Park Joong-Hoon, Kim Hye-Soo, and Ahn Sung-Ki

Lee Joon-Gi (with the glove), Kim Hye-Soo, Kang Sung-Yun (bare-backed), Shin Hyun-Joon

The King and the Clown

Tazza (review)

Best Director
Kim Tae-Yong (Family Ties)
Bong Joon-Ho (The Host)
Yoo Ha (A Dirty Carnival)
Lee Joon-Ik (The King and the Clown)
Choi Dong-Hoon (Tazza)

Best Leading Actor
Kam Woo-Sung (The King and the Clown)
Park Joong-Hoon (Radio Star)
Song Kang-Ho (The Host)
Ahn Sung-Ki (Radio Star)
Cho Seung-Woo (Tazza)

Best Leading Actress
Kim Hye-Soo (Tazza)
Uhm Jung-Hwa (For Horowitz)
Lee Na-Young (Maundy Thursday)
Im Soo-Jung (Lump of Sugar)
Jang Jin-Young (Between Love and Hate/The Unbearable Lightness of Dating)
Choi Kang-Hee (My Scary Girl/My Sweet Yet Brutal Sweetheart)

Best Supporting Actor
Kim Yoon-Seok (Tazza)
Byun Hee-Bong (The Host)
Yoo Hae-Jin (The King and the Clown)
Oh Dal-Su (Forbidden Quest)
Lee Beom-Soo (The City of Violence)

Best Supporting Actress
Kang Seong-Yeon (The King and the Clown)
Bae Doo-Na (The Host)
Eom Ji-Won (Traces of Love)
Yoon Ji-Hye (No Mercy for the Rude)
Jung Yoo-Mi (Family Ties)

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Best New Actor
Ryu Deok-Hwan (Like A Virgin)
On Joo-Hwan (The Peter Pan Formula)
Lee Joon-Ki (The King and the Clown)
Jin Goo (A Dirty Carnival)
Ha Jung-Woo (The Unforgiven)

Best New Actress
Ko Ah-Sung (The Host)
Kim Ah-Jung (When Romance Meets Destiny)
Park Si-Yeon (The Fox Family)
Choi Jeong-Yoon (Radio Star)
Choo Cha-Hyeon (Bloody Tie)

Best New Director
Kwon Hyung-Jin (For Horowitz)
Kim Dae-Woo (Forbidden Quest)
Son Jae-Kon (My Scary Girl/My Sweet Yet Brutal Sweetheart)
Yoon Jong-Bin (The Unforgiven)
Lee Hae-Young (Like A Virgin)

Best Cinematography
Kim Chi-Young (Forbidden Quest)
Kim Hyong-Goo (The Host)
Oh Hyun-Jae (Bloody Tie)
Ji Kil-Woong (The King and the Clown)
Choi Young-Hwan (Tazza)

Best Lighting
Kim Seon-Kwan (Tazza)
Shin Sang-Ryeol (Forbidden Quest)
Lee Kang-San, Jong Yong-Min (The Host)
Im Jae-Young (Bloody Tie)
Han Ki-Om (The King and the Clown)

Best Music
Kim Sang-Min (Bloody Tie)
Bang Joon-Seok (Radio Star)
Lee Byung-Woo (The King and the Clown)
Lee Byung-Woo (For Horowitz)
Lee Jae-Jin (Maundy Thursday)

Best Art Direction
Kang Seung-Yeok (The King and the Clown)
Lee Hyeon-Joo (Dasepo Naughty Girls)
Jang Eun-Jang (The Fox Family)
Cho Kun-Hyeon (Forbidden Quest)
Ha Sang-Ho (Traces of Love)

Best Original Screenplay
Kim Dae-Woo (Forbidden Quest)
Song Ki-Young, Kim Tae-Yong (Family Ties)
Bong Joon-Ho, Ha Joon-Won, Baek Cheol-Hyeon (The Host)
Son Jae-Gon (My Scary Girl)
Lee Hae-Young, Lee Hae-Joon (Like A Virgin)

Technical Award
CG, EON (The Host)

Best Couple
Gam Woo-Sung, Lee Joon-Gi (King and the Clown)

Popular Movie Award
The Host

Most Popular Actor and Actress
Shin Hyun-Joon, Lee Joon-Gi, Kim Hye-Soo, Kang Sung-Yun

 

The winners of the popularity awards: glamorous.

