위장합작영화의 재이해를 위한 제언 — 한-홍 합작 무술영화를 중심으로

Abstract

By close examination on the issues of Korea’s international co-production films in the 1960s and 1970s, the current paper suggests the need for the revaluation of the films’ position in Korean cinematic history. For the past few decades, Korea’s international co-production films have been perceived as expedient and/or immoral or simply illegal production works. Moreover, a recent study (i.e., Ahn, 2012) claims that the co-produced films have to be even excluded from Korean cinema. Despite the negative perspectives involving the films, the researcher disputes the claims by illustrating the governmental/societal context with strict quota systems which originated the co-production films and highlighting the films’ playing meaningful roles in satisfying the cultural needs of the marginalized group of people at the time. In addition, particularly, Korea/Hong Kong co-produced martial arts films have played an important part in the maintenance and advancement of martial arts genre in the stagnant situations of Hong Kong martial arts film industry. This positive impact of the co-production process for the Hong Kong martial arts genre was appreciated by the Hong Kong film industries, and clearly reflected in the storylines and the characters of the films. Instead of being trapped in nationally based views, through the perspectives of martial arts history, Korea’s international co-production films may not be the mere consequences of illegal, expedient and/or immoral film works but can be seen as “expended home-made films.”