Films always make for a topic of fascinating discussion.After all, films are not just about stories unfolding on celluloid or watched for sheer entertainment but it is also our reference point towards understanding cultures,rituals,traditions and exploring newer lands and faraway countries as it takes us into a state of phantasmagoria during those 120 minutes of a roller coaster ride where an intense drama awaits to take charge of your senses filled with heart-wrenching emotions and tears,songs and dance sequences filmed in picturesque locations of foreign shores and intermittent doses of rib-tickling comedy to give some relief to the narrative and a nail-biting climax with some stylishly choreographed action sequences that are sewn together to make it one wholesome package. Thus in the eleventh post of the Wow Korea series I shall discuss "Seoul loves Bollywood" when I share with you some Hindi films that have enjoyed great popularity in South Korea! However,before that I shall give you a brief introduction of the flourishing film industry in Seoul.
This may come as a news to you when I say that South Korea is an Asian media powerhouse where PSY is just a drop in the ocean. South Korea not only consumes more domestic entertainment than foreign films but Japan,China and larger part of South East Asia also rely largely on the South Korean entertainment industry!
Take these figures-In 2012 itself, domestic films alone earned 44 million USD while foreign films brought in 35 million USD. Though the graph of domestic films has seen it's own fair share of highs and lows,but it was in the 1990's that the film industry of South Korea finally came into it's own. For instance the film,Shiri which released in 1999 was so popular that it generated more funding and a renewed sense of interest among the Korean film industry on producing films domestically. And together with the policy regulations which mandated that at least 40% of films exhibited must be domestically produced,it went on to pip foreign films in terms of box office revenues and ticket sales during the last ten years.
