Planet B-Boy

2007, USA

Directed by Benson Lee

Spoiler level - low (speculation and allusions only)

I’m always a sucker for a good documentary, and I have long since been duly obsessed with the modern reincarnation of b-boying and how the world of breakdancing has evolved from a pop-and-lock, America-central pastime to a power-move-gymnastics, Asia-dominated sport. So when the 2007 documentary Planet B-Boy was finally released in the US I jumped at the chance to witness the latest Battle of the Year vicariously. I was expecting the usual childlike wonder I usually feel at jobs that involve a decent amount of insanity (The Great Happiness Space, Yamikaze and District B13, and good old Man on Wire) but I was not expecting to be as enthralled as I was start to finish. Of course it doesn’t hurt that I have such an affinity for the topic, but my fondness almost never builds bridges over potholes or blinds me from terrible character development.

The film revolves around an event in Germany called Battle of the Year, the sort of Olympics of breakdancing, where one team from each of 22 countries is selected to participate in the battle for title of the world’s greatest dance crew. Think America’s Best Dance Crew on crack. Now for those of you who don’t follow this sport like it’s a major league world series, winning Battle of the Year has never been about the winnings, it’s about the prestige, the bragging rights, the proof that you are one of the illest breakdancing machines on the face of the earth. Even just getting an invitation to Battle of the Year carries significant weight. So it’s no surprise you start to get yourself keyed up from mere excitement to frenzy by the time the battle actually rolls around.

Where It Excels
Planet B-Boy does a really good job of giving an accurate sense of scope for Battle of the Year. To our dance crews, it’s this humongous, life-defining, job-changing event, and one of the largest breakdancing gatherings in the world, but at the same time it’s also a big fish swimming in a tiny subculture. When they finally get to Battle of the Year, they’re staying at a school, practicing in a gym, and all sleeping in the same room. It’s got the glamour, but then again, it really doesn’t too. In fact, throughout the entire film I thought Lee did a phenomenal job of capturing those meaningful little moments; the Japanese and Korean crews puzzling over the German pudding they are served, the competitors shooting one another dirty looks, our youngest French B-Boy correcting his mother, and a million other personal moments that give an appropriate amount of realism to an otherwise overblown story. These are the best guys in the world at what they do, but it’s not all photo shoots and commercials. The whole feel is pretty aligned with the message too; it’s not just graffiti graphics and ’90s style tropes, but a more modern and cleaner version of the typical urban graphics, using a subway map of the world as a transitional device, and team t-shirts to do the job of weighty text or lower thirds.

Where It Fails
The tone it begins with is great, but at first you’re not sure whether the film is a lesson in B-Boy history or a primer in Battle of the Year. The structure is sound, but a little too predictable as well, and I would have liked to mix it up a little. While Planet B-Boy does a thorough job of delving into the five main contender’s worlds, it merely hints at the score of other dance crews also present putting their name on the line and their skills to the test. Sure America, France, Japan, and Korea are by far the most famous countries for the sport (Koreans taking the trophy seemingly more than everyone else lately), but the whole point of Battle of the Year is to give credence to the international, global appeal of breakdancing. I wanted less glossing over how widespread it is and more references to the competition. Still, I know you can only do so much in two hours.

All in All
Entertaining for sure, Planet B-Boy isn’t a work of genius in and of itself, but considering how few and far between decent movies on the subject are, Planet B-Boy was a totally welcome piece. It’s one of the few works on the subject that are high quality, true to the spirit of the contemporary movement, and do a good job dealing with the cultural incarnations of what the modern-day B-Boy is all about, rather than lamenting the loss of the traditional breaksta or demanding payment for the pastime’s period of exploitation. B-Boy culture has moved on, and its high time the films around it have too. All in all, it’s hard not to be excited by Planet B-Boy.

Who’s Camus Anyway? (alternate title: Kamyu nante shiranai)

2006, Japan

Directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi

Spoiler level - low (speculation and allusions only)

While those little indie wheat germs dancing on the covers of DVDs at your local video rental or electronics store are pretty good at convincing passerby a quality product lies underneath, I am less often convinced. I’m a hard film nut to crack, perhaps because of my background in the subject, perhaps because of my legpull-intolerant personality and already ironclad conviction and opinions, or perhaps because I have been let down by so many such claims (The Squid and the Whale, Thumbsucker, and Rocket Science come to mind), and I find myself even more skeptical when an independent film is used in conjunction with the following terms: buzz, sleeper hit, contemplative, postmodern, or critically acclaimed. It’s not a strike against, it’s just not a guarantee.

So, I wasn’t impressed by the cover, and I wasn’t sold by the description, but I couldn’t help feeling some fondness towards this strange and quirky film about liberal arts college kinds trying to make their way in the world. It’s a dry comedy, with some saddening moments thrown in as characters throw their souls on the line for a student project, a fact made even more quietly desperate given how forthright their intentions seemed at the onset. And then it turns soap opera. And then it has a nearly sublime and fully intentional Hitchcock moment. And then it ends. Confused yet?

Where It Excels
The setting is spot on. The whole film was both set and shot at an actual university in Tokyo, and while I thought having random art students practicing whatever craft they’re studying in the background was just a well-placed device, it turns out those cellists, break dancers, and ceramicists were actual students pursuing real clubs, adding another layer of reality that Vittorio De Sica would approve of. There are a few near-perfect moments (top shelf mis-en-scene and excellent direction) that really nail it, such as when our protagonists are having a serious meeting in the foreground and the cast and crew are having an all-out riot in the background. The structure is also amazingly easy to follow, given something as complex as a film, and even though we start five days before the first film date, never once was I lost, no easy feat for a foreign-language film. Moreover, I was impressed by the accuracy of the ordeal, including the amounts of money, the types of equipment, the arguments held, the positions made, and how each character was treated — exactly as they would have in a university-level course of literature students that are competent yet under-experienced at filmmaking. I struck a good balance between having no idea what they were doing and knowing exactly what they were doing without pulling knee jerk nags or getting on your last nerve.

