The attention-grabbing South Korean films that have won hearts around the rest of the region
The fact that South Korean cinema has yet to make serious inroads with Cambodian audiences is something of an anomaly. Domestic appetite for Korean music and drama shows no signs of abating, and in other Asian countries, Korea’s film exports are doing a booming trade. But Cambodia has lagged behind the trend.
“There was one film a few years ago that was shown in local cinemas,” says South Korean Embassy employee Hyewon Kim, “but I think it’s the only example.”
The “Spotlight on Korean Film Today” series hopes to bring an end to this discrepancy. Curated by Hyewon Kim with the help of other embassy staff, the program introduces audiences at the Cambodia International Film Festival to five films that have been box office hits elsewhere in Asia.
Opening the program is the film voted Korea’s most successful melodrama of all time: Jo Sung-hee’s fairytale drama A Werewolf Boy, in which a woman becomes captivated by taming a charming beast. The 2012 costume drama Masquerade – which attracted more than 10 million viewers while on general release – features shape shifters of a different stripe, as a Joseon dynasty king switches places with his court jester to disastrous effect.
Bong Joon-ho’s The Host is the oldest and most successful film on the schedule – the monster-kidnap drama quickly became the highest grossing Korean film of all time when released in 2006.
The other two films on show centre around family drama, a theme that Kim says has proved particularly popular with Asian audiences. Boomerang Family is an inter-generational comedy charting the pressures of living in close confines, and Set Me Free offers a dark take on teenage angst.
Kim is insistent that although the films chosen all have crowd-pleasing potential, they have been carefully curated for quality as well as accessibility: “There are four concepts in Korean cinema: scale, story, stars and society. We’ve chosen films that focus on these concepts – the reason that Korean [cinema] is growing in popularity worldwide.”
Festival programmer Cedric Eloy paints a similar picture of the local market potential for film exports, saying that the “stronger stories” and “different stars” of Korean films will prove to be a welcome discovery for local audiences.
CIFF SCHEDULE
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SATURDAY 6TH DEC
AEON MALL Major Cineplex Men Who Save the World 9.40am A Werewolf Boy 6pm Lucy 9pm Legend City Mall Legend TK Avenue Legend Steung MeanChey Platinum Cineplex French Institute Le Cinema Bophana Center Chaktomuk Theatre Koh Pich (Open Air) |
SUNDAY 7TH DEC
AEON MALL Major Cineplex River of Exploding Durians 4pm Boomerang Family 7pm Legend City Mall Legend TK Avenue Legend Steung MeanChey Platinum Cineplex French Institute Le Cinema Bophana Center Chaktomuk Theater Koh Pich (Open Air) |
MONDAY 8TH DEC
AEON MALL Major Cineplex Set Me Free 6pm Mea Culpa 8.15pm Legend City Mall Lengend TK Avenue Legend Steung Mean Chey Platinum Cineplex French Institute Le Cinema Bophana Center Koh Pich (Open Air) |
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TUESDAY 9TH DEC AEON MALL Major Cineplex Colt 45 6.30pm The Gate 8.15pm Legend City Mall Legend TK Avenue Legend Steung Mean Chey Platinum Cineplex |
French Institute Le Cinema Pram Ang 10am Inside the Belly of a Dragon 2pm Le Grand Tour: Cambodia-Thailand 4pm Cambodia Forests, Water, Life 6.15pm The Empire of the Middle of the South 7:15pm Ruin 9pm Bophana Center Koh Pich (Open Air) WEDNESDAY 10TH DEC AEON MALL Major Cineplex Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten 2pm The Last Reel 4.15pm Legend City Mall |
Legend TK Avenue Men Who Save the World 11.30am Masquerade 6pm Legend Steung Mean Chey Platinum Cineplex French Institute Le Cinema Bophana Center |
