This book introduces five new directors who have made works realizing the meaning of an independent film environment that has become diversified amid the struggles of the Korean film industry as it has attempted to progress toward a high degree of industrialization since the 2000s. NOH Dong-seok, KIM Dong-hyun, MIN Boung-hun, KIM Tai-sik, and CHO Chang-ho are noteworthy newcomers whose works, each made in different environments, show plenty of potential. These directors have very different backgrounds and personal histories, and bring about meaningful meetings with the audience armed with their own unique visions. [...] The value of independent films does not lie solely in the aspects of system and market. The foremost reason independent film must stay robust is because the root for discovering new directors and cultivating the leaders of future cinema lies there. -From the Preface

LIM is a director who signaled the emergence of a new kind of sensibility in Korean film. Through her debut film Three Friends, she brought the issue of

Kang Woo-suk has consistently performed the background role of a man of power in Korean film for the last ten years. He has made only 16 films since his debut as a director in 1988, but for the more than ten years since 1997 he has been in charge of investment, planning or production for no fewer than 120 films. In spite of this, Kang’s name remains an unfamiliar one to the overseas film world. But his films have succeeded in capturing the rapidly changing Korean social and political situation of the last 20 years in a distinctive style; to be specific, a style of popular speech through satire and humor. Looking at Kang’s films in sequence, one can grasp the twists and turns of the history of Korean capitalism. This book is a record of Kang’s cinematic career over the past 20 years, and at the same time a document that demonstrates how Korean cinema possesses a fountain of diverse films and how considerable the potential commercial film is.

LEE Myung-se marks himself as a rare director in the history of Korean films. In the Korean film industry, where the tradition of realism is deeply rooted and influence from Western-especially Hollywood-movies prevails, it is rare to find a director so absorbed in pursuing the fundamental question. 'What is the film?' Apart from a few directors digging into the subject these days, we can seldom find anyone who maintains this kind of attitude toward film. [...] Aspiring to be a craftsman rather than auteur. LEE can be called a sophiscated alchemist who can engrave images.

KIM Jee-woon is both a talented genre filmmaker and one of the few cineastes in today

This is an introductory guide to JANG Sun-woo, one of the most controversial and talented Korean film director. Written by Tony Rayns, a critic and also a film director himself, this book contemplates JANG Sun-woo films with a scholarly passion and delves deep into JANG

The stories that IM Sang-soo tries to tell deal with the lives of modern Koreans. He feels that the responsibility placed upon him as a storyteller is the history of "here and now" untold by older Korean directors of the same period. IM is practically the only director now making films that take a long look at the lives of contemporary Koreans without losing their historical sense. The major interest of this book is in examining the way in which his films observe the lives of modern Koreans. He does not view experimentation in style and form as important, but he realized early on that the stories he sought to tell often demanded unconventional form, and he has worked on polishing the formal beauty within his films to a dazzling degree.

Description If one looks back upon history, Korean cinema has always repeatedly passed through fixed cycles of booms and crisis. Now, as we go through the aftermath of compacted modernization, just as was the case with Korean society, indications of fissure and decline are slowly appearing within the industry. But just has been the case over all of these years when it has broken through crisis, Korean cinema is in any event supplied with a driving force through the appearance of new talents, and will be able to transform itself once again. This book is an attempt to shed new light on some new faces of Korean film as we look back on the period leading up to the mid-2000s by highlighting the attempts of some young directors who have not yet accumulated long filmographies, but have achieved considerable results.

Film Studies. Asian Studies. This book is the result of efforts to reach a deeper and broader understanding of the director Bong Joon-ho, who has been the subject of a great deal of popular interest and attention in Korean society in spite of his relatively short filmography of three feature films. After the experience of Barking Dogs Never Bite, it appears that the director clearly came to understand what he had to do to relate the story he wanted to tell in the way most suited to the public, yet most in line with his own cinephile impulses. Memories of Murder and The Host were both major box office successes in Korean film, but at the same time, they were films that looked upon the wounds and failures of modern Korean history in the most perceptive and challenging ways. As a result, Bong Joon-ho became almost unique in present-day Korean film in his ability to break away from commercial and creative pressures and realize the kind of films he wants to, when he wants to.

Third person predominates matching the usually reserved, indicative and close observation of the Korean cityscape and its miniaturized spots of nature, and also observations of Koreans and their society. The pilgrimage aspect is mainly reflections on Korean experiences and their results on the writer; it is not a quest for an absolute or higher end. Poetic structure varies e.g. being based on syllable count, repeated sound (assonance/alliteration) or image. Extensive footnotes offer assistance to non-native English language readers, in vocabulary, related poems and culture points. The intended audience is university-aged and older Koreans as well as overseas readers interested in that dynamic and often surprising nation.