In addition to the ambiance of practicing and disparate violinists adding to the diegetic score, Who’s Camus Anyway? made good use of some well-known devices. The opening shot was a beautiful introduction to the schoolyard reminiscent of The Player and Boogie Nights, and every time one of the producers constantly recollects scenes from French New Wave films and then lists back their numbers of cuts, the number of cuts in the sequence is drastically reduced. Clever, and not unnoticed. But perhaps where Who’s Camus Anyway? really excelled was the ending. In fact, the rest of the film is pretty boring, and quite dry, but the ending is a complete triumph. The film-within-a-film’s lead gives an incredible performance, punctuated by the only use of voice over narration in the film, which does an amazing job of disorienting you until you no longer know if the actor is playing his insane character or if the actor has gone crazy himself. Best of all, you could see it coming, but only once you looked back after it happened. I was unbelievably impressed that such an unsuspecting actor could pull off the a stunt, and completely surprised that such a mediocre until that point movie managed to make me actually hold my breath and second guess what was going on.

Where It Fails
While Who’s Camus Anyway? has good intentions, it drags a little, especially at the beginning. Large parts of it take turns for the dramatic that pull you out of the film’s plausibility, but then again that’s all thematic. The movie itself is about what happens when artists get too wrapped up in their work blindly, and all characters lose sense of reality and morality at one point or another until finally someone (their professor) steps in to provide some guidance and set the world in order. Of course when the professor has a breakdown himself, unrelated to the rest of the film, it seems completely disconnected to the central theme of the movie, which is that we cannot live without art, but it nearly kills us when we embrace it. This is revealed perhaps too early on in the film, and while the ending is excellent, as I mentioned before, it leaves a gap between the message and the character’s discovery of the message that is significantly underdeveloped.

That ending is completely abrupt too, that leaves you wondering what exactly was going on during that last thirty minute section, and even though you know by the time the credits roll, you’re still a little miffed that there was no breathing room, that the climax was seconds from the denouement. It’s also a pretty obviously self-indulgent film. As someone who’s been through film school and art school and prep school, I can understand the desire to express a little of the unresolved experience, you know, recapture a little of the zaniness, but inevitably all art school films are just a hair too specific to be appealing to me as a viewer. Who’s Camus Anyway? is guilty of this, and while all the name-dropping and film-referencing is both accurate to the kinds of conversations that would have (and still do) occur and easy enough for the decidedly non-film buff to follow, at times the effort felt forced and the statement an attempt to be all-important rather than tongue-in-cheek. At times it’s even hard to follow (between The Stranger, The Player, and Short Cuts, I lost sight of what was a creative attempt and what was recitation). Perhaps if the characters had experienced a few more failures, their eagerness to learn and immersion in the film world would have been more tolerable, perhaps necessary even.

All in All
It’s easy to see why Who’s Camus Anyway? attracted a few glances here and there, because it’s perhaps one of the most successful glimpses into film school I’ve ever seen. The subtle notes and wordless arguments that happen nearly minutely are what really reminded me of good acting. I was in turn pleasantly surprised at the performances onscreen, and while I had some qualms with the plot, overall the story was engaging, even if it did take half of the movie to get that way.

I don’t trust film critics to know a good film if it bit them on the nose (case in point: why Roeper loved Dark City, I will never know), and I certainly don’t put all my eggs in Hollywood’s basket, nor would I concede any particular movement is the ultimate mode of the medium. Out of the millions of movies out there in the many industries worldwide, how is a girl with good taste and a knackering for entertainment supposed to sort the duds from the diamonds?

Film is so subjective anyway, and every critic, box office statistic, and imdb user and netflix subscriber combined cannot provide anything even remotely resembling a reliable review or an indicator of where all that good cinema is hiding. What I have found helpful are once-tiny single-user weblogs of self-reviewed films, those people whose taste you grow to understand as a constant, regardless of whether their preferences match your own. I hold a Missouri housewife’s opinion in higher regard than I do Leonard Maltin’s based on her reviews of the latest DVDs, and I find all my good exports from a Chinese student with a strong affinity for cheesy horror who can barely write in English. Unlikely though it may seem, it is these people, so dedicated in their adoration of the silver screen that they just have to write about it, who are among the first to understand that good filmmaking isn’t just about a dark and complex story, and it isn’t about ultra-stylised cinematography, it isn’t about doing something so uniquely groundbreaking, it’s about making something that’s satisfying. Sometimes we want to watch Brad Pitt kick the shit out of someone, and sometimes we want to weep over Cate Blanchette’s dead lover. Sometimes we want to leave the theatre feeling wrecked over a fictional marriage, and sometimes we want to walk home feeling uplifted by that biography picture. There’s no one perfect film.

Most “critics” are either self-affirming or embarrassingly discerning towards this idea of value-added “quality” film. If you eschew high concept filmmaking, ascribe wholeheartedly to the belief that pre-modern movies (black and white and early technicolour movies) are far superior to those made after the modernist movement, or swear by any auteur — I’m talking to you Hitchcockians, Burtonians, Godardians, and Andersonians — read no further. If you hail independent films where nothing happens and nothing is resolved as the new apex of moviemaking (i.e., Broken Flowers fans), or if you like to talk at length about how blockbusters are ruining cinema and beating the dead horse that is moviegoing, this isn’t for you. Before I get a flood of hate-comments instead of a healthy debate, quit your browser and go drool over The Bicycle Thief, clean your laserdisc of Eraserhead, and buy a poster of Breathless on eBay instead.

