Squid game (Source: IMDB)
Nóra Terján
06/04/2023 08:00
Korea experienced complete commercial and diplomatic isolation until the end of the 19th century and then colonial rule from 1876 to 1945. After the separation from Japan came the division, followed by a three-year war from 1950 onwards that claimed some three million civilian lives. This is where the ‘tiger cub’ of the South raised itself from. It has rapidly rebuilt its economy and become one of the world's cultural powers. But how did it do this? What is the secret?
In South Korea, the politically active generation born in the 1960s, known as the 386 Generation, did much to dismantle the dictatorship. They were the ones who had the chance to study abroad and then return home to give the country new impetus. Another driving force behind the cultural explosion was dynamic economic growth: per capita GDP grew from USD 94 in 1961 to USD 31,363 in 2018, and the government consciously began to promote the international dissemination of South Korean culture. It’s no coincidence that the bid to host the Summer Olympic Games was launched in the 1970s and was successful as early as 1988.
In 2021, at the low-key Oscars held in front of a small, masked audience, another South Korean film emerged from the international field: US-based Lee Isaac Chung's Chung Minari came virtually out of nowhere. Dedicated to his grandmother, the autobiographical film about a Korean family chasing the American dream premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and, after the Golden Globe, it also won one of its major categories among its six Oscar nominations: actress Youn Yuh-jung, who played his grandmother, took home the statue for Best Supporting Actress.
And there's no stopping there: perhaps the biggest Netflix sensation of last year was Squid Game, which topped the streaming giant's worldwide ratings for a long time. The actors of the series have become international superstars: the male lead, Lee Jung-jae, recently became the first Asian actor to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and the female lead, HoYeon Jung, has become an icon. The biggest fashion houses are competing for her graces. While the South Korean survival drama became a veritable global cultural phenomenon, at this year's Cannes Film Festival the international jury awarded the Best Director prize to the creator of Oldboy, the aforementioned Park Chan-wook, for his noir-infused love story Decision to Leave.
According to Motion Pictures' annual summary, South Korea's film revenue in 2018 was USD 1.6 billion, the fourth largest in markets outside the United States. In terms of the number of films produced, Hollywood lost the lead a long time ago: it was overtaken by India in 2006, and even by the Nigerian film industry in 2009. In 2017, even China produced more films than the United States, but the dream factory was also surpassed by Japan.
Of course, quantity does not equate to quality. Korean films are much easier to understand and digest internationally than, say, the output of Bollywood (the Indian film industry), and in terms of quality, they are levels above Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry), the current market leader in terms of quantity, while still being able to represent their own values. “Aesthetically appealing, economically profitable, culturally compelling, technologically sophisticated and ideologically introspective” – is how Euny Hong, the journalist who coined the term hallyu, described Korean filmmaking. For example, the 1999 blockbuster Shiri, which depicted the conflict between North and South Korea, grossed more than Titanic domestically.
The other part of the Korean pop industry since the early 2000s has been the agencies that also act as record labels. The rate of growth has been staggering: while South Korea was only ranked 29th in the world music rankings in 2005, by 2022 it had risen to the top. Labels have learnt from the scandals of the Backstreet Boys and their counterparts: agencies sign infinitely strict contracts with performers who have to meet a host of requirements. The positive part is, of course, that would-be stars have to be polite at all times and under all circumstances, but young artists are also often told, for example, not to take a stand on politics, not to drink alcohol or even not to date.
The impact of the Korean wave is reflected in the increasing number of American artists collaborating or touring with Korean bands. The most prestigious music chart, Billboard, launched its own K-pop chart in August 2011, but YouTube now treats Korean pop as a genre in its own right.
K-pop is so successful because Koreans have a very different understanding of marketing than Western European or American stars. In fact, Koreans consider it part of their job to provide fan services to their audience. All of this means a close, ‘family’ bond between the star and their fans. Bands are highly active on their social media pages, organising meet-and-greets, launching challenges, releasing limited edition albums and always adding something extra to the product to make it worth buying – not just downloading from the internet.
