Not so long ago, K-movies and TV dramas were considered cool, even thought-provoking. That was before their breakthrough into the global mainstream, when ideas were typed into laptops in corner coffeehouses in Seoul by young directors and writers, rather than processed as if they were spreadsheet entries by CFOs or CFAs in cushy offices in Hollywood.
It was also when these South Korean artists abhorred clichés. Big money, both at home and from Hollywood, has probably quenched their thirst for fame and wealth, but the price was the loss of edginess. K-films have become trimmed and reprocessed through the Hollywood machine.
It is no wonder that season 2 of Squid Game, while more expensive to make and more aggressively marketed, cannot even be compared with its first season for intensity and intrigue. It is no coincidence either that Bong Joon-ho’s first big Hollywood studio film, Mickey 17, was a cliché-loaded flop. It all felt like kimchi marinated with corn syrup instead of coarse salt.
Both Squid Game and Parasite found global acclaim for their criticism of capitalist inequality. Of course, there are many rooms in the house of mass art, even for harsh and satirical views on capitalism, so long as they remain in the safe realm of depicting a desperate, middle-aged man’s attempts to claw his way back up after a precipitous fall in class status and dignity. I often quipped to myself that they were an inequality painkiller for middle-class, middle-aged insecurity.
Bucking this trend is Next Sohee, an independent film written and directed in 2022 by Jung Joo-ri — also known as July Jung — who is one of a few young female directors in South Korea’s film scene. Next Sohee serves late capitalism on a cold plate, raw and fresh. It is a strong narrative about working-class children who are even denied access to the bottom rungs of the social ladder that the protagonists of Squid Game or Parasite at least had the chance to hold on to.
For this, the film earned…
Auteur: Kap Seol