This is for those people who spend hours hard-subbing Japanese anime the night after it comes out whether the series is still good or not simply because they want to spread the word. This is for the people who saw both the Hurtlocker and The Hangover, for people who didn’t participate in an Oscar pool or bracket even though they saw nearly all the Academy Award nominee films already. This is for the people who give Bollywood film a fighting chance even though they vehemently hate musicals, and who suffer through The Interview and all three Godfathers and feel completely comfortable despising Coppola’s work. Its for you, oh avid reader, who has probably already asked me what’s good in theatres right now and wants to hear the answer without a condescending diatribe. And I want to give it to you.

I’m hardly a country bumpkin who staunchly defends Pirates of the Caribbean (my go-to high concept example of Hollywood) because of the castlist or how cool pirates are. Though I may still defend the entire trilogy, I’m certainly coming from a different place altogether. In my line of work, once someone hears you’re in any way involved with filmmaking the only conversation they want to have is about your and their favourite movies and prodigal versus rubbish movies out today. I’m not saying I don’t care about the current state of affairs, quite the opposite actually, but I am firmly convinced tying yourself to one movement is a complete waste of time. Film is ever-evolving, and while not looking deeply enough into the craft is foolish, spending too much time contemplating the undertones of a piece under whatever microscope you prefer (e.g., feminism, queer theory, new wave, national cinema, etc.) is even more foolhardy. Over debate which imitates which (Art and Life) and you’ll quickly lose sight of the human experience and the entire purpose of either. Look, but enjoy too.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m pretty darn passionate about the subject. So passionate that I want to contribute to that shortlist of self-motivated bloggers who write personal reviews of the movies they like for you to read whenever you want. I want to be that friend who’s opinion to know if not trust. This is my promise to you: I am going to write honest, informed, and thoughtful reviews of the kinds of movies I’m watching, be they the newest Harry Potter, the oldest Doris Day classics, and everything in between. I am going to write about obscure B drive-in movies you probably have no interest in ever watching, and I am going to write about esoteric foreign language films you probably can’t even find, and I will probably write my fair share of independent and boutique films. And I am definitely going to throw in the historical tidbits and academic theorems I’ve formulated on the subject when appropriate, but I’m definitely not going to throw the weight of my film knowledge in your face, I’m not going to pretend my opinion is any better or worse than anyone else’s, and I’m not going to claim to be an expert on the topic. The fact that I avidly watch movies, make them for a living, and spend hours thinking about them has nothing to do with it. What’s important here is that I’m a kid that really likes movies, no matter how many papers I have to read and write about films I didn’t like, out-of-line producers I work with, or how many times I consider asking for a ticket refund. When you love something this much, that’s all that really counts.

via bullshit:

It’s not strange to disagree about movies that are wildly different, and there are surely a few random movies that are very polarizing. What I find most interesting is which movie people consider the best movie from a particular director, as it is usually very telling and polarizing in a different way, so to this point I will propose a new personality test where you reblog your favorite movie from each of these directors:

My results: Fargo, The Life Aquatic, who the hell is Hal Ashby?, Dogma (though I hate Kevin Smith), a tie between Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill 2. On a more personal note, I’ve found it is true that the above directors are quite polarising (in the case of Hal Ashby between people who have heard of him and those who have not). Over Thanksgiving break I was discussing our favourite movies of the year with family, and I was shocked to discover how much my aunt and uncle enjoyed The Darjeeling Ltd and hated Rushmore. It’s strange how you can take for granted someone in a category as big as Wes Anderson’s, only to find out those of us that fall under the same heading disagree more than we agree.

Let’s be honest, as a film student I can have some very strong opinions about anything movie-related, and the above directors are perhaps five of the most striating directors to choose. So if you ever want a long-winded but highly enlightening conversation about my movie preferences, bring up any of the following: the Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Jon Woo, Robert Rodriguez, Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, or Jae-young Kwak.

It’s a global world, and you are a global person. You know where the art house cinema is. You’ve been to Europe, or Europe’s identical twin: Canada. You order Chinese food and drink Mexican tequila regularly. And you even remember a bit of that high school romance language you had to take four years of. You are global.

Maybe you are more than global. Maybe you’ve actually been to that art house cinema to see what Pan’s Labyrinth was all about. Maybe you even used that rusty French on your last trip to Paris. And maybe you can instantly tell the difference between Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and Malaysian dishes. You are more than global; you are worldly.

Well, even if you’re global, even if you’re worldly, you aren’t watching Korean cinema. Now don’t feel left out; truth is, pretty much no one but Koreans are watching Korean cinema. That’s because their domestic box office has a quota system in place and their international trade policies have bad luck. But before I go into the nuances of Korea’s intense industry, let me start with world cinema as a whole, otherwise known as How Hollywood Looks to the Outside World.

From the medium’s get-go, we Yankees took over the game. Even in the early days of Edison vs. Lumiere, when Edison completely tanked and it looked like the Lumiere brothers were going to take the cake, the silver screen still drew the spotlight stateside. I don’t know if France has ever forgiven D.W. Griffith for stealing the thunder their brilliant invention caused at its inception, but ever since even they can’t deny that Hollywood is THE dominant force in the film world. Now I’m taking two cinema classes in a foreign country of whose language I can actually use nuance and sarcasm in, and have been given an incredible insight into how Hollywood is perceived by the outside. In short, I am the resident Hollywood expert because of my accent, when there are a number of students of every nationality who have seen more summer blockbusters than I. Hollywood really is everywhere. It’s become synonymous with film as a whole.

