London Korean Links

As part of the Tiger Asian film festival Im Sang Soo, director of socio-political films ‘The President’s Last Bang’, ‘A Good Lawyer’s Wife’ and ‘The Old Garden’, held a Q&A session on 30th May 2008 at the Korean Cultural Centre in London. There was a small but select feel to the gathering that took place in the multipurpose hall. It was an illuminating event, even for those who had neither seen nor heard of the films prior to this event – of which there were more than a few.

Questions and answers were translated on the spot by Seh Hyun Rho to whom we extend our thanks and also to the Korean Cultural Centre for hosting the event.

The following is a complete transcription of the Q&A session by Saharial, to whom even bigger thanks are due. The transcription reflects the conversational style of the evening, with only minor editorial changes made where necessary to aid understanding: Im Sang Soo, uncut.

Seh Hyun Rho: ‘The President’s Last Bang’ is one of the many films director Im Sang Soo has written and directed. In 1998 he presented his first film ‘Girl’s Night Out’, and ‘Tears’ in 2000 provided us with a glimpse of the teenagers in Korea, then in 2003 a Good Lawyer’s wife, ‘The Old Garden’ in 2007 with the Kwangju democratisation movement as his backdrop. Having studied sociology at the prestigious Yonsei University in Korea, it appears that socio-political themes are current in his movies. Now we have a chance for a question and answer session where you can put the director under the microscope and ask him any questions you like. I will take the liberty of asking the first question.

Could you please tell me what your favourite political movie is?

Im Sang Soo: To be honest, I can’t think of any famous Korean or any famous political movies, and although there are elements of politics in my work, I’d be unsatisfied to call them political as such. My apologies.

If you look at the international film landscape currently, if you were to name political movies or directors as such, you could say Ken Loach or Costa-Gavras – they could be seen as directors who make political movies or deal with political issues. I don’t want my work to be compared with theirs, and I don’t think my films should be in the same category as theirs.

My three movies ‘The President’s Last Bang, ‘The Old Garden’ and ‘The Good Lawyer’s Wife’ are frequently labelled as the trilogy depicting Korea’s political or the state of modern Korean society, I think that would be inaccurate. This apparent label, which occurs when I am outside of Korea, can be interpreted as the mockery, or my mockery, of Korea currently and that’s a guilt I have to bear – it’s uncomfortable. This is unfortunate and unavoidable if you actually reflect on Korea’s modern history. For the past 35 years we were colonised, or Korea was colonised by Japan, there was World War 2, there was a military dictatorship for about three years, so you have to be critical. One of the reasons why I love of my degree in sociology so much is that you have to use these events and depict them as such.

Questions were then taken from members of the audience who seemed very familiar with his movies and eager to delve deeper into his perceptions and opinions.

Q: Did you expect ‘The President’s Last Bang’ to be censored and are there any plans for the release of the uncensored version?

‘The President’s Last Bang’ was made prior to the change in government that took place in Korea a few months ago and before, the government was quite liberal so I felt free to make such a movie. To be strictly straight, there is no censorship in Korea - that would be illegal to do so. The reason why there was a censorship with this movie was because Park Chung-hee, the president who was assassinated in the movie, his son appealed to the Seoul district court, and the court ordered the scenes to be taken out.

When this movie was first released in Korea, I predicted there would be conflict, or at least problems, with the entire Korean community, but I didn’t realise it would be to the extent that some of the scenes would have to be censored. The film was released in France as well, that was the edited version, but earlier this year in Japan, they released a Director’s cut which means all the censored scenes were put back in. Yesterday, I just found out that there would be a DVD release in England using the Director’s uncut version, which means the movie would have English subtitles. The whole international community can then purchase the DVDs from England and see the film, so I’m very much happy about that.

For the movie ‘The President’s Last Bang’ when you look at the audience we have here today, we have Koreans as well as foreigners. Foreigners might perceive this as a military dictatorship where an army general takes over the country and takes power, which happens frequently in Africa and Asia, so it might seem not petty but hilarious or comical in your point of view. As opposed to the foreign audience, for Korean people it has to be a shocking film. Park Chung-hee, the President at the time, he ruled for 18 years as a dictatorship and there were many liberals who were tortured and captured and many died during this protest. At the same time Park Chung-hee was also known as the Father to modernise Korea and help with the economic status, so for the Korean audience to see such a negative view of this character must have been shocking.

When the original uncut version is released, I hope that all audiences, Korean and international will be able to perceive the film slightly differently. The film is not intended to be satirical or mock Park Chung-hee or the dictatorship, but to show the lifestyles of him and his entourage. Upon the release of the movie no Korean community could laugh or enjoy this film and he had to wonder why this was so, and possibly it reflects our state of understanding of the whole incident.

So the film deals with the entourage of Park Chung-hee, the way it deals with people and community, his lifestyle and his principles and can see this reflects fascism and chauvinistic attitudes. If you look at the Bush Administration and the Bush/Blair pact leading to the Iraqi war, you can see that… well, I feel that this is not completely different to Park Chung-hee’s way of working. Overall, these kinds of attitudes and principles are not new to Korea or to any time era and the film which deals with this is not, I suppose, so enjoyable to watch.

Q: Firstly have you any plans or hopes to direct in Hollywood? And with remakes of ‘Dark Water’ and ‘The Ring’ etc. - how do you feel about remakes of some of these Asian films?

Currently, I’ve moved to Paris and have been living there for the past 6 months. This is because I am working with a French producer and we are filming a film in Paris using French actors and mostly going to be in French dialogue. This is not Hollywood, but an international project for me, and if successful, yes, I have plans to work with the English community as well. That’s my direction to a more International level.

The remakes that you mentioned – most of them are Hollywood financed and given the enormous wealth that Hollywood has, it’s not so imperative that they make a large profit or even a loss. The producers and directors that allow these remakes – well all I can say is ‘Money Talks’.

The Austrian director Michael Haneke remade the movie ‘Funny Games’ and won a prestigious prize internationally. If you look up the actors, I presume that the paycheque had an additional two zeros at the end, so I guess money rules and money is power.

Q: Still on the subject of money, In order to get through the US Free Trade Agreement the current government has had to agree to import more US ‘mad cows’ and the previous government agreed to import more US movies. So now, two years on from the relaxation of the screen quota, what impact has it had on the Korean film industry and what impact will it continue to have?

I don’t know about the UK, but in my point of view Korea is in terms of economics and politics America’s colony. The current government cannot refuse any demands from the American government whether it’s a liberal or a conservative government. Secondly, despite theoretically having a liberal Korean government, I don’t feel that they would know the impact or the importance of having Korean movies out there on the international scene.

I imagine all of you here are great fans of the Korean movies and cinema, but I feel that in the next 5 years you will see a difficult time for Korean movies and whether the Korean movie industry can resuscitate itself or completely die even that I can’t answer. The Korean government that accepted the relaxation of the Korean screen quota was the most liberal one so far, and the change to our more conservative government and accepting cows with potential mad cow disease, well I am just glad to say that I have now moved to France!

Q: Do you think there are any similarities between the Korean political scene and the French one?

Despite Sarkozy being a very conservative leader, and France being more liberal, I don’t think you can compare that to the Korean. Lee Myung Bak is extremely conservative and the more liberal Korean society right now you definitely can’t say the Lee Myung Bak is in the same category as Sarkozy.

Does the government appease themselves to America?

Well, I don’t see the French importing US beef! [Laughs] I would just like to remind everyone, that this event and place today has been funded by the Korean government. I guess we can still talk liberal.

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