Somewhere over the DMZ

Two types of Korean movies used to be released in Japan. One was the art film, usually something dark, raw and intense. The other was the erotic film, usually something dark, raw and intense, but with more rapes and bared breasts. Neither did particularly well at the box office, though the latter had a small, devoted following.

In recent years, however, the Korean movie business has come to resemble Hong Kong's. While still turning out art films, including good ones made by a new generation of talented directors, the industry has become much better at producing exportable commercial films. The first to hit big in Japan was "Shuri" (original Korean title "Shiri," renamed here because it means "bottom" in Japanese). This Kang Je Kyu action-romance about a North Korean agent who falls in love with one of her South Korean counterparts smashed box-office records in both Korea and Japan following its release in 1999, while making Japanese distributors and audiences aware that Korean films have a vitality, dynamism and sheer entertainment value too often missing in the local product.

One reason for this difference: Recent dramatic changes in Korean public life, notably the easing of tensions with the North, have been a stimulus to the film industry in a way no longer possible in Japan, where decades have drifted by in an LDP-induced torpor -- not exactly the stuff of rousing popcorn movies (though some enterprising producer may be developing "Mr. Koizumi Goes to Nagata-cho").