Now I could make a number of conjectures about how this notion has affected the American psyche and foreign relations — while it would be naïve to expect international waters to host every comfort of home, it must be noted that in the case of American comforts, pretty much every international water does host our establishments, from McDonald’s to Visa, and both Hollywood and the American music industry are no exceptions — but instead I’m going to put it in perspective. It is said that there are three countries in which the domestic industry overtakes the international one. Only three countries in the entire world where the local Blockbuster has an overwhelming number more natively-produced films than any other. Which three countries?

Well, the United States is obviously first on the list, though to my dismay it is often assumed that Hollywood is our national cinema, which is not exactly the case, and while I am proud of what Hollywood has given the world, I also grow frustrated that it is always seen as an omnipotent monolith, a domineering aunt you can’t get rid of but succumb to anyway, when America has so many great other niches outside of Hollywood that are overlooked.

The second on the list is, unsurprisingly, India and her Bollywood media. If you underestimated the power of one billion people interested in the lifestyles of the rich and the famous, you wouldn’t be alone. After all, Bollywood cinema is unassuming as a powerful force; it is admittedly difficult to take movies made in Ed Wood haste on drive-in budgets with breakaway musical numbers seriously, but while Hollywood is criticised for its happy endings, Bollywood is the epitome of riding off into the sunset. It’s an entire country interested in fantasy, escapist cinema, a country that is a good deal larger and more supportive of its films than Australia or Canada or Russia, which, while larger in size than India, are a mere 2% the population.

So what’s third? Hong Kong? China? England? Japan? Nope, as you’ve probably surmised from my opening paragraphs, it’s South Korea. Unlike Hong Kong, China, Japan, and England, Korea has been (to put it politely) xenophobic for a good deal longer and on (to put it even more politely) less than friendly terms with other countries to a larger degree in recent decades. Add to that a…er…restrictive government and you get a set of cineplexes that offer home brew romcoms, domestically-specific action flicks, and a series of heart-wrenching tragedies adapted from national literature. And the audiences flock in droves.

Okay, I recognise that just because a cinema is popular doesn’t mean you should fall for it immediately. But Korean Cinema is well worth taking a gander at. I give you ten excuses as to why you should start threatening to your local video shop that you’ll switch to Netflix if they don’t start wising up (or ten reasons why you actually should switch to Netflix), ten quips to make you sound like an expert at a cocktail party, ten new vocabulary words you can’t even pronounce and ten fresh stars you’ve never heard of, and most of all ten reasons you should start loving Korean film. Right now. And if that wasn’t enough, ten films to get you started on the road to your newfound favourite film genre.

1. The number one reason you should not skip from Japan directly to China is that Korean film is underestimated. Do not be one of those people who overlooks such a strong national cinema, which through modest means in the last two decades can produce a similar volume to Hollywood films that are just as vehemently attended, within their home country at least. And don’t ignore the fact that the cinema can contend with the production values and narrative arc of not only Hollywood but England, France, and Italy. Now I’m not saying Korean film has it’s own style yet, at least nothing to rival Brit Grit Social Realism or French New Wave, or Italian Neo-Realism, but they’ve glossed over the whole grassroots establishment and gone directly to world recognition, collecting $200,000,000 along the way in profits. Why is this impressive? Because they’re the first Asian country to do it in such a short time. In short, Korean cinema isn’t as old as Hong Kong’s, or as well established as Japan’s, but it’s a whole lot faster. And while it may not seem like it, Korean films have to constantly assert their Koreanness while still trying to be mindful of their confusing identity. Case in point: Le Grande Chef is well-made, well-paced, mindful of foreign cinematic influences, but still distinctly Korean. It’s about Korean cooking and Japanese reconciliation in a Chinese culinary world. Watch it and you too will discover just how how much overlooking you’ve been doing not just on Korea’s film industry, but on their culture as well.

Before I continue, I should explain now that there are three main types of genuine South Korean films you can rent (i.e., not horror film attempts at imitating the Japanese speciality). The first is the tear jerker. These stories are meant to play your heartstrings like a cello on a sinking ship, but while the narrative may be hokey beyond your ability to suspend disbelief, the method in which Korean films strike that final chord before the last splash is more than just admirable. The time they take to develop the characters, the motifs they invariably plant, the decisively unhappy endings but only after two-hours worth of close calls; the South Koreans know how to cry. And while movies that offer the watery-eye-inducing pretense at the onset (Sad Movie anyone?) abound in the South Korean market, there are a fair few films that you aren’t expecting to wrench your heart, even if it was painfully obvious the love interest was going to die since that scene halfway through.

2. But beyond just nailing the tear-jerker genre (among others) that someone else created, let’s not forget that Korean movies did it first in oh so many cases. Thought Frequency was a truly original concept? I give you the ham-radio drama of Ditto. Convinced 2007’s Juno was the most unique film written in ages? Try 2005’s Jenny, Juno, which also explored the pregnancy of a witty but unwed fifteen-year-old girl and her awkward boyfriend with good intentions long before Ellen Page made a name for herself. Excited about Jesse Bradford’s new film, My Sassy Girl? It’s a remake of the quintessential and most famous South Korean teen flick of the same name. What about Sarah Michelle Gellar’s newest, Possession?. Yup, a remake too from the 2002 South Korean thriller Possession/Addiction. Case in point: The Lakehouse was an abject failure, while the original Korean version five years prior, Il Mare, is not only better narratively, but breathtaking beautifully. The cross-cut cooking scenes will make you pine for your own time-travel experience in a way that Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves never could.

