K-World (Connie Han)

YOUR UP-TO-DATE ON KOREAN-CULTURE ISSUE #7

How Koreans are taking over the creative and entertainment industry by storm

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CONTENTS

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parasite Inside look on the movie “Parasite” and its win on Oscar’s “Best Picture.”

BTS What are the music of k-pop boy band BTS really about and why are they popular?

minju kim “Next in Fashion” winner Minju Kim on her inspirations, why she joined the Netflix show

hallyu wave How the Hallyu wave are making Korean actors desirable in Hollywood

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The Oscars needed “Parasite” to win.

This year’s Academy Awards ended on a high note with South Korean film director Bong Joon-ho, the mastermind behind Parasite, one of 2019’s most acclaimed films, making history by snagging the coveted honor of Best Picture.

The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where the annual event is held, erupted with applause as the winner was announced by Jane Fonda, with people on every level of the auditorium — from the folks way up high in the balcony to the A-listers on the ground floor — excitedly rising to their feet to praise Bong.

Bong’s win was historic because Parasite was the first foreign-language film to ever be awarded Best Picture. Ultimately, Bong would take home

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four trophies, including for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Film. But amid the palpable joy in the theater over Bong’s dark comedy being canonized in Oscars history was the shocking feeling that the Academy had done what it was supposed to do: reward a movie that was actually good.

In recent years, the Academy has dealt with dwindling ratings, a cultural shift as people opt to stay in and watch something streaming rather than fork out money to go to the nearest multiplex, and a chorus of marginalized voices who are fed up with the organization’s apparent unwillingness to recognize people of color for the film industry’s top awards. All of these elements

have seemingly shaken the long-standing arbiter of cinematic greatness. Additionally, there’s the sneaking suspicion that the show — no longer in possession of its viselike grip on Hollywood, and cinema more broadly, as the be-all, end-all of critical acclaim — knows that its position within the world of entertainment is tenuous.

A comment Bong made to Vulture last year is telling in this regard: “The Oscars are not an international film festival. They’re very local.”

Bong’s not-so-subtle dig at the Oscars is important because it signaled that there are other, perhaps even more significant accolades that a filmmaker may hope to acquire. Sunday night’s show also made clear that the Academy

needed Bong’s presence at the ceremony way more than he needed those four golden statues, though the underlying message that American films aren’t the only ones worthy of being exalted cannot be overstated. Beyond Bong’s big sweep of some of the most popular categories is the realization that the Academy is trying, possibly as hard as any institution with a deep history of racism and exclusionary practices can, to be more aware of its backsliding when it comes to honoring people of color and women at the annual event. But is recognizing that you have a problem enough if you’re not making meaningful strides to remedy the issue?

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BTS

The seven-man K-pop sensation, which accounts for $4.65 billion of South Korea’s GDP and rivals The Beatles on the charts: “An absolute dream come true.”

BTS is the first group since The Beatles — to whom they also are compared for the hysterical fan mania they generate — to score three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart in less than a year, a feat that’s all the more astounding considering their songs are mostly in Korean. Their latest, an EP titled Map of the Soul: Persona, sold 3.5 million copies worldwide in the six months since its release, 562,000 of those in the U.S. alone. The candy-colored video for their single “Boy With Luv,” featuring a hook sung by Halsey (“Oh my my my!”), surpassed 100 million views in less than 48 hours — a YouTube record — when it dropped in April, and is currently closing in on 600 million views. That same month, they became the first Asian band to surpass 5 billion streams on Spotify.

And then there are the live concerts. Demand for the U.S. stadium leg of their continuing 2019 tour, which resumes in October after a threemonth break, was so fie rce, it repeatedly crashed Ticketmaster’s servers, selling out all 300,000 seats — average price: $452 each — just simply in a matter of minutes.

Add in merchandising ($130 million worth of books, T-shirts, cosmetics, jewelry, dolls and other branded memorabilia — eBay Korea currently features 40,000 BTS-related products — sold every year), tourism dollars and other revenue generators, the BTS ecosystem is so enormous, it accounts for $4.65 billion of South Korea’s GDP. That’s enough to put it in the same league as Samsung and Hyundai.

“We have to consider ourselves not just better [than other K-pop acts], but the best,” says RM, BTS’ 25-year-old charismatic leader. “When we’re

out there on that stage, we’re there to conquer. We think we’re the ones.”

With RM as its frontman, BTS was originally conceived as a hip-hop group — but Bang decided to go in a more radio-friendly direction, combining vocalists and rappers for what he calls “a U.S. pop formula.” At the time — 2012 — Big Hit Entertainment had about 30 young men in its own idol training program, and Bang began experimenting with various combinations until he finally landed on the magic seven: national dance champion J-Hope (real name Jung Ho-seok, now 25); introspective rapper Suga (Min Yoon-gi, 26); aspiring actor Jin (Kim Seok-jin, 26); sweet-faced Jungkook (Jeon Jung-kook, 22) as the band’s maknae — a K-pop term for the baby of the group; and V (Kim Tae-hyung, 23) as the soulful crooner.

