“The General’s Son”, the first meaningful blockbuster Korean film

“The General’s Son”, the first meaningful blockbuster Korean film
“The General's Son" is a film by Im Kwon Taek, a director, who produced both countless popular and critically acclaimed movies in his career. As one of the most respected and celebrated director in Korea, Im has been one of the first to receive international recognition, recently with "Chihwaseon", which won him the 2002 best director award at Cannes.

"The General's Son" is one of his most popular films in early 1990s, the first part of a trilogy and a major box office success during its original domestic release. The significance of this movie from my perspective is that this movie is the one of the earliest Korean movies that has won Korean audiences’ recognition as an “entertaining” Korean movie.

The plot is based on the actual life of Korean independence activist and fighter Kim Doohan, beginning with his early years growing up as a beggar in the Jong Ro district during the Japanese oppression. Kim Doohan was a very well known character even before this movie came out, and there were already many movies, dramas, and even cartoons that were featuring Kim Doohan’s illustrious life. The genius of director Im was that he was able to attract and magnify the audiences’ interest on this popular character into the movie with his powerful storytelling techniques.

Every audience already knew the famous stories and fights Kim Doohan had with his rival Japanese fighters. Director Im thus picked only those incidents and anecdotes that he could dramatize most effectively in this movie such as Kim Doohan’s rising from the street beggar to the head of the major Korean gangs in Jong Ro district, which was the main street in Seoul at the time and not so coincidently where the conflict between Japanese and Koreans were most rampant.
Director Im used fast-paced and breath-taking angles and shots, which were rare in Korean movies until this point, to depict the illustrative fighting scenes. Kim Doohan’s legendary fighting scenes, such as victories over more than ten or twenty enemies with his bare hands, became the romance of Korean male, especially for boys at the time. The fact that main characters, who played Kim Doohan and his rival Hayashi, were completely rookie actors also played a big role for the hit of this movie since it enabled the average Korean male to identify himself with the characters.

I still remember, as a boy, waited more than an hour in the line to get a ticket of this movie when this movie first came out. I also remember most of men and boys around me went to see this movie. Consequently, this movie was one of the biggest hit Korean movies in Korean movie history and made the actors in the movie instant stars at the time. Park Sang Min, who played Kim Doohan, and Shin Hyun Jun, who played Hayashi, became a national star after this movie and are still active in their careers.

The fact that the movie was based on the story of a national hero also played a role for the popularity of this movie. My elementary school teacher recommended to see this movie after school, and some schools even organized school-wide activity to see this movie in a group. Director Im had reputation of producing movies on traditional Korean themes and characters at the time, but this movie was significant even to him in that it also gained national popularity.

From current perspective, some scenes are crude, and the character development is weak. However, this movie certainly deserves a credit for attracting Korean audiences into the theater and persuading them that Korean movies can be entertaining. This, in turn, gave confidence to Korean movie producers to attract more capital into the movie industry and to make Korean blockbusters. This movie was a blockbuster in the sense that the budget, number of actors, and the time took to produce was unprecedented at the time. After this movie, throughout 1990s and 2000, many Korean blockbusters started to came out, and more Koreans started to recognize that Korean movies are worthwhile to watch in the theater although the full recognition did not come until “Swiri” in 1999 by Kang Jegyu.

“The General’s Son” certainly deserves a credit for its ground breaking role in Korean movie industry.