3. It’s not just Il Mare that is beautiful enough to make you cry. Korean films look like Hollywood films, with their beautiful stars, incredibly high production values, elabourate sets, and impeccable costuming. This may seem like a trivial thing; after all, global, worldly audiences such as yourself surely can overcome the shortcomings of low-quality visuals, but it cannot be denied that it isn’t just us that are used to Hollywood glitz and glamour. The world is conditioned to associate cinema with Hollywood gloss. When we see the hair and the makeup and the big names and the great lighting, it signals to us “these people know what they’re doing.” Let me assure you, the Koreans know what they’re dong. Case in point: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring looks akin to The Last Samurai only with no Tom Cruise. As you can imagine, the seasonality of the land plays a huge role in the film, which centres only on one location: that of a Buddhist hovel in a valley. If I tried to explain the premise to you, you’d think it was terribly slow and never go and watch it, but any preamble I give won’t do justice to the film’s real purpose: to showcase nature and beauty in Korea’s passing of ages.

4. So they’re original and beautiful, and they can make you blubber like a baby. But Korean movies can also make you grip the edge of your seat, flinch and grab your neighbour’s hand, or provide the perfect backdrop for the romantic date of your dreams. Another huge plus for Korean cinema is the incredible range provided by Korean movies. Oh yes they’ve got the tear-jerker down pad, but they’ve also mastered horror and suspense, rewritten the book on epic war dramas, and vaulted the “first love” romcom/chick flick to a whole new status. You’re certain to find your favourite film genre in Korean cinema. While Hollywood is associated almost exclusively with high-concept filmmaking, and Hong Kong with kung-fu flicks, South Korea is not tied down by such convention and within the industry a remarkably diverse group of movies are produced. Unlike Japan, which evokes the lonely stoic film, or India, which conjures over-the-top musicals, Korea reminds us of…well…everything. From this tiny country you’ll find equally well-developed genres of horror, romantic comedy, family melodrama, action blockbuster, war saga, art house films, romance melodrama, and science fiction. Strokes of Fire sits on the shelf right next to Project Makeover and across from Woman on the Beach. Case in point: Peppermint Candy shows that an industry with a bit of a reputation for fluffy teen movies (e.g., My Boyfriend Is Type B, A Millionaire’s First Love and My Girl and I) can take the same sets of events and circumstances and also produce a moving, tragic, beautiful film in a completely different vein. You’ll be astounded.

Aside from the heart-wrencher, the second type of Korean film you’ll come across is the war blockbuster. Rife with non-stop action and military themes, these films are meant to blow your mind, not just with all the shoot ‘em up explosions and insane car chases, but also with the twisty and occasionally shocking stories and characters you are actually invested in. Imagine Infernal Affairs (aka: The Departed) all the time. When you tire of the CIA-like inquisitions and wartime setting, remember that South Korea is always thinking of war. It’s fresh on the culture’s memory, as they have not only fought wars on their own soil, but among their own political turmoil also had their country split down the middle, and are constantly afraid someone’s about to blow them up.

5. Watching Korean movies will help you get a dose of cultural insight into the whole affair. If, like me, you aren’t living anywhere near Korea, you’ll find it hard to really understand the South Korean situation without sounding condescending or giving up your current citizenship. But, beyond just the obvious war films, there’s an undercurrent to the Korean industry that’s altogether too unusual to ignore. By watching Korean movies not only will you gain a respect for the politics and history and traditions of the culture (as you would to some degree by watching any national cinema), but you’ll come to see how the culture looks upon its own politics and history and traditions, which given the privileged western view is normally impossible to ascertain. Current affairs issues that most South Koreans are reluctant to talk about come to the surface in their films; topics like suicide and bullying and their previous political regimes are open for debate. Whether it’s a drastically different school system, family structure, or institution of marriage, Korean films make it easy to see more to the culture than just Kimchi and BBQ. Case in point: JSA: Joint Security Area asks whether or not the gap between North and South Korean can be bridged, and what part other countries have to play, even alleged neutrals like Switzerland and Sweden. Even if it does grow a little dramatic towards the end, it gives you a feel for why reunification won’t be as easy in Korea as it was in Germany (if you could call that easy).

6. You have to hand it to them, Korean films are never boring, either. No really. I don’t know if it’s the industry’s desperate tendency to underdevelop screenwriting, or the fear that audience attention span is likened to that of a beta fish, or the need to compete with both Korea’s degeneration of older generations and their traditions as well as the array of omnipresent modern conveniences (like insanely fast internet, wicked mobile phones, and online gaming communities), but with the exception of Railroads, pretty much every Korean film I’ve seen is thoroughly entertaining. I used to joke that Korean films employed the theme of time travel (which shows up alarmingly often) just to keep their movies from getting too boring or too predictable. Sure you’d expect Oldboy to be mind-blowing the whole way through, but you wouldn’t expect a film like The Classic to keep your interest the entire time, but it does. I pin it the fact that you don’t really know what to expect, even if you know what kind of movie you’re getting into. Case in point: Memories of Murder, a film about a small town serial killer and the futility of 1980s police force in a murder mystery that is anything but cliché. It isn’t strictly a detective crime thriller, but when the screen isn’t spewing mystery action at you, it’s cracking you up. Unusual, but far from boring.

7. Another reason to blow the dust off your DVD player is that Korea is legitimate, no longer just a helpless entity, even if South Korea is convinced North Korea is going to blow them all into oblivion and turn them into communists (their films reveal numerous close calls, Northern attempts that our stout and loyal undercover Southern operatives manage to sabotage), while the U.N. is in a playground standoff with the country and the U.S. can’t stop writing about Kim Jung-Il’s harem. But I’m talking about domination of a different sort. Back in the ’80s Korea was just one of those Asian Tiger countries with an economic boom quietly civilised and as well developed as its neighbours, yet even now that the bubble’s burst, Korea registers more on the world radar than it ever did back in the day. Politically it may have been a huge point of contention in the ’50s, but culturally it was just another place of atrocity, another Vietnam, another Cambodia. Slowly though, Korea has culturally bucked off those ideas, relinquishing the image of the farmer in the rice patty and placed itself among the technologically and economically elite, redefining its national identity in the process. And Korea will no longer lie by quietly. Case in point: Shiri is the new embodiment of the age old Korean struggle. The film has intrigue, thrill, action, romance, and one hell of an ending. Thus it is fitting that Shiri broke all box office records at the time of its release. If South Korea is to take its place among the pantheon of highly relevant countries and cultures, shouldn’t you at least be well versed?

