalism in the neighbouring country
Has the writer ever been to Japan? The only right-wingers here are the Black Van brigade and the government, and no one here listens to either of them.
No, it’s not. Although it might still be fun. But a completely different kind of fun.
About as much fun as eating dirt.
Reminds me of that half-baked Chun DongGun flick “2009:Lost Memories” from a few years ago, rampant conspiracy theories that even Mulder wouldn’t believe mixed with bald faced xenophobia and hyper nationalism. These instances wherein Korea (and China) decry big bad EVIL (modern day) Japan and its supposed blatant march to re-conquer and oppress its erstwhile peace loving neighbors is nothing more than jingoistic domestic pandering to rile up the masses (or control/channel them in China’s case).
Perhaps in doing this film the director could have researched the enormous corruption and incompetence within the Joseon court at the time, of which Queen Min was one of the leading actors against reform and engagement. Japan certainly worked the situation to its own interests, as states are wont to do, but Korean elites’ retrenchment and utter incompetence in dealing constructively with the situation and overarching concern in securing their own narrow parochial interests contributed to its loss of sovereignty more so than any number of Great Powers of the time. (just like China)
Regarding the U.S. presence on the peninsula and calls for bringing the troops home, I have to say that while I cannot stomach the way that they are often treated I do not think that pulling out is the answer at all. There is a real and necessary need for the troops to remain in the ROK. Some of the calculus in keeping USFK around is maintaining US forces in another Asian state, other than Japan. Japan is the linchpin to US strategy and the security of the region. From allaying fears within the region of a resurgent Japan and mitigating its need to fully expand its military capabilities to maintaining an overwhelming degree of force within the region that China is unable to feasibly balance against, Japan is the key.
That said, the political tenability of maintaining US forces in only one Asian state, Japan, are realistically small. If forces are maintained in Korea as well - though their maneuverability and capability are curtailed due to Korean politics and Korea’s own interests of not being entangled and hedging its bets, not appearing to be openly balancing against China – it is a sacrifice for the greater goal of maintaining a significant presence in Japan and East Asia.
The importance of this balancing in the region is recognized by Japan, which does not have to expend the financial or political capitol and resources to expand its capabilities. More importantly it is recognized by China. Though loathe to see any changes in the US-Japan alliance that increase US capabilities, further increasing the relative strength or position of the US vis-à-vis China, it is conventional wisdom in China that the US-Japan alliance maintains security, stability, and order within the region. These are obviously of paramount importance to China, which needs the regional stability to continue its economic modernization and growth – one of two pillars (the other being rabid domestic nationalism) that function to engender the communist regime with legitimacy. The maintenance of soft balancing between Japan-US and China is favorable to all actors – for the time being. And maintaining troops in the ROK is an important part of that ’soft balancing’.
If the US were to pull out of Korea it would eventually be forced, due to domestic Japanese concerns and quite possibly concerns back home in the States, to pull out of Japan – whether it wants to or not. This would return the region to a state of hard balancing and one that would be much less stable for trade, investment and most importantly US interests. As one scholar noted several years ago, the region is ripe for rivalry, with many feeling they have scores to settle. The US presence in the region serves to tamp down many of these sentiments, often by becoming, unjustly, the butt of scorn for these same sentiments. In the big picture this is seen as a small sacrifice for the maintenance of order and stability in the region, which overwhelmingly favors the US and its interests. It is only hoped that the allies that the US is invited to protect and aid would summon the political will and foresight to help reduce the tension within their own society and between that society and its guests with an honest and straightforward discussion of the situation.
You get the impression with this movie, Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host” and “Welcome To Dongmakgol” that Koreans are obsessed with the delusion that the U.S. and Japan relentlessly oppress Korea. They’re lucky to have the film quota because most of the Korean people I know refuse to sit through this kind of agitprop.
Why are so many ‘artists’ so stupid? So many of them would claim to be speaking ‘truth to power’ but in reality, most of them are speaking ‘lies to bureacracy’ at best. As someone who spent years in the arts, I’m tired of hearing from artists who don’t know sfa about the world, or who are completely willing to distort, exaggerate and lie for their own political agendas (usually leftist horseshiite), despite usually claiming they have no agendas.
