• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.59
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• pp.116-137
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• 2012

What is 'nation' and 'nationalism?' What does 'korean nationalism' mean? And how is korean nationalism represented through a chain of films called 'the korean blockbuster films?' The purpose of this study is to answer to these questions. The characteristics of the korean blockbuster films have been studied for quite a long time and the researchers have agreed with the context about nationalism in a large sense. However, majority of the studies ends up in the journalistic or impressionistic criticism without any theoretical discussion. Few theoretical criticisms also have founded on the formation process of nation of the Western Europe and their nationalism. Hence I would like to add the discourse of korean nationalism and to seize more accurately the social/cultural/historical peculiarity of the korean blockbuster films. In addition, as non-nationalist narratives have recently emerged, korean blockbuster films are entering to the evolution process. On this, the significance of this study seems to exist in providing a cornerstone to the expected evolution theory of the korean blockbuster films by means of complementation and reestablishment of nationalism of their first generation. and , presenting socio-historical peculiarity of the Korean nation, are examined by the close textual analysis.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.77-100
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• 2014

Many researchers have analyzed the relationship between the financial success patterns of a motion picture and many other factors, such as the production cost, marketing, stars, awards, reviews, genre, and rating. Through these studies, many researchers and investors concluded that big budgets to make a blockbuster movie can serve as an insurance policy to meet their ROI; thus the box office is dominated by blockbuster movies. High-budget blockbuster movies are more likely to receive attention because these movies are more recognizable given their high expenses for production and casting. Therefore, audiences choose blockbusters in an effort to reduce the searching cost and to mitigate the possibility of a regrettable choice. This behavior of consumers, in turn, causes distributors to allocate screens for blockbusters, resulting in "concentration of blockbuster consumption." As such, low-budget films cannot easily become popular due to the lack of distribution. Indeed, low-budget films released on a small number of screens often end up becoming dismal failures. However, there are exceptional examples which are contrary to the general idea in the movie industry that a big budget and showings on a large number of screens can guarantee the success of a movie. Although researchers have attempted to analyze the performances of movies with small budgets, such movies are likely to be regarded as outliers and then be entirely discarded, as they are far from the 'three-sigma' range, especially given that previous research methodologies could not explain the financial success of such unique examples. This study attempts to explain the financial success at the box office of low-budget movies by applying the concept of the tunnel effect in quantum mechanics, as the phenomenon found in the movie industry is similar to a particle's movement in quantum physics. The tunneling effect is a phenomenon by which a particle without enough energy to pass over a potential barrier tunnels through it. Adopting the analogy, this study draws a tunneling probability function and cultural constant to forecast other outliers using the Schrödinger equation. Moreover, the study finds that word-of-mouth creates in the movie industry this phenomenon of finding outliers.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.87-94
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• 2019

South Korean films narrate exquisitely, express emotions implicitly and employ magnificent images, exemplifying unique oriental aesthetics. This paper takes Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017) as an example to analyze the meaning of oriental aesthetics in South Korean films using the Film Narrative Theory. It is a fantasy blockbuster depicting family kinship stories. It structures with the familiar karma and reincarnation of Asian Buddhism with the core of family kinship. Perfectly interpreting the fantasy world of hell with stunning movie effects, it shows the family kinship of families under the main plot line of a horror film.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.1621-1626
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• 2017

This study conducts data visualization of common climax patterns of Korean blockbuster films to analyze shots and evaluate scene (subplot unit) arrangement. For this purpose, a model of editing patterns is used to analyze how many climax patterns a film contains. Moreover, a system, which automatically collects shot images and classifies shot sizes of collected data, is designed to demonstrate that a single scene is composed based on a climax pattern. As a scene is a subplot and thus its arrangement cannot fully be analyzed only by climax patterns, dialogues of starring actors are also used to identify scenes, and the result is compared with data visualization results. It detects dialogues between particular actors and visualizes dialogue formation in a network form. Such network visualization enables the arrangement of main subplots to be analyzed, and the box office performance of a film can be explained by the density of subplots. The study of two types comparison analysis is expected to contribute to planning, plotting, and producing films.

• Review of Culture and Economy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.21-50
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• 2017

The rise of Hallyu (Korean Wave) has generated a treasury of historiographic and cultural inquiries into the phenomenal success of South Korea's media entertainment industry. Whereas the majority of such studies focus on TV dramas and popular music, there is a medium, or rather a hybrid sub-genre within the medium category of short films, that must be reexamined and thus appreciated as the archetypal predecessor of popular Hallyu contents: music videos. The rapidly changing social, political, and economic climate in the mid- to late 1990s called for content that would grasp the attention of a younger, increasingly mobile population with diversified interests and routines that no longer guaranteed fixed-time viewership. Meanwhile, the advent of cable TV channels and high-speed internet service ensured greater temporal and infrastructural accessibility. The media entertainment industry's response to the new opportunities and challenges arising from these sudden growths in the scale, range, connectivity, and mobility of consumer demographics was synergetic cross-sector collaboration in the form of dramatized blockbuster music videos, which combined two popular and lucrative genres: trendy dramas and ballad music. In this essay, by relocating Hallyu's archetypal medium/genre, I claim that increasing upward and sideways mobility across sectors not only inspired new production but also reconfigured the very concept, form, and impact of media-driven cultural imaginary in South Korea.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.379-384
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• 2022