 

The selection does not differ significantly from the Korean Film Awards. Some films from 2005 were included, most notably the edgy, subtle costume drama, The King and the Clown, which was (wisely) chosen by the Korean Film Council to compete in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars (to be held on January 2007), over the extreme ends of this year's cinematic spectrum that were running for the nomination: Bong Joon-Ho's The Host and Kim Ki-Duk's Time (which I both liked). Not too surprisingly, The Host triumphantly received 5 awards, including the one for best film, while Lee Joon-Ik's historical drama was only granted a distinction for its soundtrack. Tazza, Like A Virgin and Family Ties shared the rest of the prizes between themselves. One thing I did not expect, since I had not seen it, was the nomination of Radio Star and the double award that veteran actors Ahn Sung-Ki and Park Joong-Hoon received, which piqued my curiosity, to say the least. This is not the first time that the two (also nominated as best couple) were honored at the Blue Dragon ceremony. They shared their first Best Actor Award in 1994, for their roles in Two Cops, and have appeared together in four films since.

Just an aside but: as I was musing over the list of the 5th Korean film awards that I wrote about earlier (today is the eve of the “Blue Dragon Awards”) and half-watching, half-dozing through the 2006 Spike TV Video Game Awards, it just occurred to me that there seems to be awards for everything these days, including video games. So the question is, or should be: why don't Koreans adapt their own video games for the screen? After all, the video game industry is the other “big deal” of Korean entertainment (what other country has professional players? The Land of the Video Geek). I have been going through a bunch of movies without which the world would probably be a better place, like Doom, or Silent Hill. Perhaps an adaptation of Lineage, or Ragnarok would be worth considering, some day. It could happen and it could be really good, in many respects. Videogaming as a subject matter has already produced a couple of excellent, if highly underrated, films, in the past: Who Are You? (2002) and Paradise Villa (1999).

End of the aside.

To go back to the November Korean Awards prize list, it is interesting to see who shared the “scraps” left by the monster movie, The Host. Interesting because all of the films that were rewarded on that night are, indeed, more than worth a watch, and worth more than one watch. They form a much more complex landscape of the film industry than the recent debates over the monopolies that blockbusters (like... The Host) hold over theaters and multiplexes in South Korea would seem to suggest. This year, as in the past few years, it appears that Korean filmmakers work well within the conventions of a genre, particularly melodramas, which is nothing new, and noirs, which is more striking than usual. The recent, slightly unexpected success of Tazza: The High Rollers and Sunflower confirms this general trend. Also, and there may be a connection with the noir bend of this year, comedies and melodramas have a darker tinge to them, and cover more social ground and topics, some of which were considered taboo and untreatable on-screen. Whether or not this is a sign of the times I am not sure, but maybe with hindsight, we will be able to tell if this represents actual changes in contemporary Korean society.

At any rate, Walt Whitman liked lists. So did Sei Shonagon. So do I (sometimes). And so do Koreans. So here it is: the 2006 Korean Film Awards list, yet another manifestion of the human, all too human drive to evaluate and rank each other in virtual or actual tribunals. We should expect the same titles to pop up in the Blue Dragon Awards tomorrow.

