Korean film

[Jonathan M. Hall]

The irritatingly chummy Japanese "News Station 11" featured a lengthy (5 or
8 minutes I think) segment earlier this week on big changes in Korean film.
 The focus was first narcissistic: on great Japanese films finally being
released.  Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses (recently cited on KineJapan
in Heon Seo's interesting post) is being distributed in April apparently,
and we are led to believe that there are already planeloads of Korean young
women visiting Japan expressly to inspect the snowy sites of Love Letter. 
But the most interesting aspect was the chatty commentary afterwards which
emphasized a great financial commitment made by the Korean gov't. to
develop the film industry.  "We will now export films, not cars," Kim Dae
Jun was quoted as saying.  Can anyone out there give a sense of the figures
and the kind of commitment that was hinted at?  The final comment was, I
think, that Japan too should be promoting its film industry similarly at a
national level.  What is current governmental spending here in Japan? 
Stephen, would you be able to help out here?

Jonathan Hall

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