By this point down the list you have a number of films to name-drop regarding the tear-jerker and the wartime-action movie. The last main type of Korean film out there is, not surprisingly, the intense teen romance-cum-melodrama. It starts as a lighthearted romantic comedy, a fun summer flick if you will, and inevitably some external pressure compacts the fluff into something substantial, and the comedy becomes full on romantic melodrama. I should mention the idea of the “first love” here, an elusive concept endlessly called upon in Korean cinema. It is believed, more or less, that in every man, woman, and coming-of-age-child’s heart his or her first love, and their first romantic entangle will remain forever. Many a South Korean film is made on this premise, with feelings for the high-school sweetheart either developed and retained for life even when circumstances are far from fortuitous, or these feelings resurged mutually until death forces one to move on. In Korea, the first love is sacred. And it usually starts out innocently and comically, but, unlike the American coming of age movie, it is eventually seen as a serious and real thing. Rather than youthfulness displayed in the fickle in and out of love romantic antics, love is always everlasting and youth is personified in the comedy of these Korean films. It’s the best of both worlds really, and while the comedy certainly isn’t in tune with the Hollywood or ’70s British meanings of the word, South Korean comedies are undeniably worth a laugh.

8. Perhaps the secret weapon of South Korean cinema is that the jokes translate. I often find myself confused with foreign films, especially if there are parallel stories, jumps in time, or actors that look alike. It’s even worse when you’re trying to watch a foreign movie with subtle humour. 2 Days in Paris has a few distinctly French jokes, while Little Britain is only entertaining if you are privy to the infamous British humour. No sweat with Korean movies. All the jokes translate well, even without subtitles. So you aren’t limited by your lackluster knowledge of hangul and are free to the entire extensive library of comedies coming out of South Korea. Moreover, you’ll find comedy is used unusually often, even in melodramatic films to provide contrast. You won’t be lost in any of it. Case in point: My Sassy Girl is perhaps Korea’s most famous romantic comedy. The poor protagonist is mistakenly identified as the boyfriend of a drunk girl on the subway, and you will laugh along with the comedy that ensues; every pratfall will be yours to treasure and you’ll feel the full effect of every embarrassing and awkward situation presented.

9. The industry is young, really young, and I don’t mean the actors. I mean Seoul especially is becoming an epicentre of youth culture and the filmmakers in South Korea are not the sixty-five-year-old fogies that make up a “golden era” like Hollywood’s power players. The identity of Korea’s national cinema has yet to be formed, so what results is a series of highly developed films with highly experimental natures. There aren’t a lot of big name directors and writers out there, so the entire industry has a sort of “anything goes” feel to it, an attitude that is reinforced in the cinema’s products. Case in point: House Husband isn’t just a good old fashioned disguise comedy about family values and the love of your life, it’s about gender equality/disparity, relationship stereotypes, filial pressure, and critique of modern values. It’s an entertaining film about a stay at home dad, but while the premise is offhand, you cannot forget that such a film’s production (and indeed success) is possible because it is a product of a young industry staffed by young individuals and observed a young audience.

10. And perhaps the most overlooked reason to move to Seoul right now just for the cinema choices, you haven’t heard this one before… Let’s talk about formula. Like Hollywood filmmakers, South Korean filmmakers know there’s a formula. They see a movie succeed and they want to duplicate that kind of success. But unlike Hollywood filmmakers, South Korean filmmakers aren’t out of ideas yet, and, though they understand there can only be so many ways to end a romantic entanglement, thy never try to make the same movie again (i.e., aren’t Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Must Love Dogs the same movie?). Moreover, Korean films are incredibly innovative. They present new takes on a genre you thought you knew to the letter. And while you may know how it’s going to end, you never know how they’re going to get there. Case in point: The Young Bride might seem formulaic — our two lovers hate one another at first and eventually through a series of events grow to love one another — it’s rare that one of them should be underage, and rarer still that they should be married at the start of the film rather than end. So I say again, you haven’t heard this one before.

So there you have it. Ten reasons to start taking an interest in yet another east Asian export. Sure Korean films will never be released to American movie theatres unless the directors hand deliver the reels themselves, but because the movie-going, pop-obsessed, disposable income-earning South Korean population will keep seeing these films, and because the government isn’t about to abolish the 80% rule anytime soon, you can bet that more Korean films will be made, and that they’re only going to get better as their industry matures. In filmic terms, South Korea is the place to be. It’s the most exciting, the sexiest, and, in my opinion, the best developing industry. It’s got great potential. More than potential. It’s got great start value. And now you’re in on it too.

I know there are four, technically five film periods since the medium’s inception, but to me there will always be three main thrusts of the industry:

1) Back when no one knew what they were doing (i.e., silent films and early stabs at auteurism up until about 1934)

2) Boring bits that established film as legitimate (i.e., the golden era of Hollywood and all the existential art new waves)

3) The mucking about with old bits trying to make new bits (i.e., postmodern horror films, pastiche galore, and the industry from 1970 to as it is today)

This last category is the most important to me, simply because it’s the environ in which I am trying to make my living. There’s a lot going on in this period that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself, and I’m trying to figure out not just where I fit in, but also where the industry as a whole is going. There have been numerous criticisms with the way films are being handled now, and indeed with the type of films that are being made. On the one hand, the rise of the boutique production and the inundation of the independent film has completely changed the way we make and think of movies. The blockbuster is still alive and well, and many of the fresh eyes in the whole system are shaking their fists and claiming it’s all recycled and trite and not close to what we want. Films like Garden State, Juno and Brick are supposed to be telling of our time, yet are constantly in flux as our generation repeatedly regales and then rejects them. Their merit has not yet reached a consensus.