The most successful band in the world today is seven-member boy band Bangtan Sonyeondan (Bulletproof Boy Scouts) from Seoul. They are the ones who have taken fan services to a truly artistic level; their fans simply call themselves the Army. The band's videos invariably have over one hundred million views, and it's no coincidence that they're on the cover of Rolling Stone.
The hallyu can rightly be criticised for being no more than a clever ploy, a commercial product, a commodity of capitalism, which is about nothing more than the economic expansion of South Korea. No doubt it will help Korean companies conquer new markets on the basis that anyone who likes, say, one of the boy bands will be susceptible to Korean beauty care and, as a related commodity, perhaps also be open to buying some electronic gadgetry or fashion items. The ‘genius’ of the hallyu model is that it exports its own culture while selling the Korean dream to the world.
While South Korean pop stars with billions of views are adored by the world's youth, the North Korean ‘popular genre’ can be divided into two regime-compliant types: revolutionary music and state-controlled popular music.
Not surprisingly, the revolutionary music is performed by various choirs of the Korean People's Army. Their songs are usually about the struggle against imperialism, about victory and patriotism. The song titles speak for themselves: “March of the immortal army” or “Death to American imperialism!”.
The unique genre of North Korean light music is represented by groups such as the Moranbong Band, a favourite of the ‘Dear Leader’, the Unhasu Orchestra, the Wangjaesan Light Music Band, the Chongbong Band, the Yun I-sang Orchestra, and the Mansudae Art Troupe, which also performs operas. Their sound is almost pop music, their performers also use electric instruments (synthesisers, solo and bass guitars), but they mostly sing about the incessant fight, industry and the life of the people.
The Moranbong Band is North Korea's first state girl group, established in 2012 at the request of Kim Jong-un himself as the successor to the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble, with the aim of “developing in a balanced manner the traditional and popular music to suit the emotions and aesthetic sense of the Korean people, the demands of the times and the wishes of the people”. The Moranbong Band is a departure from North Korean tradition in terms of both visuals and music: they also play ‘Western’ songs, including a cover of the Rocky theme song and Frank Sinatra's My Way. The members of the girl band wear sparkly minidresses and jewellery, which is also in contrast with the previous North Korean dress code. The BBC has described their appearance as “conservatively sexy”, they wear uniformly short hairstyles, and are reportedly also kept on a diet aimed at keeping their figure similar.
In spite of their appearance, the lyrics of their songs are aligned with North Korean ideology. They also celebrate the party, the military and, of course, the ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-un, and their music is often compared by critics to the somewhat dated musical clichés of the Eurovision Song Contest. Yet in their own country, the ladies are so popular that many people imitate their hairstyles, and when state television broadcasts a concert, the streets are empty.
It is, however, not just in music that the closed, communist country is light years behind its Southern (now considered a foster) sibling. North Korea's independent cinematic universe began with the division of Korea and has been maintained by the ruling Kim dynasty ever since. Following Japan's defeat in World War II, filmmakers from both the North and the South sought to make the first post-liberation Korean film in their own half of the peninsula. Although the South Koreans won the race with 1946’s Viva Freedom!, North Korea was not far behind with My Home Village. During the Korean War, almost all the studios and film archives were destroyed, and after 1953 everything had to be rebuilt.
Kim Il-Sung and his successor, Kim Jong-il, considered themselves veritable ‘cinephiles’ and advocated the production of propaganda films based on Juche ideology. Kim Il-Sung believed with religious conviction in Lenin's words that cinema was the most important of all the arts, and thus capable of spreading the government's ideology. In his 1973 treatise On the Art of the Cinema, Kim Jong-il went even further, stating that cinema had the task of educating people to become true communists and to completely eradicate capitalist elements. This is somewhat contradicted by the fact that production costs were generally very low, which is reflected in the final result. Nevertheless, North Korea has also made some films that have been released to the wider world.
