Local film industry looks to violent films for rebound

Three violent local films set to open later this month are cracking knuckles and sharpening knives, aiming to drag their Hollywood competition into a bloody fight to reclaim some of the summer box office spoils.

First to challenge “Salt” and “Inception” at the box office is Won Bin’s blood soaked revenge thriller “The Man from Nowhere,” scheduled for an Aug. 4 release.

The ultra-violent picture directed by Lee Jung-beom has garnered plenty of publicity for its leading man shedding his squeaky-clean image in favor of a role as a merciless killer, hell bent on bringing terror upon the criminal underworld.

The following week, “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird” writer-director Kim Ji-woon returns with “I Saw the Devil,” a violent yarn with revenge as its main theme.

Kim’s film, too, features Hallyu star Lee Byung-hun in the lead as a government special agent who goes on a personal vendetta against a serial killer accused of murdering his fiancée, played by method actor Choi Min-sik. 

Finally, “Failan” and “Rikkidosan” director Song Hye-sung will look to break his streak of back to back box office failures with a film that has the proven pedigree to become the year’s biggest seller -- a remake of John Woo’s seminal gangster opus, “A Better Tomorrow.”

The local adaptation stars popular heartthrobs Ju Jin-mo, Song Seung-hun, Cho Han-sun, and Kim Gang-woo.

The unenviable tall order of filling in the role of Mark, originally played by the talismanic Chow Yun-fat, has fallen onto Song and has created plenty of Internet buzz, both positive and negative among fans of the original.

Won Bin in a scene from “The Man from Nowhere.”

In all the three upcoming films, there’s no shortage of bare knuckle beat-downs and stabbings. 

Excluding the “A Better Tomorrow” remake, the other two films have been stamped by the Korea Media Ratings Board with restrictions limiting the admissions to adults over 19 years of age.

The cast of Song Hye-sung’s remake of John Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow”: (clockwise from top left) Ju Jin-mo, Song Seung-hun, Cho Han-sun and Kim Gang-woo.

This is in stark contrast to last year when family-friendly fare like writer-director Yoon Jae-kyun’s tsunami disaster epic “Haeundae” and the feel good ski-jumping picture “Take Off” dominated the box office.

Yoon’s CGI destruction of Busan’s Haeundae beach garnered over 10 million admissions, while the inspiring tale of a rag-tag group of misfits that represent the South Korean ski-jumping team became a sleeper hit with just over 8.4 million tickets sold.

Lee Byung-hun stars in writer-director Kim Ji-woon’s “I Saw the Devil.” Co-headlining the film is veteran “Oldboy” actor Choi Min-sik.

Advance reviews of Won’s film had many a critic commenting on the graphic screen violence, with some giving negative marks for its attempt to shock audiences through gratuitous displays of blood and gore.

Early buzz for Kim Ji-woon’s “I Saw the Devil” has also mostly focused on the film’s violent content, with some industry insiders saying the screen violence trumps even “The Man from Nowhere,” where slicing open arteries, multiple stabbings, death by pick ax, gunshot, mutilation, and illegal organ harvesting made up all of the stomach churning sequences shown throughout the film.

Critics all across the board have brought attention to the lack of family friendly local films available, especially at a time of year when children and teens are out of school for summer break.

This isn’t to say children and teens have slim pickings at their local multiplex.

Pixar’s hotly anticipated “Toy Story 3” and the critically lambasted live action adaptation of “Sixth Sense” writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender” are rolling out nationwide on Aug. 19 -- both available also in 3-D.

The two current box office champs, “Inception” and “Salt” have had positive critical feedback in North America, but given that both films were given ratings of 12+ and 15+ by the Korea Media Ratings Board, the two films are largely expected to score well at the box office, even with competition from local films.

Since the runaway success of Na Hong-jin’s 2007 serial killer thriller “The Chaser,” there’s been a rush by local filmmakers to come out with their own violent films after seeing the box office potential of targeting adults.

Na’s film is still the biggest selling film of its kind with 5 million in ticket sales, but with Kang Woo-suk’s “Moss” pulling in good numbers currently at the box office and with a string of films aimed at adult audiences about to roll out, the local film industry might just rebound on the back of these blood soaked thrillers.