I have a confession to make. I am dependent on Korean movies. So can be thousands in Mizoram, Manipur. Well basically the whole of Northeast India. I have heard it is way more in countries like Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Philippines, etc.
It's been sometime now since I watched my first Korean movie - it was My Sassy Girl. (Incidentally, My Sassy Girl was the most popular and exportable Korean film in the annals Korean film industry according to Wikipedia. So popular that it outsold The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter which ran at the exact same time. Dramacool It sold 4,852,845 tickets!) That was around 2 yrs ago. Right now I have watched scores of these - Windstruck, Sex is Zero (Korean version of American Pie?), My Wife is really a Gangster 1, 2 & 3, The Classic, Daisy, A Moment to Remember, Joint Security Area, My Little Bride, A Dirty Carnival, You're my Sunshine, Silmido, etc to mention but a few!
I am completely totally hooked!
Whenever a friend first invited me to watch My Sassy Girl I was frankly unsure if I would enjoy it. However the spunky, don't-care-a-damn-tomboy heroine for the reason that movie made me fall in deep love with Korean movies (and soaps even!). It is not particularly surprising in my experience that I fell in deep love with Korean movies considering the fact that I enjoy French movies. Korean movies have the exact same treatment of these subjects that way of French movies. I regularly watch TV5 French movies and Arirang TV whenever my cableguy allows me! Needless to say different genre of movies offer you a different perspective on Korean movies. I believe comedy is where Korean movies would be the best.
Now the Korean movies and soaps, as I have said, are extremely popular in the Northeastern states of India. Even yet in New Delhi there's a video library or two where you are able to get Korean movies. You can be sure I am a typical! In a more serious note, the question is why... why do the northeasterners love Korean movies?? Even with decades of Hindustanization with Bollywood, Hindi lessons and Indian politics are we somewhat looking for HOME!
It is really good to see one of your (read chinkies?) on the screen after so many decades of it being filled by the Amitabhs and the Khans and the Roshans of Bollywood. Korean dramas are such as a breath of outdoors after so much stale Bollywood movies which I seldom watch with the exception of Ram Gopal Verma movies. The intricate plots of twists and turns and far more urbane emotions are what attracted me to Korean and French movies. Maybe, just might be, race has a function here. Being racially similar, our habits and cultural nuances are very similar! Their body gestures and facial expressions are very similar to your expressions. The rather alien Punjabi or Bihari nuances of Bollywood deters me from so many good movies!
Korean movies may also be technically better than Bollywood movies and may even contend with Hollywood movies. Awards and recognition even yet in the Cannes Film Festival are becoming a yearly occurrence for the Korean film industry. Actually Hollywood biggies Dreamworks has paid $2 million (US) for a remake of the 2003 suspense thriller Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters) compare that to $1 million (US) paid for the best to remake the Japanese movie The Ring.
It is true that people, Northeasterners, love everything that is new to your culture unlike our mainland Indians. We actually welcome change and changed we are to an extent. We effortlessly copy the western style of dressing jeans, T-shirts and et al. That may be another reason for the recent addiction with Korean movies. But somehow I doubt that it is a driving thing like teenage love affair. It offers cultural affinity overtones written all over it. Bollywood will have to counter this onslaught of Korean movies with an increase of Chak De characters! It has recently lost much audience to Korean film industry.
A few weeks back whilst having a chit-chat about our lives in New Delhi - the awkward stares, the down right patronising calling of names and the abuses in workplaces - with a friend of mine he remarked,"Are we in the incorrect country?" ;."Are you going to be happy if you are treated such as a guest is likely to country?" asks one of the two Northeast characters in Chak De India. As for me it is bearable with the help of movies like My Sassy Girl and such from our kin Korean film industry. Laugh your heart out and forget the troubles of the country until, of course, Chak De India has bigger roles for Northeasterners!
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