- Best leading actor: Jo In-Seong, A Dirty Carnival (the actor has gone a long way since The Classic)

- Best leading actress: Jang Jin-Yeong, The Unbearable Lightness of Dating AKA Between Love and Hate

- Best supporting actor : Lee Beom-Soo, City of Violence

- Best supporting actress: Choo Ja-Hyeon, Bloody Tie

- Best new director: Lee Hae-Yeong/Lee Hae-Joon, Like A Virgin

- Best new actor: Lee Joon-ki, King and the Clown

- Best new actress: Choo Ja-Hyeon, Bloody Tie

- Best screenplay : Son Jae-Gon, My Scary Girl

- Best editing : Park Gok-Ji, A Dirty Carnival

- Best art direction: Jo Geun-Hyeon, Forbidden Quest

- Best soundtrack : Lee Byeong-Woo, For Horowitz

As the end of 2006 approaches, it is clear that Korean cinema now has a full-grown blockbuster system, Hollywood-style, or perhaps I should say, “Hallyuwood”-style. Korean cinema has indeed reached an all-time high, at least in terms of dimensions and proportions, which can only be qualified as monstrous. This somewhat oversize monster of an entity, arguably the strongest component of the country’s overall cultural industry, seems to have found its perfect embodiment in one movie: The Host by Bong Joon-Ho, which has become the center of all debates on the future of Korean cinema since its local theatrical release in July. The tremendous passion generated by this (literally) monster movie seems inextricably linked to the questions and uncertainties that have come with the increase in power and money that the industry has experienced.

If these questions were on the beautiful people’s minds gathered on this beautiful (but a little chilly) Sunday evening, one month ago in Seoul, it certainly did not show. Quite the contrary… Lots of glitter, lots of gold… In fact, an evening so glamorous that it is a wonder vh1 did not cover it. It was the 5th Korean Film Awards. Like the Oscars, Korean-style. The ceremony, based on the principle of qualitative evaluation, with an eye on box-office performances, turned out to be (unsurprisingly) the unmitigated consecration of The Host and of its creator. After only 3 films (before The Host, he made Memories of Murder and Barking Dogs Never Bite), 37 year-old director Bong Joon-Ho has definitely imposed a signature and achieved wide recognition (except perhaps from Kim Ki-Duk) in his own country. Only one actress of the cast was there, though: Ko Ah-Sung, who happens to be 14 years old (well, 15, in Korean years) and was therefore the youngest star of the show.

The “party” was sponsored by MBC (http://koreafilm.imbc.com/), and is one among many ceremonies of this type in Korea. The main one, “The Blue Dragon” (“Cheongryong”) Awards) is coming out this week (Dec. 15). Its rival, “The Grand Bell Awards” (“Daejong”) will not be held until late spring. Whether or not they will consecrate The Host some more is the question. At any rate, the monster film scooped a total of 6 prizes without breaking too much of a sweat, for best cinematography, best director, best lighting, best special effects (Weta Digital -The Lord of the Rings-, John Cox's Creature Workshop and The Orphanage -Silent Hill), best sound effects, and best film...

The Host has already caught the attention of Americans distributors. Universal has obtained the rights for a remake, outbidding Roy Lee and Doug Davidson (Vertigo Entertainment), and Gold Circle Producing. Nothing has been said about the filmmaker or the casting of the remake so far, but one thing seems almost certain: the project will most likely get major starpower and a large budget.

The film was released on November 10 in the UK and the dvd should be released in Korea and Hong Kong this month (if it is not out already).
Interestingly, The Host is enjoying unprecedented critical success in France (released on November 22nd). I have yet to read a single negative review of the film. However, the film has only met with moderate popular success there, as it has in Japan, for reasons that may have something to do with its being marketed and sold as a “horror flick”. Which it is not (there is about as much horror in The Host as there is in, say, Shaun of the Dead).

The film, distributed by Magnolia Pictures in the US, is scheduled for release on Jan. 24th 2007, in Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts. Jan. 26th 2007, in Scottsdale, AZ: Camelview 5 Theatre. On Feb. 23rd 2007, Saint Petersburg, FL: Eckerd College.

For more details: Magnolia Pictures Site

Very soon, then.