Last to join was Jimin (Park Ji-min, 23), a contemporary dancer with pillow lips and charm to spare.

“All of them had a strong passion for music and a story they wanted to talk about,” notes Bang, who considered several names for his new boy band, including Big Kids and Young Nation. But BTS — short for Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates in English to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” — was his favorite. It conjured up a generational battle pitting millennial sensibilities against the conservative expectations of Korean society. “BTS symbolizes the periphery,” he explains. “They did not shy away from the pains of this generation and were honest about talking about their own ones. And they came together at a time of increased longing for fairness and the rights of the marginalized. I think this wholesome combination has led to their global success and is why they’re so popular today.”

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Minju Kim has just been ‘spotted’ for the first time. Yesterday, the Korean designer – and newly crowned winner of Netflix series Next in Fashion – was stopped in the street by a fan in New York.

She has flown into the city to attend a cocktail party being thrown by the streaming service and its fashion partner Net-A-Porter in honor of, well, her. Fans of the show will rightly suspect that all this attention sits rather uncomfortably with Kim, whose humility and humor won over audiences from the very first episode. Despite beating 17 other hopefuls to secure the top prize – $250,000 worth of investment, plus the opportunity to have her winning collection stocked on Net-A-Porter – she remains remarkably level-headed. “I’ve always worked really hard on every element of my collections, from developing the concept to designing prints and ultimately bringing it all to life. I put my heart and soul into my work and that’s what I’m going to continue doing,” says the 32-year-old designer.

Having wrapped the series five months ago, Kim has been busy producing her collection, but admits it didn’t feel as if her life had undergone a major shift until the show was released on January 29. In the weeks since, it has gone stratospheric, which Kim concedes is “pretty exciting”. However, the success of the series also means the spotlight is now squarely on the Seoul-based designer.

Before taking part in the show, this kind of pressure

may have overwhelmed the immensely talented yet introverted Kim, but she credits the process with instilling her with the confidence to believe in herself. “I’ve grown so much. After completing an entire collection in three days, I know I am capable of anything. The timing was so tough, but it made me fall in love with design all over again.”

Kim might be effusive about fashion, but her trajectory hasn’t followed the traditional path. She chose to study design at university because it was the closest she could get to fine art. Studying at Seoul’s Samsung Art & Design Institute, she learnt intricate techniques and the business side of the industry, but it didn’t stir her creativity. It was a deep-seated desire to explore that side of herself that compelled Kim to pursue a master’s degree in design at the illustrious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. It was here, under the tutelage of designer Walter Van Beirendonck – a member of the fabled Antwerp Six – that she developed a true fervor for her craft, and honed a distinct aesthetic, a kind of future-facing take on traditional femininity.

MINJU KIM

‘Next in Fashion’ season one winner

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HALLYU WAVE As the manager of several Korean actors who appear in U.S. productions, Chris S. Lee, CEO of B&C Group, has an interesting perspective on why the time is right for more Korean talent to cross over to Hollywood.

“Last year, Asian talent-led films like Crazy Rich Asians succeeded above all expectations at the domestic box office, and Searching, led by actor John Cho, with a largely Korean ensemble cast, met with tremendous box office results in both the U.S. and Korea, prompting Hollywood to take notice (finally!), and cast Asians in roles that better reflect the current American scene, where film audiences are more comfortable seeing Asians

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in diverse roles that are flawed, nuanced, heroic, or simply relatable as human beings,” said Lee before continuing, “Hallyu has definitely contributed to the wider acceptance of this trend by showing how best-in-class talent from Korea can transcend ethnic stereotypes and cultural boundaries by finding dedicated audiences all over the world, shown tangibly by successful worldwide box office results, lucrative remake deals, international awards recognition, and of course the recent cases of Korean talent crossing over as leading actors in Hollywood,” said Lee. “All of these factors give me hope that Korean crossover actors will continue to find better roles and be freer to embrace the identities they choose to create

The wave is merely one trend making Korean actors more desirable in Hollywood. through the three-dimensional human beings they are playing on screen, on either side of the world.”

Most, if not all, Korean talent winning a leading role in a notable U.S. production, is already a marquee star in Korea, such as Don Lee, whom Chris S. Lee represents. Or they are actors who become globally recognized through the international film festival circuit, such as Jun Jong-seo (Rachel Jun), another of his clients.

“Steven Yeun is the exception of having had both commercial and critical success in Hollywood first, before crossing over to Korea, where he has worked with world-renowned master directors

Bong Joon-ho and Lee Chang-dong in the past two consecutive years, garnering widespread acclaim and the attention of the industry and fans from both countries.”

Korean-American stars working in Korea also face challenges, including language and cultural differences. The language barrier goes both ways, since actors are expected to speak native level Korean for leading roles, unless playing a character where it makes sense to speak accented Korean or mostly English.

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