Korean Film Industry in crisis

From the blog of David Kehr:

The Korean film industry in crisis

Excerpt:

 By pruning back the Korean industry, Hollywood will gain market share throughout the region, and particularly in the fast-growing Chinese market, where the new generation of hip, young Korean stars has conquered the younger filmgoers. No wonder Hollywood would like to see the Korean industry liquidated. It’s one thing for the Asian cinema to produce art house blockbusters like “Farewell, My Concubine” and “Hero,” but it’s something else again when Asian films begin to conquer the mass audience that Hollywood has earmarked for itself. Who needs that aging round-eye Tom Cruise when you can have local heartthrobs like Lee Byung-heon (“A Bittersweet Life”) and Bae Yong-joon (“April Snow”)?

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I've seen it happen in Manila; what was once a thriving industry churning out over a hundred and fifty films a year (some years outproducing Hong Kong) has gone down to around fifty a year. People crowd to watch the latest braindead Hollywood odure featuring the latest in CGI effects and ignore some of the quite excellent films by Tikoy Aguiluz, Celso Ad. Castillo, Mike de Leon, Lav Diaz, Jeffrey Jeturian, Mario O'Hara, Aureaus Solito, and the like. It's time we (Korea, the Philippines, and any other country that actually cares about its native cinema) took our destinies in our own hands and stopped this cultural imperialism on its tracks.