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CHAPTER 1
The Korean Film Industry: From Domestic
“Straggler” to Global “Outperformer”
In recent years, a number of Korean films have been recognized at pres-
tigious international film festivals and have received a number of awards.
As the Korean film industry is relatively not well known, these achieve-
ments appear to be one-time events that happen out of blue. For instance,
it is telling that the richly-documented international panorama on the
world’s film industries in the Bilans or annual reports produced by the
French state film body Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée
(CNC) deals with the Korean industry in only a few lines.1By contrast,
it devotes a much larger space to other film industries around the world,
which are comparatively smaller or under-performing or both. However,
the reality is that Korea has not only been able to produce a large number
of films, but it has the world’s fourth largest film market according to the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) (2020). This is a signifi-
cant achievement. Moreover, if one compares Korea with other countries
1CNC is the public body founded in 1946 with the task to manage all the issues
concerning the French film industry and policy. As analyzed in following chapters
(especially Chapter 5), it has extensive powers.
This chapter is based on Parc (2017,2020) but has been further updated and
expanded.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
J. Parc and P. A. Messerlin, The Untold Story of the Korean Film Industry,
Cultural Economics & the Creative Economy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80342-1_1
1
1 THE KOREAN FILM INDUSTRY … 3
dynamics of the “overall” demand (for both domestic and foreign films)
showing how lively the selected film markets have been. Section 4goes
further by examining separately the evolutions of the demand for both
foreign and domestic films in each selected country. The dynamic perspec-
tive of Sects. 3and 4underlines the extent to which Korea’s growth is
sustainable.
How can the clear growth pattern demonstrated by the Korean film
industry be explained? More precisely, to what extent are these inflexion
points related to changes in the Korean film policy or/and to changes in
the strategies of the film companies? These questions are explored in the
following chapters based upon the preliminary knowledge in this chapter.
1Korea and the Korean
Film Industry in the World
Despite the achievement of films like Parasite (2020), a number of
observers still see Korea at the margin of the global film industry. To
challenge such perceptions, it is meaningful to offer a brief and broad
picture on the Korean film industry in the world. Table 1presents Korea
and its five most relevant counterparts. Indeed, these countries are used
Table 1 The global film industry and background information
No. of films
produced
(2017)a
Box office revenues
(2018, billion
USD)b
Population
(2019,
million)c
GDP
nominal
(2019,
current
USD
billion)c
GDP
(PPP) per
capita
(2019,
USD)c
Korea 494 1.6 51.7 1,642 43,143
Japan 594 2.4 126.3 5,081 43,236
France 300 1.6 67.1 2,715 49,435
UK 285 1.6 66.8 2,827 48,693
US 660 11.4 328.2 21,427 65,298
China 874 9.2 1,397.7 14,313 16,830
Note Data on US films include Canada
Sources aUNESCO Institute for Statistics; bMotion Picture Association (MPA); cThe World Bank
6J. PARC AND P. A. MESSERLIN
Table 2 Korean film industry’s performance (2018)
Korea Japan France UK US China
Demand: admissions in movie theater
Overall demand (million admission) 217 169 197 177 1,346 1,720
Frequentation index (per capita)a4.2 1.3 2.9 2.7 3.8 1.3
Domestic films (million admission) 109 93 78 66 1,300 1,070
Frequentation index (per capita)a2.1 0.7 1.2 1.0 3.6 0.8
Market share domestic films (%) 50.2 54.8 39.5 37.4 96.6 62.2
Supply: production of domestic filmsb
No. of produced films 494 594 300 285 660 874
Production index (per capita)a9.6 4.7 4.5 4.4 1.9 0.6
State support c
Financial support (million USD)a148 n.a 629 767 1,652 n.a
Note b based on 2017
Source British Film Institute (BFI) (various issues), Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée
(CNC) (various issues), KOFIC (various issues), Motion Pictures Association of Japan (MPPAJ)
(various issues), Motion Picture Association (MPA) (various issues); aauthors’ calculation based on
data in Table 1;bUIS; cauthors’ calculation based on Table 1in Chapter 4
It sends two messages: that the Korean film market is widely open and
that Korean films are as attractive as Hollywood blockbusters.
Table 2presents the market share of domestic films, which is the
indicator most frequently mentioned in the public debate although it is
ambiguous and easy to misinterpret. For instance, a large share is often
understood as the sign of a successful film industry. However, as the
market share is a percentage that does not show the actual market size, it
can be large when the audience for domestic films is in actual fact low
and the audience for foreign films is even lower. In this case, a large
market share does reflect a serious lack of vitality of the film market for
the country at stake. Similarly, a market share can be small when the audi-
ence for domestic films is high and the audience of foreign films is even
higher—a situation that signals a very lively film market.
Indeed, the misinterpretation of the market share frequently emerges
in international relations. For instance, the US request to Korea on
cutting the screen quota during the negotiations of the Korea-US Free
Trade Agreement (FTA) has been based on such a misinterpretation (see
Chapter 3). The market share has additionally fueled hot debates about
the impact of the screen quota cut as Korean films did not perform so well
with a market share of around 50% in 2016 compared to roughly 64% in
22 J. PARC AND P. A. MESSERLIN
Sohu. 2019. 2018nian quanguodianyingpiaofang, guanyingrenci, dianyingchan-
liang shujutongji, guochanpian chengwei ladong piaofang zengzhangde hexin-
dongli [Statistics on the National Film Box Office, the Number of Audiences,
and the Number of Films in 2018: Domestic Films Have Become the Key
Driving Force for the Growth of the Box Office], Sohu.http://www.sohu.
com/a/290898105_775892.
Stephen Follows. 2017. How Important Is International Box Office to
Hollywood? https://stephenfollows.com/important-international-box-office-
hollywood/.
UNESCO Institute for statistics (UIS). http://data.uis.unesco.org/.
World Bank, Indicators. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/.