Bae Chang-ho

Introduction:
Bae Chang-ho was the most commercially successful director of the 1980s, making a number of chic melodramas aimed directly at the younger generation of film-goers. His debut film, People in a Slum (1982), and subsequent works such as Whale Hunting (1984), Deep Blue Night (1985)  and Our Sweet Days of Youth (1987) all generated enthused reactions from not only ordinary movie-goers but also critics. Despite these successes, Bae refused to dwell in one place and through the 80s and into the 90s he pushed on in his artistic explorations, even enduring box office failures. The hit maker of the 1980s transformed himself into a maker of low budget, independent films such as My Heart (1999) and The Road (2004). While his early works showed elaborate filmmaking techniques that were second to none among his contemporaries, his later works can be more characterized by a simple, down-to-earth approach to storytelling and image capturing.

The following group interview took place at the KCCUK on 1 November 2017 prior to the London Korean Film Festival special screening of 'People of the Slum' and Q&A with director Bae Chang-ho:

Interview:

Hangul Celluloid: During the 1980s, you were one of the most prolific film-makers in South Korea but during the 90s and beyond your output somewhat slowed. Was your output becoming more spaced out a result of the changes that were taking place in Korean cinema at the time and if so how did those changes affect you, your directorial style and your films overall?

Bae Chang-ho: At the time I made my first film, the circumstances of working in the Korean film industry were very tough. There was huge censorship which limited the subjects we could depict, the equipment we had access to was poor and budgets were minimal. So, until 1986 I tried to adjust my direction to fit with those circumstances while trying to make films that were exciting and interesting, in spite of constraints. At that time, many Koreans had very little interest in Korean cinema so I went out of my way to try to make films that would reignite an excitement in audiences with some kind of freshness. Most of my films up to 1986 were successful both critically and commercially. In fact, one journalist from the Economist wrote an article in 1985 in which he called me the Steven Spielberg of Korean cinema [Bae Chang-ho laughs]. However, that success increasingly made me want to focus on human nature in my films more intrinsically and sidestep commercialism somewhat to produce, I guess you would say, more refined films. The first of my steps towards that refinement came in 1986 with my film Hwang Jin-yi, which told the story of Korea's most famous gisaeng/courtesan of the Joseon era. With that film, I told the story of a real life with my imagination but though I personally felt I has succeeded in producing refinement within an interesting tale, the film wasn't well received with many feeling it was too slow or lacking in punch. But once you've made such a transition and change I feel there's no point in going backwards so I made the conscious decision to continue to try and evolve my style with Our Sweet Days of Youth and Hello Heart. However, increasingly I felt that to continue to push my style further I needed to step back to refresh my mind, so when I was given the opportunity to teach at university in America I chose to do so and stop film-making for a time. So, in 1988 I became a visiting professor at San Jose University in California teaching Asian film and directing. That was a really positive way – at least initially – for me to think about my own film-making without pressure.

After that, the second major change came when I returned to Korea and prepared to make The Dream. My film was the third version of the story to be made – it had been filmed twice previously by director Shin Sang-ok but while his versions focused more on Buddhist aspects, my film focused on life. In subsequently making Deep Blue Night and Whale Hunting, I attempted to create a harmony between the style of my earlier films and those of Hwang Jin-yi and Our Sweet Days of Youth. The Dream was critically praised but was a failure commercially.

Following The Dream I took a break for two years and soon after I made Stairway to Heaven in 1992I met a lady (Kim Yoo-mi) and a romance led to our marriage. Having a wife and being in a committed relationship allowed me access to another film-making and story perspective – that is, the viewpoint of a woman... the viewpoint of my wife. Going from a single, male film-maker to being part of a couple brought a huge change in my style as well as in the types of films I wanted to make and stories I wanted to tell. I more and more wanted to make stories about love within life, much as my own love story had been and that led me to want to make what eventually became Love Story. However, after the mid-1990s, large companies/conglomerates began investing in the film industry and having increasing influence and as such love stories were not seen as satisfactory subject matter for them, so I had no option but to independently make Love Story and I followed that with My Heart which was also made wholly independently and starred my wife in the lead role. By the time the New Korean Cinema wave was in full swing in the early 2000s, I decided to change style again to try to fit with contemporary audiences and as such I made The Last Witness – a mystery thriller, detective story – but I still wanted to tell life stories so I stepped back in subject to make The Road in which I also played a major acting role. Audiences were changing and the industry had changed too, so it was quite a number of years before I felt passionate enough about a story to really want to step behind the camera again. That desire came with The Trip which I wrote with my wife who also acted in the film.
So yes, there has been repeated of changes to my directing style and focus.


Lavanya Singh (University of Westminster): You've previously said that your characters are common people, farmers, shopkeepers and individuals who have struggles in life and that's the legacy, the image of Korea you want to leave for future generations. How has the reception of your characters changed over the years?

Bae Chang-ho: I preferred to depict common people and society's outsiders. At the time, during the 80s, audiences had an empathy for my characters. However, as time progressed that changed. For instance, My Heart depicts a very common woman and tells the story of her life from the 1920s  to the 1960s, or so. The film was released to the public in 2000 but audiences at that point found it difficult to empathise with the protagonist. They felt it was too common a story – such a story was very familiar to them, perhaps too familiar. They seemed to feel that this story of a common woman finding a way to deal with the pain of life was too clichéd a melodrama. However, my point of view was and is different and though people back then didn't appreciate the film, the newer generation of film-goers seem to. My Heart is still playing on YouTube and I've read some of the comments written by today's film audiences and their responses have been more generous, more understanding of my vision and they viewed the film with more detailed eyes. So, today's film-goers appreciate my work more even though at the same time they also like Marvel pictures [Bae Chang-ho laughs].