I wish these stupid artists would stick to things they actually knew something about instead of making their supposed art serve as propoganda for bullshit conspiracy theories.
What’s royally rich is that Korean directors and actors complain about Hollywood and “U.S. cultural hegemony,” and the best they can come up with in response is total revisionist history and Pyongyang-style cartoon villany of the country’s ostensible ally. I’m not taking issue with films having political content, and they’re free to express themselves, still it’s pathetic that so many recent releases have had such a shallow, naive view of the world. These films make the X-Men series profound by comparison. Now watch, somebody is going to say the X-Men movies really are profound
Kang Woo-suk, despite employing a woman as his screenwriter for his last few films, is the most “ajeoshi” filmmaker in Korea. Absolutely artless dreck. He is so well-connected, I’m sure we’ll all hear more than we could ever want about this film by the time it comes out in July. But to do anything but ignore it is a big mistake (in my book, anyhow).
WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL was pretty goofy, but you don’t sell 8 million tickets to something people “refuse to sit through.”
Lumping THE HOST in with silliness like those films is another a big mistake. Bong Joon-ho is a great filmmaker, and certainly not “agitprop”, even if you disagree with his ideas.
Point being, I would rather worry about the quality of a movie than its politics. A good film, I can forgive some silly politics. But a bad film, I don’t care if it is expousing my exact beliefs, I don’t want to see it. (And HANBANDO looks really, really bad).
I agree with you, Michael, that films can take any point of view they want and are free to express themselves, but it gets tiring and its a turnoff for a large part of the potential audience (I’m thinking of Hollywood here-many Korean films such as this one seem tailored to appeal to xenophobic, rabid nationalistic revisionism). How many Hollywood movies do I have to sit through where the bad guys are always corporations or the US government? Rarely do you get a positive perspective on a corporation, and the government is often protrayed as corrupt, incompetent, evil, etc. (in some ways I would agree, but it gets to be a bit much, as the truth is more that its ultimately a bloated, thus an incompetent bureacracy). And the funny thing is, leftists hate government, but they always want it to be bigger and to collect more taxes and to have more control over everyone’s lives.
Sorry, pent-up rant against artists and the arts, built up over years in the field, while putting up with opinions based on stupidity (leftism), with rarely an interest in digging to find out more. Artists are so often one-sided and have no intellectual interest in learning more about the world, being content to just believe leftist dogma. The reason this irritates me, is because so many of them claim that the average person is a moron who accepts things blindly. Waht a joke! Artists are at least as blind as your average person on the street and in some ways, more so.
Haisan, I’m always recommending Bong’s “Memories of Murder,” which is an excellent film–”The Host” is another story altogether. “Wlecome to…” sold a lot of tickets, but it was still witless revisionism.
I can’t separate a film from its politics–like that crappy movie “Independence Day” that had the entire world celebrating the 4th of July. It’s just a movie, sure, but it’s just dreck, too, as “Handando” seems to be.
Snow, the evil corporation/gov’t conspiracy thing is just lazy script writing, which is what disappointed me about Bong’s new film.
Make no mistake, as I’ve said before Bong has an anti-U.S. agenda to push. He is a supporter of the anti-base relocation movement as well.
평택 미군기지 확장 반대와 한미 FTA 반대 문화한마당 “평택, 들이 운다”
6월 7일 (수) 광화문..!!
윤도현 밴드, 전인권 등 유명가수들이 공연을 하고,
29명의 소설가와 시인들이 1500여권의 책을 사인해서 나눠주며,
배우 최민식, 봉준호 감독 등 영화인들도 사인회를 열고,
전 장르를 망라한 예술가들이 모여 다양한 전시와 놀이마당을 펼치며,
대추리, 도두리 주민들과 함께하는…
평택 미군기지 확장 반대와 한미 FTA 반대 문화한마당!!
많은 분들이 이 뜻깊은 자리에 함께하셨으면 좋겠습니다.
( 홈피 : http://www.ethnicground.com/plain2 )
Robert:
“No, it’s not. Although it might still be fun. But a completely different kind of fun.”
