WHITHER THE KOREAN FILM INDUSTRY?

Abstract

In the past decade, the Korean film industry has enjoyed never-before-seen success at home and abroad. With the high domestic market share of local movies (recording more than 40% market share continuously from 2001), it has been reported that Korea is “the only nation during the post-Vietnam War history that would regain its domestic audiences after losing them to Hollywood” (Kim, 2004). Based on this domestic achievement, Korean cinema’s foreign exports have also drastically increased, from 14 movies that generated revenue of US$173,838 in 1993 to 202 movies that reached about US$75 million in 2005 (Korean Film Council, 2010). Despite this achievement, trade headlines and popular news reports have continued to rave about these external figures while ignoring significant internal changes from within the Korean film industry. In addition, there is a tendency among scholars to interpret this commercial achievement simply as successful resistance against American cultural imperialism within the local vs. global paradigm. In order to understand the cultures of production (du Gay, 1997) of the currentKorean film industry, this study examines the changing industrial formations and ownership concentration processes in the Korean film industry of the 2000s against the backdrop of distinct media globalization processes. It relates this finding to larger discussions concerning the overseas development of the Korean Wave or Hallyu. From this political-economic approach, it is expected that readers can gain a more holistic understanding of the Korean film industry and the Korean Wave.