London Korean Links

…continued from previous page

Q: To increase your chances of making a big success in French language movie, I wonder if you have thought of asking Brigitte Bardot to make her long awaited comeback in a small part?

[English]I know she hates people who eat dog meat – one of my favourites.

Q: Given the risk of filming a foreign movie, especially with foreign languages there is a certain risk, and my unofficial sources tell me that you are going to embark upon a fourth project with Korean director Kim Hyun Do. Is this in order to avoid Kieslowski error and safeguard against such a risky project?

Yes, that maybe the case, I am bringing in a few factors that will make me more likely not to fail with this international project. One is having an Asian actress or at least an Asian character in the movie, another is to say that I will have my film editor, and the filming done by my colleagues who will come to France to join me, so yes – these are safety nets I have provided in order to succeed.

In addition, DP Kim who worked with me on ‘A Good Lawyers Wife’ actually graduated from London’s film school.

Q: Your films mainly deal with hard times and the ordeal and the conflicts in Korea’s modern history. Are these for commercial goals or out of personal responsibility to confront the society with its own problems? How does your past present and future affect your own work?

I don’t think I’m very smart. You make movies such as ‘D-War’ or ‘Taegukgi’ you are guaranteed a lot of money as opposed to ‘The President’s Last Bang’. So you can see my answer in my intent to film ‘The President’s Last Bang’, knowing its not going to be a commercial success. I did try to make some money, but obviously failed. The film editor that I’m going to bring from Korea that I mentioned earlier, she has worked with me since a ‘A Good Lawyer’s Wife’ and at a special event we were talking generally about how underrated the director Im Sang-Su was and then she said: ‘I believe Im Sang-Su is and ugly duckling, but later when he becomes a swan he will be appreciated by all.’ And I like that comment so that’s why I’m bringing her today.

Q: since we are talking about the nationalisation of cinema – firstly, has the abolition of the Korean screen quota affected the sales for anyone you know in the industry? Secondly, I heard that Johnny To was going to be in Paris making a movie also – will you be meeting up with him?

It’s a fact that Korean cinema has hit a very difficult time with the film quota and will do so in the future. There is a conspiracy theory about this screen quota dictated by the US government, because the US market for Korean movies is actually extremely small so the reason seems quite unclear. It may be to provide space for the growing Chinese market in the future. Korean dramas and movie have a great influence on Chinese cinema and dramas so the argument seems plausible and not entirely wrong.

For your second question, I perceive Johnny To as a director who earns more than me. Despite that he has international projects at work he is extremely different from mine in a sense that I like to incorporate a lot of social and cultural aspects in my movies. In that case I would still have a lot to learn about the French culture in order to make this movie. In terms of meeting him, yes I would definitely like to meet him, and learn whatever I cam from him.

Recently in France I met up with a French director Alain Corneau and he asked when I said that I was making a French movie with French dialogue, he asked me if I spoke French and I said no, of course not. He replied ‘Don’t worry, when I made my movie in Japan with Japanese actresses and actors with Japanese dialogue, they would all come up to me and speak rapidly in Japanese and I couldn’t understand a word. It was an extremely happy and pleasurable experience for me.’ So I got a lot of strength from that.

Q: Do you believe ‘the Old Garden’ is one of your seminal works in terms of Korea’s modern history and it’s based on a novel by Hwang Seok Young and I’ve watched all your movies with interest and I have found a common element of comedy and laughter in all your work except it was absent in ‘The Old Garden’. Is this because, well my interpretation of that, was this because there are difficulties with transferring the novel to a movie or was it inherent in the book itself?

The movie and the book ‘The Old Garden’ deals with the democratisation movement in Korea which ran on for about 10 years during which a lot of social activists were imprisoned and tortured. There were mass protests and fighting going on during that time.

During the 1980’s when there were all these protests and the fight for democracy happened I was in my 20’s and a university student and I thought it would be great to make a movie during this period. None came out and I realised it’s extremely foolish trying to make a movie of a great novelist’s work as I constantly hear it’s quite different to the book.

In response to your question on the absence of humour in ‘The Old Garden’ if you found that there was comedy even in my previous movies it must have been due to my intent to mock and satire these characters and events, but because I lived during this period and these were the people I knew, I found myself unable to with this movie and that’s really why.

Q: What advice would you give to young filmmakers?

Rather than making an amazing artistic movie that will win awards, aim for making money! [laughs] If you want to do that, you must persuade a great producer to work with you.

I apologise for the quality of my answer [laughs]

Further Information:

• Ken Loach - Sensesofcinema
• Costa-Gavras - wikipedia
• Michael Haneke - Sensesofcinema
• Imamura Shohei - japan-zone
• Im Kwon-Taek - Wikipedia
• Wong Kar Wai - Wongkarwai
• Krzysztof Kieslowski - Sensesofcinema.com
• Alain Corneau - IMDB
• The Voyage of the Red Balloon - IMDB
• Thierry Fremaux - Hollywood Reporter

Photo credits: Dan Martin (apart from the under-exposed one on page 2, which is Philip’s)