You’re, it won’t be funny fun, but it will be the same kind of “baseless premise” sort of fun.
How about like a movie where Germany invades Poland? About the same historical relevence there.
Regardless, it may be fun, but it sure as hell ain’t gonna solve anything.
Bong came from the Yonsei University sociology department of the 1980s and is definitely from that scene, but I still consider him one of the good guys. He’s sympathetic to the ’80s left, but at the end of the day, he’d far rather sit down with a pen or brush in hand and work on his art than throw a shit-fit with the loonies. I guess I’m just more comfortable with people who don’t share my views (especially if they are good artists).
Art and politics have rarely been synchronized, from the beginning of both. Lots of great paintings, plays, poems etc. were political jabs… and often ill-founded positions at that. At the end of the day, I’d rather have the art.
(That said, for every work where the art is great enough to triumph over the dumb politics, there are thousands of works where dumb beats mediocre art).
INDEPENDENCE DAY wasn’t crappy because it was so USA-rah-rah. It was crappy because it was crappy. The USA-rah-rah stuff was just a symptom of its crappiness.
DONGMAKGOL was pretty bad, but my point was that a lot of people did go to see it and quite enjoyed it. Your (attempt at a) witty comment about the screen quota made no sense. Feel free to slag it in any other number of ways, though.
the koreans can make any kind of movie they want. if you don’t like it, you don’t watch it. it’s that simple.
boy, you always talk about koreans and emotions but then you turn around and want to base policy on some frickin movie that offends you. yeah, that’s objective.
lastly, let me give you the same advice you gave koreans when they were pissed at 007:
IT’S JUST A MOVIE! GET OVER IT!
ps why don’t you make your own movie, marmot? here’s a plot line for you:
flag waving american in korea living comfortable and treated well denigrating korean soldiers in iraq.
‘there’s no right wing in japan.’
yasukuni
He’s baaaaaaaack!!
pawikirogi,
First, no one is saying they can’t make it. I personally am saying it sounds stupid, but that’s what the internet is for. Unqualified people making unqualifiable comments.
Second,
“‘there’s no right wing in japan.’ yasukuni ”
Who said there was no right wing? I said that the only rightwingers are the crazy people and that no one except themselves listen to what they say.
I suppose I should have added, “and the Koreans.” But whatever, I thought that was obvious.
I can’t wait to see this movie! Korean movies in the last few years have been really entertaining and well-made, definitely improving. I try not to focus on the political messages in movies too much, particularly if there’s a hot chick in the film, and just take it with a grain of salt.
Come on people, let’s be fair, Japan and China (as well as most other countries in the world) have their share of ultra-nationalistic movies too. It’s just a movie folks.
–Remort
Kang Woo-suk’s, SUCKs!
Nulji/Pawi,
Many Koreans complained about the James Bond flick “Die Another Day” because of some inaccurate and/or inflammatory portrayals of Korea and the Korean situation in that movie. The campaign agains the film certainly went overboard in some aspects (Rick Yune was essentially hijacked at his press conference), but would someone argue that people in Korea have no right to complain about the portrayals in the film? Of course not; so why are you doing the same here?
Of course, we all talking about this new film are doing the same that the reporters were doing back then: staunchly stating opinions about a film we’ve merely heard about but not actually seen. The proof is in the 봤ing.
How is this movie a Da Vinci Code wannabe?
Haisan, I respect your opinions from the posts you’ve written here, but I still think the screen quota gives really dire movies like the one Marmot is talking about a leg up.
I’m fine with divergent political views, it’s intellectual dishonesty that I can’t stand.
Look at Kushibo’s example–Koreans were pissed off about “Die Another Day,” certainly for its political aspects, although I thought the filmmakers created KJI’s wet dream with all the advanced weaponry.
My original point was that several recent Korean movies skew history to make the U.S. military the “bad guy” and Japan hellbent on oppressing Korea again, and it’s bullshit.
Michael:
Understood about your main point. I’ve just long believed the screen quota to be irrelevant. Pro or con. As I said, I pretty much agree with you, I just thought that screen quota swipe was off the mark.