The year 2021 is a monumental year for the history of Korean cinema that inferiority of the sci-fi genre, by the appearance of two sci-fi blockbuster films- produced by Netflix and produced by TVing-at the same time. Coincidentally, both of movies are sci-fi films which appear post-human such as robot and clone. As can be seen in 『Frankenstein』 story, the progenitor of science fictions, the mankind have imagined beings similar to humen or post-human who are another human being for a long time. deals with the unusual subject matter of a space scavenger and a space janitor, and the main character is a robot that very familiar with human. is the story of a man who lives for a limited life protects and accompanies a clone named Seobok who was created as a test subject. This film deals with the philosophical themes like death and eternal life through the existential concerns of two characters. use Korean Shinpa -Korean specific senimental code-sentiment on narrative, and has the character of a road movie set in Korea's geographical space.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.42
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• pp.125-150
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• 2016

In the 2000s, Korean cinema maintained the industrial growth on the strength of 10 million audiences and the successful Korean blockbuster. A variety of film materials such as history, politics, social issues, and the division between North and South Korea ideology were addressed in the movies, and one of the movies based on a true story was popular. Accordingly, external size of the film industry has been gradually expanding. Korean public movies have a firm position in the film market, and a diversity of discussion is made as the movies spontaneously get attention. Also, the influence of social media and media which recognized far-reaching powers of public films causes a political and social change, but it also provokes ideology controversy. Objectivity of this study is first to discuss factors and initiating causes that Korean movies have firmly settled as public movies since late 1990s. Secondly, this study considers relation among media, social media. and Korean public film that aroused more arguments on politics, society, and history in 2000s. The powerful influence of films on society not only leads political change but also affects awareness change of audience and the role of social media.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.29
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• pp.209-241
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• 2012

Is a failed blockbuster film? Is there no room for reconsideration of the value of the film in terms of its contents and forms? The purpose of this study is to answer these questions. In 2007, SHIM Hyung-rae's was in the limelight due to the nationalist discourse around the film rather than evaluation of the film itself. In terms of its narrative and formal properties, the film showed the difference from the Korean nationalist blockbuster films. It led to the disaccord and hard-to-understand results of having somewhat disappointed box-office success of 8,500,000 audiences in comparison to the input, of receiving well by a generous part of the audiences absorbed by nationalism, and of getting the critics' cynic criticism of the film's cinematic value. Eventually only provided the cultural battlefield of nationalism, was left as an unnoticed film in the realm of industry and criticism. However, it was interesting that there was a common ground between the film's supporters and the cynic critics. Both sides were being acknowledged that the spectacle of was way out of proportion to the degree that the spectacle was unbalanced with the story unfolding, achieved more than expected. Its spectacle overwhelming the narrative enfever a few audiences, and at the same time, it provided some reasons making critics face away from the film. In this context, the purpose of this study is to examine 's aesthetics that 'the spectacle dominating narrative' or 'the narrative as a pretext for showing spectacle,' leading to discussion of artistic/theoretical/critical value and to find out cinematic value of the film being regarded as a failure. In addition, this study is significant in that it suggests that is a new kind of moving image that it cannot be analyzed with existed critical methods of narrative film criticism; as a result, this study provides the chance to be evaluated through a new conceptual frame of the film. In order to grasp the narratological aesthetics, this study focuses on the concept of trickality that Andre Gaudreault suggests, and Tom Gunning's 'the cinema of attractions,' referring to the spectacle-oriented narrativity or the mode of production displaying the spectacle more than the narrative.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.37
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• pp.361-392
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• 2014

Regarding works that express objects realistically in painting, Gustave Courbet advocated realism in the mid-19th century, France, resisting the then academist style of painting, and works in realist style were produced in earnest by painters such as H. Daumier or Jean F. Millet, who went along with him. Later, realism has expanded into the realm of general literature, including fine art, which has had profound impacts on works of art and literary works. In comics, too, in the same historical context as a form of painting, realistic comics began to be produced by painters or cartoonists at the time. These realism comics are those dealing with stories based on facts, and in terms of contents, objective description and representation of the social realities of the times is one of the most important objectives, but it could not be concluded that in their visual aspect, that is, that of expressing the objects, they were realistic. In the meantime, a graphic novel was born, which was the intermediate form between comics and novels around the United States and Europe since the 1980s. Graphic novels appeared in forms and styles with strong literary and artistic values in the comics market in the U.S. which was full of the superhero genre (comics around heroes), and their major characteristics are very realistic expressions in terms of contents and visual aspect. They are complex and delicate and even have artistic, literary values as if readers read a fiction or literary work of which its narrative structures or pictures are produced with graphics. The characteristics of realistic expressions shown in graphic novels are very different from the previous works of comics. It is noteworthy that they began to be acknowledged as works of art like painting or illustration, thanks to their features of strongly individual auteurist painting style, a fairly high degree of completion of the works, and creative and experimental expression techniques or methods, instead of following the fashion of the times. In recent years, in South Korea, Hollywood blockbuster films have been released one after another and become box office hits, there are increasing interest and demand for the original graphic novels. Accordingly, many original graphic novels have been translated and started to be sold, and keeping pace with this global flow of fashion, some writers in Korea began to produce works of graphic novels. However, to look into the domestic works produced claiming to be graphic novels, there are various opinions on their format and authenticity. In this sense, this study focused on Ga-ya Kwon's Namhansanseong, one the representative works of Korean style graphic novels, and in particular, it attempted to analyze their characteristics and commonalities focusing on the visual aspect of realistic expressions of objects. It is expected that there would be an opportunity to seek for ways so that Korean style graphic novel can be further developed as a genre of comics, with competitiveness by looking back on the identity and present state of domestic graphic novels and developing and applying Korea's original subject matters differentiated from those of graphic novels in the U.S., Europe or Japan through this study. In addition, it is desired that they will be a new energizer for the stagnant domestic comics market.