Culture critic Chin Jung-kwon might have gotten savaged by certain quarters of the netizen community for daring to say “D-War” sucked, but he did get an LA Times interview out of it.
The money shot?
Sphere: Related Content“They are fanatics, and they are mobilized on the Internet,” Chin says. “It’s dangerous. This is a country where people put their whole lives into Internet culture and where success is measured by the number of hits you get online. That’s why you see all the media writing about the greatness of ‘D-War.’ ”
The pressure to generate online traffic leads to this broad consensus, Chin says.
“There is a wholly different logic in Korea,” he says. “This era of blind patriotism must die out.”
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Is there any way we could convince Chin to spend the rest of his life planting his seed in millions of Korean women in the hopes that his insightful, clear-headed view of Korean fanaticism and blind nationalism might be passed on to the next generation en masse?
wow, a heroic man, indeed. and a very brave one, as well. kudos to him for having the cajones to tell it like it is. and he’s korean, too?
well done, sir.
oh, and i realise no one else here gives a damn, but…
YEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! ROCKIES in the WORLD SERIES!!! now just gotta win 4 more…
okay, thanks for allowing me to get that out. this is not the forum for it, i know, but i figured a celebration of a clear-thinking korean culture critic should be accompanied by my guttural howl of joy at the rockies’ win.
and, now, back to regular commenting.
Kudos to Chin. Clear and level-headed people are a rare breed in Korea, but hopefully we will see more of them in the near future.
Ok, Chin Jung-kwon is not your ordinary Korean, but it has to start from somewhere. In case someone’s interested in what he’s been up to, I have a couple of posts on him in my own blog (via Google search). He used to be a member of the Democratic Labor Party, and he always attracted a lot of readers in the bulleting boards where he was active. He used to fight the jucheists within DLP, but I understand that disgust in them was the main reason he left. Unsuk Jin (Jin Eun-sook), the renown composer residing in Germany, is his sister.
iheartblueballs: That’s #2 on my to-do list. Still trying to finish #1, which is getting Michael Moore to plant his seed in millions of American women with the same hopes for the future.
Journeyman we Americans are a fat and ugly enough people as it is!
“This era of blind patriotism must die out”
Can’t agree more.
#6: Just what we need, a nation of fat, ill-shaven, ball-capped propagandists who went to Moo U.
It’s probably a bad sign if even the trailer makes you wanna puke.
How so many survived what must have been a pukefest that left half the weight of the audience on the floor is beyond me.
How credible is comparing a minority voice railing against nationalism in a highly nationalistic country, and getting death threats for it, with an Oscar Award-winning celebrity with a featured role in the Democratic Party convention?
Kudos to Chin for going against the flow of idiotic netizens! I’m just so sorry that he gets all that flack for telling the emperor that he has no clothes…
Now,if only we could get rid of blind patriotism,WORLDWIDE.
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[...] It’s kind of ironic then, that I thought like that on Wednesday, only to read an article in the English Chosun Ilbo today about how the Korean Wave was just a flash in the pan, much of it copied from Japan (see the examples the article claims in the picture, which include 200 Pound Beauty) and why the Japanese Wave just keeps on coming. But neither is any great surprise, and was apparent to virtually everyone a few years ago except seemingly the entire Korean media, the government, and by extension all too many Koreans. Despite the Chosun Ilbo’s apparent about face, and the useful related links available if you click on the article, it too was guilty of grossly exaggerating the Korean Wave’s success as recently as September, which you can see for yourselves with titles like “Korean Computer Animators Rising to Challenge Hollywood” and “D-War Director Returns Home Triumphant.” The public clearly has yet to get the message too, considering netizen’s reactions to a televison debate about D-War and one of the few Koreans daring to criticise the monstrosity. [...]
[...] and I’d be the last person to want that undermined in any way. But despite all the nationalist hype about movies like D-War, Koreans are no longer prepared to watch movies simply because they are Korean, and the industry [...]