In this world of turmoil then it is perhaps not unlikely that there has been a resurgence of the exploitation flick and a surfacing of the “Cult Classic,” a term generally used as an epithet for “this film sucked when it was made, but because we’ve even heard of it, now it’s cool.” This may sound like the bitter and jaded response of a film student lectured about the evils of Quentin Tarantino one too many times, and in some respects it is. But unlike most such characters, I don’t abhor the drive-in double feature about werewolves, and I certainly don’t despise Tarantino. I think the B movie is entirely misunderstood.

The year is 1974. You take a hammy, over the top, low-brow movie with gaudy ______ (fill in the blank with any of the following: sexuality, nudity, violence, cursing, blood and gore, fetishism, stereotypes, and the list goes on), slap a cheesy title on it and you throw it in theatres. Maybe it’ll make some money, maybe it won’t, but the most you could ever hope for is a niche audience, a bit of box office recognition, and a crossover director. That was then.

This is now. Kids still know all the dialogue to Monty Python’s The Holy Grail by heart, vintage and previously-unheard of sci-fi posters are selling like hot cakes, and you do your grocery shopping on Sunday night because on Saturday the parking lot is blocked of by a queue of cross-dressig nerds waiting in line for the monthly midnight screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the cinemaplex next to the supermarket. What happened?

I believe the modern-day phenomenon of embracing the exploitation flick as it was never accepted before is not a random coincidence. Neither is the seemingly puzzling pattern of Hollywood blockbuster smashes that hit close to the home of cult themes everywhere: vampires one year, zombies the next. The industry has been taken by a stream of horror films - first with aliens and then with samurai and now with superheroes. And by industry I should say industries, because even in Eastern markets such as Hong Kong films are experiencing an increased popularity in wuxai-style martial arts films and the obscure brand of humour offered only by Stephen Chow. Pirates vs. ninjas doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg. So what is it? What combination of factors has led society to find obscure pop culture references cool rather than corny?

We’ll begin with the economic ones, because I wholeheartedly believe that the economic shifts of the industry from the 1970s to today have a lot more to do with the whole shebang than the culture does. In 1972 the only commercially available format for viewing movies was, well, television (Betamax and VHS weren’t introduced until 1975 and 1976 respectively, laserdisc not until 1978). To give you a sense of setting, Star Wars Episode IV didn’t come out until five years later in 1977, and countertop microwave ovens had only been available for the last five since 1967. Movies were consumed more or less singularly in theatres, thus a film’s box office success was vital to its distribution. In 1972 the media did not overhype box office sales as much as they do today, certainly, but unlike today, theatres were not 24-screen monstrosities and art house cinemas were few and far between. If a film did well in larger cities, it was then pushed to smaller cities. Essentially, teenagers in the midwest depended on senior citizens in Los Angeles and middle-aged moms in New York for variety in their hometown theatres. This is a very different landscape from moviegoing today.

I could talk for days on end about the difference in audience habits over a thirty year span, but that’s not what clinches it for fans of exploitation films. Today, consumers of movies get their fix not from television, and not from the theatres, but from DVD sales. Theatre box office sales are only a slice of the pie, a the majority of film profit overall actually comes directly from DVD sales (and VHS back in the day, and perhaps BlueRay tomorrow) over any other means, including digital download. We’ve moved from the big screen, to the small screen, and now to the laptop screen. The point is, in 1972 the industry could only sustain a small niche market for so long before it was just hemorrhaging money. Enter the low-budget B film. Cheap, easy, and consumable by those with disposable income, namely the ’70s youth. Why did exploitation films survive in the first? Because 1972 was rife with angsty nerds (isn’t every era?) supporting the horror and sci-fi genres, and the African American population that supported Blacksploitation films hardly classify as small potatoes. However, unlike the cinema landscape in 1972, today’s market is nothing but niche. Current audience viewing habits allow for DVD sales to easily double what the film brought in when it premiered, and the advent of a computer on every desktop and internet access at everyone’s fingertips transformed a world of hard-to-find side projects into a realm of nearly mainstream success. Even as late as 1980 if you wanted to find a film like Tampopo or Akira you had to look hard, usually in seedy video shops or college yard sales. Now over 70 different sellers on amazon marketplace offer up these historical gems.

The result? Up go the DVD sales. For starters, the average individual who is likely to own a DVD or two is just as likely to own a modest collection of a dozen or so discs as he or she is to own a collection that ranges in the hundreds. DVDs are cheaper to make and coming out faster, and in multiple editions under the guise of “Extended” or “Director’s Cut” to give re-releases and edge in the market. Moreover, the proliferation of DVDs and popularisation of google (and indeed online authorities on subjects such as films) makes movies that were previously unheard of discoverable, and films that were previously unmarketable in the ’70s and ’80s suddenly marketable. Profit exists now where it did not thirty years ago. Take for example the Grindhouse debacle. If exploitation films had a posterboy, it would be Quentin Tarantino. He just loves them: cheesy horror where cars/plants/anything eat small suburban towns, vampire flicks, low-brow heists, slashers, thrashers, splatter movies and anything that will make you want to vomit in your hand, triad kung fu films, stereotypical westerns, crazy rock-operas, Japanese-derived graphic novels, he loves them all and for this he has earned himself a fanatical following and a name synonymous with graphic violence. So when Tarantino and film buddy Robert Rodriquez decided to actually recreate one of those 1973 horror double-features, you’d think all this niche audience would convene. Grindhouse flopped so terribly in America it was separated into single features abroad in hopes of garnering more fiscal success elsewhere. This is an important finding to note: the exploitation and cult classic film is just as unpopular in the mainstream today as it ever was. Was it a vanity production? Certainly not. Both of Grindhouse’s features — Planet Terror and Deathproof — were successful in their own way. They attained cult status without having to wait for a quarter century to pass to do it. The important difference between a film like The Cars that Ate Paris and the Grindhouse films is that Grindhouse will be seen via DVD and download more than The Cars that Ate Paris or Invasion of the Body Snatchers ever were because the audience still exists, just not in the theatres.

