Mild inflation rise does not reflect cost of living

The inflation rate for July stayed within the central bank’s target again but the pressure on household budget is being understated by the official measures of inflation, experts said Monday.

The cost of living had risen by 2.6 percent from a year earlier, remaining under the three percent mark for sixth consecutive month, the Statistics Korea said. 

Economists, however, said most people would feel as if the real cost of living was increasing at higher rates with sharp price increase of agricultural and oil products. 

“There is a disconnect between high frequency items and the overall measure of inflation. Fresh foods and oil are what people regard as driving their cost of living, and these are excluded in the core price figure,” Sun Yoo, an economist at the Woori Investment & Securities told The Korea Herald. 

Fresh food prices are up 16.1 percent in July from a year earlier, the highest rise in nearly six years since it grew by 22.9 percent in 2004 August. Price for vegetables is up 24 percent due to heavy rain-damages in the wet season. Prices of radish and cabbage are up 107.1 percent and 61.5 percent each, although some including rice and eggs have dropped in price. 

Core price rose 1.7 percent from a year earlier, while prices for oil products climbed 8.4 percent.

“The on-year figure of 2.6 percent shouldn’t be the focus because of the base-effect. Price volatilities were also large last year so it would be more correct to monitor prices using the 0.3 percent monthly inflation rate rise,” Yoo said.

Samsung moves to corner chip rivals

Samsung Electronics, the world’s top memory chip maker, is aggressively boosting output despite a looming industry oversupply, aiming to squeeze its smaller rivals. 

The market leader is better positioned to weather the sector downturn because of its cost competitiveness. In contrast, its smaller competitors are slow to shift to a more advanced manufacturing process, which is key to securing cost competitiveness, analysts say. 

Samsung said on Friday that it plans to lift its target for its DRAM bit shipment growth for this year to greater than 70 percent from the previous 60 percent level, far higher than the industry average of the high-40 percent level. DRAM chips are used mainly in personal computers. 

The Korean company said that it aims to raise its DRAM market share to 40 percent by this year-end, from the current 36 percent, and seeks to further increase its share to greater than 40 percent next year. 

FC Barcelona arrives in Seoul for pre-season tour

Spanish La Liga champion FC Barcelona arrived in Seoul on Monday as part of its pre-season tour in Asia to play a friendly against the K-league all-star team on Wednesday at Seoul World Cup Stadium. Argentinean international Lionel Messi and Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic are among the 28-man squad that will spend three days in Seoul before heading to China. 

“I’m a bit surprised to see so many Korean fans at the airport. I didn’t expect that many and they were wearing Barcelona’s uniform,” said the Barcelona striker. 

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, the 23-year-old Messi said that he expects that Wednesday’s game will be a good game in preparation for a new season.

“I feel extremely tired after a long-haul flight. But I’m sure I’ll get ready for the game,” he added. “I believe we’re the best club in the world. We’ll prove ourselves on Wednesday."

AirAsia joins budget airline boom in Korea

While low-cost carriers are gearing up to provide affordable air travel for budget-savvy tourists, AirAsia seeks to lead the way by opening up a new route via Seoul.

AirAsia, Asia’s largest low-fare airline, announced at a press conference on Monday its newest international route starting Nov. 1, which will connect Kuala Lumpur and Seoul.

To mark the launch of its latest route, the Malaysian company introduced a promotional round-trip fare of 120,000 won ($102.30) including all taxes and fees, for the travel period from Nov. 1 to Aug. 11, 2011, for those who book tickets on its website between Aug. 4 and Aug. 8. 

After the promotional period, travelers will be able to purchase tickets for 25 to 30 percent lower than traditional airlines charge, depending on their purchase date, for the daily operation.

It took more than a year for the airline to earn an approval from the government, noted Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X, AirAsia’s long-haul affiliate.

“Seoul has been our priority market for the long-haul destination since 2007,” he said. “Malaysians have gone crazy about the Korean Wave. We couldn’t wait to launch this route for so long.” 

According to an online survey conducted by AirAsia on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, more than 2 million customers picked Seoul as the No. 1 destination they wish the airline to fly to.　

Seoul is the eleventh destination for the Malaysian company followed by cities in Australia, India, Taiwan, China and the U.K.　

N. K. warns of counterattack to S. Korea's military drills

North Korea's military threatened Tuesday to mount a "physical counterattack" in response to South Korea's naval drill planned off the Korean Peninsula's west coast later this week, according to Yonhap News.

South Korea plans to stage its own anti-submarine drill for five days, beginning Thursday, near the Yellow Sea border with North Korea to improve its defense capabilities in the aftermath of the North's torpedo attack on a warship in March.

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.

River project standoff escalates

Land Ministry threatens to sue provincial governments

The Ministry of Land and Maritime Affairs said it will sue the provincial governments of South Gyeongsang and South Chungcheong for damages should they refuse to carry out the river development work they were commissioned with.

Kim Hee-kuk, chief of the ministry’s headquarters for the four-rivers development project, said civil lawsuits will be filed against the two provincial administrations if they boycott the assigned construction work without just cause.

Newly-elected governors from opposition parties Kim Doo-kwan of South Gyeongsang and Ahn Hee-jung of South Chungcheong have expressed doubts over the river development plan, but did not officially say their provinces would boycott it.

The ministry sent out official documents to the two governors asking whether they plan to proceed with the riverside development or whether they would like to return the business rights to the central government.

The river development work is making slow progress in some lots due to opposition from local government leaders, but none has officially notified the ministry that they would defer or stop the construction.

Kim said the ministry will wait for replies from the two provinces until Friday and go ahead with the construction work through the ministry’s local branches if they hold it off. 

Kim also said the government will stick to its construction schedule, denying speculation that it may be delayed a little to buy more time to build a wider consensus. 

Of the 170 construction segments along the nation’s four main rivers -- the Han, the Nakdong, the Geum and the Youngsan -- 54, or 32 percent, are contracted out to local administrations. The Land Ministry dredges the river bottom and builds reservoirs, while the local governments build riverside roads for bicycles and ecological parks.