Hangul Celluloid: For Jeong (My Heart), you collaborated with actress Kim Yoo-mi [Bae Chang-ho's wife] on the script, adapting the original story written by her, and she also took the lead acting role. In 2010 when you made The Trip, you collaborated with her again on the story and she once again took an acting role, albeit a smaller one. While The Trip tells three separate stories – that of a young couple, a middle-aged woman and an elderly woman and her granddaughter – it felt to me as almost a story of one life from youth to aged and as such I've always considered it as almost a companion piece to My Heart. Was your collaboration with Kim Yoo-mi on The Trip an effort to update the ideas seen in My Heart for present day audiences or have you always viewed them as wholly separate?

Bae Chang-ho: They were at the outset entirety separate but the ideas they each portray have a commonality, even a similarity. My view on life is both of those films’ themes speak of life, love and indeed love of life. So, I can completely understand anyone feeling the films speak together on a single theme detailing life as it happens.


Lavanya Singh: I've always considered your characters to be in line with the cultural concept of Han, which is basically when a character is wronged through no fault of their own. It is what drives them on in the world. Is this an intentional pattern for your characters or is it what perhaps drives you?

Bae Chang-ho: Interesting question. With my film-making, mostly I try to depict the true nature of life. Life is packed with sadness, grief, pain. Of course, there is also happiness, dreams and hope but I wanted to paint a picture of the true nature of a pained life, a saddened life. Regardless of how hard life is, I feel if we can understand it's true nature we can overcome any adversity. Life's true nature, to me, in short is love, an emotion that encompasses all the feelings I've mentioned, good and not so good. When I'm making a film, either I start with a story and then build the characters or I start with a character and build a story around them. If the character is created following the creation of the story, I try not to interfere with her life too much. The characters develop the story naturally by themselves because a character has his or her own character/personality and psychology. So, within a story, it is the characters and their lives that are important.


Hangul Celluloid: You've mentioned the censorship film-makers faced in the Korean film industry in the 80s and into the 90s. If we consider your film People of the Slum, I believe the censors demanded 60 amendments to your original script. If you had a time machine and could go back to the 80s, were given unlimited budget and no censorship would you choose to change any of the films you made or are you artistically happy with the way they turned out, in spite of censorship and financial difficulties?

Bae Chang-ho: Like most directors, I'm not satisfied with my films, and that goes for all of them. If I had the chance and opportunity to make those films again I think I could make them better than they were but that's just my thought in hindsight. Each film had and has its own background. For example, as you mentioned, People of the Slum faced intense censorship and the budget was incredibly restricted. However, those harsh circumstances essentially made the film. Back then, directors developed a fighting spirit because of the difficult circumstances in the Korean film industry so the films of that time have a sincerity even though there was much we simply couldn't do. So, each of my films has its own character that makes it what it is to the extent that if I was offered a time machine to go back and make any of them differently I would turn that offer down, regardless of whether any particular film was a success or a failure.


Lavanya Singh: You and the government have had a tense relationship throughout your career. Have those tensions eased over the years and if you were to make a movie today do you feel it would still be restricted or censored?

Bae Chang-ho: The nature of censorship has changed. Until 1987 before full democracy was in place, censorship was intense and severe. In later years, governmental censorship eased and now censorship largely comes from industry and investors. That is actually a far more difficult type of censorship because it prevents films being made from the very start whereas with government censorship the concept of a film could remain with amendments or cuts required. Investors and industry hinder the creative process by trying to see the commercial value from a screenplay. Sometimes that's fairly straightforward – for action movies, blockbusters etc – but for smaller, more subtle films reading the script is very different to watching the finished film.


Hangul Celluloid: In 1975, director Lee Man-hee's The Road to Sampo was released. The film was  pretty much the first so called Korean road movie spawning a number of films featuring two men on the edge of society travelling with a female, more often than not a prostitute. Many Korean film critics will cite The Road to Sampo as a likely inspiration any time such a road movie appears. What are your thoughts on that trend and when you were making your road movie Whale Hunting were you aware of Lee Man-hee's work? Was it an inspiration or did it play no part in your decision to make such a narrative? Finally, why did you choose to revisit the story just a year later in Whale Hunting 2?

Bae Chang-ho: Yes, I saw The Road to Sampo when I was a student and I greatly appreciated it but though its structure is somewhat similar to Whale Hunting that's an absolute coincidence. Whale Hunting essentially came from a novel by Choe In-ho, a long-standing collaborator of mine, which was inspired by a journey he made. It does have to be said that the winter scenery in Whale Hunting and The Road to Sampo is similar too so I can kind of understand critics' assumptions of inspiration. In terms of Whale Hunting 2, I was very reticent to revisit it but I was induced, shall we say, by other's belief in its likelihood of success in the wake of the success of Whale Hunting. However, though Whale Hunting 2 didn't do too badly commercially, reactions weren't good critically. Still, those reactions good or bad led me to want to change and evolve further as a film-maker, as we discussed earlier.


Lavanya Singh: As fans of Korean cinema we often don't find people who are as invested in Korean films as we are and in spite of its increasing popularity it could be said that internationally Korean cinema is still a niche market. Certainly, there are aspects of Korean cinema and films that are unreachable to those in the UK or the US. How do you feel that barrier could be removed?

Bae Chang-ho: I think there needs to be more promotion of Korean films and so this kind of film festival in London [the LKFF] gives a great opportunity to introduce Korean films to UK audiences. It took 35 years to introduce my first film [The People of the Slum] to the UK. It was banned from being shown until 1987 and it was shown for the first time internationally in France in 1992. So, we really need to see more promotion of Korean films.

 

On behalf of everyone involved, I'd sincerely like to thank the Korean Cultural Centre UK and the London Korean Film Festival for allowing us to interview director Bae Chang-ho at such length.