And more of these movies keep getting made. Admittedly some of the success can be attributed to those like Tarantino and Rodriguez and Michel Gondry who hype it up, and have thus popularised the medium into a celebration of the B-movie on the screen today, and also an investment in the B-movies of yesteryear. They wouldn’t be so successful if the genre didn’t make money. It’d be daft to pin it all on economics though. There are certainly cultural parallels that make the resurgence of this material feel destined. The ’70s were a decade dealing with the post-counterculture sentiments of the generation before them, and solidifying its trends towards as many revolutions as it could muster: a sexual revolution, a civil rights liberation, a political upheaval, a sudden and vested interest in pop culture, and a desire to reveal and lay everything bare. We are not so far off from those sentiments ourselves. Riding on the tail end of the hacker revolution and economic boom of the ’90s, today we are making our decade bask in some slippery notion of “the information age” in which today’s generation craves the liberation of information, the freedom of expression, a revolution against politics again, and the rise of rampant individualism. So the roots that pushed exploitation films into existence are repeating themselves. We are just as happy to push the limits of our cultural censorship with South Park in 1999 as If… was in 1969.

For some reason, we are terribly attracted to this initial phase of exploitation. We love pastiche. It’s an unhindered nostalgia for eras the current generation has never known. In a way, exploitation films have a newly birthed cultural status imbibed in them. Films like Juno and High Fidelity propetuate the image that the obscure and the old fashioned are desirable. Sly wit and esoteric music obsessions are hip. Authors like Chuck Klosterman and Douglas Coupland teach us that pop culture trivia is like money in wall street - highly desirable. So in a sense, today’s culture has made room for the exploitation film. Even more surprising, the exploitation film shows up in a number of guises elsewhere, masquerading as a “quality” film. For what is the superhero blockbuster if not a high-budget exploitation film? It’s a flight of fancy, a two-hour CGI version of Tarantino’s beloved corn syrup and red food dye. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen typifies this obsession with the cult icons: dorian grey, vampires, science fiction, and the steampunk era to boot, dabbling in literature, fantasy, comic books, and action film. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen isn’t the only one either; there have been a series of other large-scale re-envisionings of the 1970 exploitation film that have found much more than a small niche, though they elicit a cult following. Films like Pirates of the Caribbean and Batman and Hostel are all of the same seed leftover from 1968. Our comedies take a page from the book of exploitation films too; how many Ben Stiller or Will Ferrel films are just low-class jabs and toilet humour and over the top costumes not out of place in a film like Car Wash or Blazing Saddles? Shaun of the Dead is just an even lower-rung City of the Living Dead, Good Luck Chuck a twenty-first century stab at Alvin Purple, and Snakes on a Plane a dumbed down version of Shaft.

There are almost as many types of exploitation films as there are screens at The Grove: shock films, biker films, cannibal films, chambara films, slasher flicks, zombie flicks, mondo movies, splatter movies, spaghetti westerns, euroflicks, prison films, martial arts films, propaganda films, stoner films, blaxploitation, sexploitation, ozploitation, and a million other subgenres to include. It is certainly not a unique phenomenon to say the least. The Blair Witch Project, Tokyo Gore Police, Sukiyaki Western Django, they are nothing more than reiterations of what has already been: Dawn of the Dead, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, Turkey Shoot.

What inspired this long-winded glimpse into the world of exploitation flicks? Well, two things. One, the documentary Not Quite Hollywood left me fearing the world would only hear one side of the skinny of exploitation films: from the men who had lived through the 1970s. I thought someone from the younger generation had to step in and say their bit. The Brisbane International Film Festival is rolling in this weekend, with a special on Horror and special section devoted to the ozsploitation films of the ’70s and ’80s, and while I may not be able to describe the social climate of the era as accurately as someone like Tom O’Regan, I will certainly be able to describe the atmosphere of today with a good deal of accuracy and insight. In summation the shifts in viewing attitudes from public to private exhibition, the industry’s refocusing on niche markets, and the cultural similarities have allowed exploitation films that were overshadowed in the 1970s and 1980s to flourish today both economically and culturally. Of course it’s more than that, isn’t it? There’s something deeper than the face-value of audience tendencies now that really says something about why we’re still watching the same pieces of celluloid so many critics hailed as nothing but rubbish. Perhaps audiences are longing for an elder era of cinema? Perhaps we’re so desensitised by our own society we require the absurdist antics of exploitation filmmaking to reach us? Perhaps we just don’t want to think about it anymore, we just want to watch? This is a discussion for another, equally long-winded diatribe. But it is food for thought.

Although interest in this genre may seem a random and passing trend, I urge you to think about how long exploitation films have been around, and how their popularity has been affected by the passage of time. Perhaps we should be giving less thought to “solving the problem” of B movies and more thought to why it is they are so prevalent. It is a phenomenon that appears founded in more than just a few teenagers in a drive through with some change in their pocket. I believe this is where we draw the line from “films” into “genres.” When a man can make his living and his fame by these criticisably low-brow films, it might be time to reframe our subject.