new "youth film'?

[Rob Smith]

South Korean youth films tend to be middling stuff like My Little Bride and
....Ing (or stuff that doesn't even get subtitled), or go the complete
opposite way like Kim Ki-duk's Samaritan Girl or Im Sang-soo's Tears, which
are really more films about youth than films for youth, not unlike Larry
Clark's Kids.

As far as the community coming together for a single goal, there is Jang-ha
Ryu's When Spring Comes, but the main character is the music teacher, played
by Choi Min-sik, so it's not a youth film per se.

I'm not sure where something like Jenny, Juno would fit in. Probably closer
to Iwai and films of that ilk, but it's more like a big budget after school
special than anything else. And of course, Chungu is one of the biggest
youth films ever in S. Korea, but it's certainly not gentle. But, even the
more girly films, for lack of a better term, from S. Korea are in some ways
more commonly physically violent for comedy's sake (My Sassy Girl, She's on
Duty) or emotionally violent (My Generation, Conduct Zero), to borrow
Michael's term.

While the gentle youth Japanese aesthetic it might be spreading out to other
Asian countries, and maybe even Europe or the States, I don't see it
happening in South Korea, since they've switched to the "take the money and
run" style of studio business on Chungmuro street. It's really kind of sad
actually, as they used to be known for fine dramas, but a couple of breakout
hits where remake rights were bought and now they've all sold out.

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:58 PM, Michael Kerpan <mekerpan at verizon.net>
wrote:

> I think the sort of sadness (or potential of sadness)
> one finds in Take Care of My Cat actually underlies
> _most_ of the gentle youth films I can think of.
> Sometimes, the sadness is simply a background element
> -- as in "Tennen kokekko / Gentle Breeze" where we in
> the audience know the local school is sure to be
> mothballed (probably sooner, rather than later) -- and
> can see that our heroine clearly is bothered by this
> prospect. In "Linda x 3", the bass player anticipates
> the future nostalgia of the group (in one of her few
> utterances).  "Ganbatte ikimasshoi" also acknowledges
> the little community formed to be a fleeting one.
>
> I can't think of any other similar Korean films --
> except Jeong's second film (the Aggressives) -- which
> deals with young men who are skating fanatics and is
> (consequently) not quite as gentle.  LEE Yoon-ki's
> wonderful "Ad Lib Night" depicts an ad hoc community
> that comes together for a limited purpose and brief
> time (from one late afternoon to early the next
> morning).  It has some similarities in tone to the
> Japanese works at issue, but isn't precisely the same.
>
>
> MEK
>
> --- David Desser <desser at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> > Thanks to all who have replied so far.  Very
> > interesting and helpful!
> >
> > I think Aaron has added to what I had in mind with
> > the notion of a kind of
> > youth collective.  That is why I hadn't included the
> > youth films of Iwai --
> > though he is certainly an auteur of youth -- gentle
> > (April Story, Love
> > Letter) and not-so-gentle (All About Lily
> > Chou-chou).  And Aaron is also
> > right to think that I imagine this as a kind of
> > generic film "cycle" since,
> > of course, children's films and youth films date
> > back quite a ways in
> > Japanese film history - Shimizu Hiroshi made quite a
> > few and a number of
> > films of Ozu also come to mind.  And the Naruse film
> > mentioned by Michael
> > Kerpan sounds intriguing.
> >
> > I also appreciate Rob Smith's idea that the genre is
> > not confined to Japan,
> > as in the Taiwanese films he mentioned.  Youth films
> > of a certain kind
> > predominate in the cinemas of Yang, Hou and Tsai,
> > but hardly are in the
> > "gentle" category I have in mind, so it's good to
> > know there are more recent
> > films that seem to fit the notion I'm developing.
> >
> > As for Take Care of My Cat:  wonderful film, but not
> > quite in the category
> > I'm thinking of.  This is a bit more bittersweet
> > than sweet, about the
> > (inevitable) breakup of what once was a kind of
> > collective.  I also can't
> > think of other Korean youth films that work quite
> > the same way as the
> > Japanese films I started out with.
> >
> > David
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> > [mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu] On
> > Behalf Of Aaron Gerow
> > Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 8:53 PM
> > To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> > Subject: Re: new "youth film'?
> >
> > As with any genre or film cycle, there is the
> > problem of definition.
> > David cites films that I consider quite similar
> > narratively: they
> > featured not just gentle youth, but youth getting
> > together in a
> > collective to succeed at some unusual task in an
> > atmosphere that is
> > rather light, comedic, and positive. In this more
> > exclusive
> > definition, many of the films mentioned by others
> > would not fit.
> > Sekachu and other melodramatic works seem to me to
> > have different
> > world views. But some, like Nana would probably
> > work. It definitely
> > overlaps with some sports narratives like Touch or
> > Ganbatte ikimassho.
> >
> > Yaguchi seemed to be making this a cottage industry,
> > but note that
> > Suo did it much earlier with Shiko funjatta. It also
> > doesn't quite
> > work as an auteurist trait, given that Yaguchi's
> > first two features
> > are a bit more satirical if not cynical, and don't
> > really feature
> > collectives.
> >
> > Note also that Waterboys was turned into a TV drama
> > as well. And
> > there are manga like Nodame no kantabire that could
> > fit in this
> > phenomenon as well.
> >
> > David posits the interesting hypothesis that some
> > youth films could
> > be considered as working as alternatives to more
> > horrific tales of
> > youth. Perhaps in that formula, the definition based
> > on narrative
> > structure that I propose above is not necessary, but
> > I do feel that
> > if we accept this hypothesis, we should consider
> > that different kinds
> > of youth films offer different alternatives.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>


-- 
-rob
http://www.robixsmash.com/
http://www.orlandoweekly.com/music/
http://www.insulinfunk.net/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20080425/0949e1a1/attachment.html