SEOUL: South Korea’s film industry is winning plaudits abroad, notably the best actress award at Cannes for Jeon Do-Yeon, but faces financial woes and onslaughts from Hollywood movies at home, producers say.
“We are in a crisis,” Chung In-Youp, president of the Korea Film Directors’
Society, told the news agency. “I’m afraid the movie industry here will be wiped out within the next three years.” But others are less pessimistic.
“We hear almost every year that the country’s film industry is in a crisis.
I think the current slump is again a transitory phenomenon,” said Park Jin-Wii, a spokesman for Showbox, a leading local film maker.
Over the past few years the country’s film industry has seen dramatic growth, with the number of new movies growing from 65 in 2003 to 74 in 2004, 83 in 2005 and 108 last year.
A total of 167 million viewers visited cinemas last year, bringing in $1.1 billion in ticket sales.
But behind the numbers is a harsh reality.
Of the 108 movies last year, more than 90 made a loss. Combined investment losses are estimated to have topped $100 million last year, the Chosun daily said.
Experts say new investors unfamiliar with the industry rushed in to ride the boom in 2004 and 2005, pouring in money and resources. Consequently, many low-quality films were produced and some 30 films from last year are still unreleased.
“Many investors who got their fingers burnt turned more cautious this year,” said Park of Showbox.
“There were many investors waiting for their shares but the pie turned out to be too small,” he said.
A supply glut, which coincided with a rise in production costs, seriously undercut the major film makers’ bottom lines last year — even though the monster-themed film “The Host” drew a record 13 million viewers here.
Dyne Film’s CEO Jonathan Kim said the number of new South Korean releases for this year would be a mere 60, including the 30 left over from last year.
“Money has dried up. I am afraid this country’s film industry might slip back to where it was in the late 1990s,” he said.
He said the rush for quick returns by new investors took its toll on quality.
“Consequently, low-quality products were produced massively, which were more tuned to new media such as DMB (mobile TV) than to theatres,” Kim said.
Exports also fell 68 per cent year-on-year to $24.5 million last year, especially to Japan.
“The Korean wave in Japan has become weak as it relied almost entirely on the popularity of individual stars,” Claudia Kim, researcher with Korea Film Council, said in reference to Korean pop culture in Asia.
The weakness of local films made distributors turn increasingly towards Hollywood movies.
Hollywood blockbusters such as “Spiderman 3,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Shrek the Third” overwhelmed domestic films in competition for screens throughout the country.
South Korean moviemakers say they are pinning hopes on a strong line-up to be released over the next few months.—AFP
