What Old Boy implies to Korean Wave

There are two Korean directors that European film festivals always pay attention to: one is Chan-wook Park, who was awarded the Gran-Prix Prize at the Canne film festival for Old Boy in 2004 and the other one is Ki-duk Kim, who has won the director of the year at a lot of film festivals in Europe. Despite the variety of Korean dramas and movies that are sweeping over Asia, those two directors are not too famous in the main areas of Korean Wave. In my view, if I find out why those two directors fail to join Korean Wave it will enable us to realize its limitation.
After searching for movies which have been relatively popular in Korea and Asia, I found out one outstanding trait they share in common: the range of the themes of the movies is too narrow. One good illustration is North Korea. Simply think of Shiri, a movie that revived a Korean film industry that had been colonized by Hollywood before its release. In the movie a main actress, Yun-jin Kim, acts as a spy from North Korea. From Shiri to Tae-kuk-ki, a recently released movie whose setting is Korean War, most major Korean films, what we call a Korean-styled blockbuster have something with North Korea directly or indirectly. Starring actors and actresses who are well-known in Asia, those movies have hit the jackpot in an Asian film market.
Unfortunately, though, those kinds of movies do not appeal to viewers in the rest of the world. Instead, some movies deviating from the main flow of Korean Wave have come into the spotlight in Europe, narrating about rather abstract concepts. For example Old Boy seems to like to talk about the genuine meaning of ‘revenge’ in a unique way. Actually Old Boy is one of three revenge series that Chan-wook Park has filmed. Another Korean director famous in Europe I mentioned above, Ki-duk Kim, enjoys describing his thoughts about feminism in most of his movies. As a matter of fact, everytime his movies came out, they were sensational in Korea. Certainly both of the two directors have a good talent in bringing out their own themes in unique ways. That is why Western people are interested in their movies, I believe.
Chan-wook Park, a movie director of Old Boy, is worth studying in that his movies have been popular in Asia and Europe respectively. JSA, one of his works, was a big hit especially in Japan and Korea, but its success mainly relies on a famous actor named Byoung-hun Lee. As mentioned before its story is also about North Korea. On the other hand, another of his films, Old Boy, fascinated Western audiences with an impressive story line and creativity. Compared to other movies that have been popular in Asia, strictly saying, Old Boy is not a part of Korean Wave. For Korean Wave to be really globalized, therefore, Old Boy suggests that the theme of Korean movies need to be more diverse with a strong and original synopsis, no longer depending upon a few celebrities.(H.J.Choi)