The quota especially has no effect on HANBANDO. Kang Woo-suk has more “juice” than almost anyone in the Korean film industry. When KBS news talked about SILMIDO, they did not do so in the entertainment news, they put the film in the main, lead part of the news. The man could crap on celluloid (and sometimes does) and get 3 million people buy tickets.
And that Bong Joon-ho did not belong in the same category as the others. I would be shocked if Bong were dishonest about anything (or any more than any of us is dishonest in our day-to-day lives). He honestly thinks the USFK dumped chemicals into the river, as many Koreans do. But it is not a major point in THE HOST (well, it is a plot point, but not a major moral point). Bong is neither dumb or dishonest.
Nulji is the urine-stained maundering homeless man of the blogosphere. Pity is the most he deserves.
That’s a relief to know. I thought I was the urine-stained maundering homeless man of the blogosphere.
Haisan, from what you’re saying I take it that some of the elements in these movies that bother me are simply internalized parts of Korean society, such as that Bong “honestly thinks the USFK dumped chemicals into the river, as many Koreans do.” (And of course, a USFK employee did.) So maybe these directors are just holding a mirror up to society, and I’m asking too much of them to look at their prejudices.
I take films as having ideological aspects that are of a piece with whatever aesthetic approach they take, because movies are a complex kind of “propaganda.” That’s actually what makes them interesting. If “Raiders of the Lost Ark” for example had generic bad guys instead of Nazis, it would have lost a lot of its compelling narrative–and that’s just a more overt instance of politics in a movie.
I’m really not cranky like this all the time
I generally don’t analyze movies, I just enjoy them. It struck me that these “themes” were cropping up in recent Korean movies and I think it’s disappointing–granted they may be more “art” and less agitprop as you say.
Michael - I think you are right to be bothered by those elements. To the extent that Korean films reflect that victim mentality in Korea, they can be extremely annoying.
But to me, what Kang Woo-suk or Jang Jin (the screenwriter of DONGMAKGOL) does is greatly different from what Bong Joon-ho or even Im Sang-soo does. Basically, I think KWS is an artless hack, using his small-minded prejudices to stir up other small-minded people. It is the worst kind of anti-art.
I should probably add a smiley face or something like that, too, just to show I am not entirely a humorless dweeb, but typing emoticons make my fingers hurt. :-p
Haisan, I see where you’re coming from and I do agree on your distinctions based on the levels of accomplishment between Bong and the others.
I hope you’ll write more for the Marmot in the future, your screen quota post was great and well received.
Michael - Okay then. I guess you get the last word.
Oh damn…
No please, after you…
Aieeshh
If want to see real revisionist history, check this out.
(Keep the volume low if you’re at work.)
kushibo, i thought the korean protest against the 007 film was ridiculous. why go hysterical over a movie? if you don’t like it, you don’t go see it. it’s that simple. and really, who cares how the japanese american director portrayed korean folk in the bond film? not me.
pawikirogi:
Get a grip dude.
–Remort
To an ignorant, racist ear such as yours, “Tamahori” probably does seem Japanese. Even though you have jumped out of the well, you are still quite obviously a moronic spawn of Tangun at heart.
Anyhoo, Tamahori is a Maori/English, you dimwitted racist cricket. Go grab your 9.2 cm and run along somewhere else now.
So what was so wrong with the portrayal of North Korea in the Bond film? The Nork leadership IS made up of evil schmuck. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was when the helicopter crashed near an oxen ploughing a field. I assumed it to be North Korea, though if it was supposed to be the South, obviously its behind the times, but if the North, then it’s actually ahead of the times. The Norks don’t have any oxen to plough fileds now cause they’ve all been eaten due to the famine. When and if times get better for the Norks, they may able to upgrade to oxen someday in the future, again.
One Trackback
[...] Ths Chosun Ilbo ran an interview with director Kang Woo-suk, whose new film “Hanbando”will open on July 13. We’ve discussed what promises to be an exercise in Korean hypernationalist fantasy before, but why read my tripe when you can get straight from the director’s mouth? [...]