As a way to practice reading and translating, I translated the lyrics to the song “Heroine” by Sumni, after learning the korean word for Heroine “주인공” as part of my vocab. The lyrics told a story about a heartbroken yet revengeful woman unable to understand her lover’s action. Within the lyrics, I learned phrases that used the grammatical structures I recently learned. The most common one is “~게 하다” which is used when implying that someone influences/makes an action occur. The lines in the first verse all ended with “차리게 해”, “막히게 해”, etc. to describe the things her lover “makes her do”. Another phrase she used a lot was “그래 알겠지”, which was used to say “I know, I know” as a way to dismiss the toxicity within the relationship. Sunmi said the song was the backstory to the woman introduced in her last hit “Gashina”. But she also said she got inspiration from ‘Nine 1/2 Weeks’, an American 1986 drama about an affair between a wall street executive and an art dealer. Inspiration from the film is also shown in the music video for the song, such as the rain scene.
This led me to further research the Korean entertainment industry, and how it compares to the American industry. After the South Korean film ‘Parasite’ became the first non-English language work to claim Best Picture at the Oscars, Korean film gained a spotlight on the global film industry. The Korean government considers the entertainment and media industry as a key driver for the future national economy, and the country has now become a testing hub for new entertainment technology and media. “Hallyu”, or the Korean wave, refers to this increase in global popularity of South Korean culture since the 1990s. Today, we see this in a variety of media, from TV to film to music. The film industry in Korea has become one of the world’s most active markets. South Korean consumers watched an average of about 4.37 films per capita in 2019, compared to the U.S. average of 3.51 films. For 2019, the total revenue of Korean films was 971 billion South Korean won, or $823 million U.S. dollars. While it isn’t as much as the $11.3 billion U.S. film industry, it's certainly a significant portion of the global $42.5 billion film industry.
While Hollywood-style action blockbusters are trending in the United States, Korea has started to welcome more diverse filmmakers, importers, and distributors into the film market. While most films are handled by US direct distributors such as Warner Bros, Walt Disney, Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures, 90% percent of films imported in Korea from the U.S. were released by local independent importers. Yet, Hollywood films still make up the majority of the South Korean box office, representing more than 46 percent market share. These films are bringing cultural values that may be unfamiliar to Western audiences, such as a strong emphasis on family. Due to the country’s complicated past, Korean films have become also been known for their exploration of politics and social class issues.
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