The Host

I finally got around to writing a review of The Host (Guimul). A product of the Korean film industry, which seems to be on creative fire at the moment. The Host has been compared to The Royal Tanenbaums and Godzilla or Tremors.

The film also has a subversive tone questioning the relationship that South Korea has with the US and the suppression of citizen interests for the betterment of big business.

The performance walks a tightrope between humour and tragedy without the heavy-handed humour in many Hong Kong films.

Get out and see it if you haven't had a chance already.

Jargon Watch

Hallyu - The rise of Korea as a cultural hotbed (what's called the Korean wave in some quarters) in Asia: from the sexiest mobile phones, or well written and produced cinema to K-pop (the Korean equivalent of J-pop: sugar-coated Japanese pop music that carries well in other Asian markets and performed by young performers so physically perfect, you wonder if Sony hasn't a secret laboratory protected by ninjas inside of Mount Fuji to manufacture J-pop artists). Interestingly the Korean wave has not yet impacted on Japan in the same way as its neighbours, which was an interesting aside that came out of Richard Edelman's keynote at the London presentation of his agency's global trust barometer survey. Kudos to the New York Times Online (registration required).

Mociology - The study of how mobile technology impacts with sociology from purchasing concert tickets to organising political rallies, raves and flash mobs. (Derived from mobile and sociology).

Microchunk - A product or service sold traditionally as a package broken down into its constituent parts so buyers can purchase a la carte for consumer electronics to news feeds. Think sachet marketing for the digital world. People like 37signals have successfully built 'microchunk' applications and services (like Backpack) that do one thing extremely well and compete against other much larger software companies that take a bundled approach leveraging an effective desktop monopoly (mentioning no names). Kudos for mociology and microchunk to Wired Magazine.

Red eyes on Korea

Films like Old Boy and Silmido are making waves amongst arthouse cinema fans and movie industry talent-spotters throughout the western world.

It now seems that its not only Hollywood that is turning its eyes westwards to follow the latest cultural carrying-ons in Korea.

The New York Times China's Youth Look to Seoul for Inspiration by Norimitsu Onishi (January 2, 2006) has an interesting article on how Chinese young people are looking to Korea is the tastemakers in popular culture.

The country's cultural exports are cutting-edge tempered with the Confucian-based culture familiar to Chinese audiences. American culture is too 'post-modern' to be absorbed directly and in a Basil Fawlty-esque way Japan is still beyond the pale because of the War. Taste making goes beyond pop singers and movies to hip brands such the must-have mobile phone from Samsung and Hyundai cars.

Rather like Eric Clapton adapting the blues for white audiences in the UK; so Korea is adapting western idioms from hip-hop culture and sit-coms like Sex in the City and making them palatable for East Asian audiences. Free trade and intellectual property protection is likely to not be as beneficial to Hollywood in tapping the Chinese market as the media moguls had hoped.