• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.221-254
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• 2020

This paper finds a solution in the social context which cannot be explained thoroughly by well-timed release date, revival of comedy films, and the attraction of Lee Byeong-heon's comedy etc. while it throws question of how the film, Extreme Job captivated 16 million audience. The incredible hits of Extreme Job cannot be explained by analyzing the text alone. After this essay investigates a function and a role of comedy as a public sphere, it examines people's desires and wishes in the comedy and other genres since 2008 when the conservative government has seized power. Since 2008 a series of dark tone's action thriller, social problem film, and disaster film have emerged, these genres showed absence of public security, crisis of democracy and criticism against rulling class. On the other hand, hit comedy films have showed escapism such as weepie, nostalgia, and fantasy at the same time, generally. Although Veteran (2015) is not full-blown comedy, after this film's big success, "comic mode" has gradually revived. A light tone's films which are truer to genre rules has started representing the wishes of people toward social reforms and changes. Meanwhile, "Candlelight Protest" served as a momentum to recover the democracy which has been in crisis, but it could not lead changes in economic and daily lives. Exreme Job can be read as a question how we will survive since "Candlight Protest." The lives of detectives as self-employed workers who has taken over a fried chicken restaurant for going undercover are appearances of ordinary persons who must survive in the edless conpetition. Furthermore, this film shows a dream of a "great success myth" which becomes well-known as a famous restaurant and a self-management such as brand-naming and an exapansion of franchise business. We can read ganster's chicken franchises as a huge distribution industry which disturbs market system by delivering drugs secretly. While applauses that we give to the police having identities of self-employed workers which sweeps the ganster are giving support to oridinary neighborhood like us, they are also wishes of people who long for the restoration of publicness of police in the market which is becoming increasingly privatized today. A significance of this essay is to examine Extreme Job in terms of the geography of film genres and the revival of comic mode sicne 2008 at the macro level, and is to read the film in the perspective of the problems of economic and daily lives which has been still unsolved since "Candlelight Protest" at the micro level.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.80-93
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• 2014

This paper examines how split-screen technique works to meet the goals and strategies of the narrative in the romantic comedy films which deal with love and sex. The plot of romantic comedy films aims to the union and marriage of the couple, but is structured to delay the union as much as possible through comical situations and episodes. Usually split-screen scenes are placed before plot point 2 and serve to make a laugh and humor. Besides, it helps focusing on two main characters. Comedy related to love and sex comes from information gap between two main characters which can cause a tension, double meaning of spoken words and combination of split-screen images. Michael Gordon's Pillow Talk(1959) and Peyton Reed's Down with Love(2003) are reviewed in this study.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.54-64
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• 2013

This study is on Hollywood's latest romantic comedy movie , attempted to identify whether nationality or gender difference of the movie audience is affecting on their acceptance to the genre characteristics of Hollywood's romantic comedy. Most of Hollywood's romantic comedy movies are centered on attraction of female and male actors and its' formulated plot (boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl structure). Although the movie is following the formulated romantic comedy plot, it shows a variation from the typical romantic comedy genre. In this thesis, based on audience research data, statistics and interrelationship analysis on audience value orientation, we elucidate how Korean and American, Female and Male movie audience have different preference to actors and characters in the movie and representation of archetypal Hollywood romantic comedy happy ending such as propose and wedding scenes.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.75-89
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• 2021

In this paper, the results of analyzing the meaning of laughter in comedy movies of the late 1960s, focusing on comedians, Hee-Gap Kim, Bong-Seo Koo and Young-Chun Seo, are as follows. First, the narrative laughter of the comedians represents the generational conflict between the lower class and the upper class, the gender conflict between men and women, and the frustration of reality. Second the mechanism of creating laughter of the comedians shows ridicule of the conservative older generation, revelation of the immoral upper class, and caricature of the frustrated lower class. Third, the practical aspect of the comedians' laughter reveals cracks in tradition and modern, gaps in economic inequality, and expression of prohibited desires. Therefore, comedians Hee-Gap Kim, Bong-Seo Koo and Young-Chun Seo in comedy movies of the late 1960s show the semantic effect of laughter of internal/external boundaries and optimistic world views through the closed opening of informal culture and the conflict of characters/performers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.386-397
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• 2008

The purpose of the study is to identify the characteristics of films to be exported into a larger market abroad, especially the Japanese film market which occupies more than a half of the export costs of the Korean movies. Our analysis shows that the factors such as the reputation of a director and actors in Japan, the box-office record in Korea and genres have influence upon the export to the Japanese market. Among genres, comedy movies were less exported, while melodramas was more. We expect that this result will be helpful when film producers plan movies for export from the stage of pre-production.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.51
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• pp.47-64
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• 2010

Korea film market is heterogeneously divided market that comes from competition between Korean movies and foreign imported movies. This research empirically analyzes genre differentiation in Korean film market with three dimensions (film audience preference, production and import, box office hit). The results indicate that, first, audiences who preferring Korean movie preferred 'cultural factor oriented genres', but audiences who preferring foreign movie preferred 'high budget oriented genres'. Second, imported foreign movie genre distribution was little bit different with box office hit genre of foreign movies. Foreign movie was imported not only hit genre (action genre) but also low cost genre (comedy and Drama/melodrama genre), but most of all Korean film was produced in box office hit genres (comedy and Drama/melodrama genre), third, Korean movies hit a box office in comedy and Drama/melodrama genre, but foreign movies hit a box office in action and SF/Fantasy genre. Those results show that Korea movies' genres are concentrated very much in cultural factor oriented genre. Those results can give implication of diversity policy and movie production strategy of Korea film market.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.9-40
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• 2019

This study presents an investigation into South Korean films in the 1990s in the aspects of genre change and emotional reorganization. The 1990s witnessed a change of genres and a paradigm shift in the history of Korean films according to the revolutionary changes of the film industry structure and media environment. Believing that these changes had something to do with emotional changes driven by global capitalization symbolized by democratization in 1987 and the foreign currency crisis in 1998, the investigator analyzed the phenomena in film texts and examined the opportunities and context behind them. Unlike previous researches, this study made an approach to the history of Korean films in the 1990s with three points: first, this study focused on why the romantic comedy genre emerged in the 1990s and what stages its formation underwent since there had been no profound discussions about them; secondly, this study analyzed the biggest hits during the transitional period from 1987~1999 to figure out the mainstream genres and emotions during that period since these hits would provide texts to show the genre domain and public taste in a symbolic way; and finally, this study grew out of the separate investigation approach between melodramas and romantic comedies and looked into an emotional structure to encompass both genres to make a more broad and dynamic approach to South Korean films in the 1990s. History flows continuously without severance from previous times. When there is attention paid to inflection points and opportunities in the continuum, it can show the dynamics and structures of changes. This research led to the following conclusions: the mainstream genre of South Korean films had been melodramas until the 1980s. The old convention had been kept to offset or suture contradictions and excessive elements deviant from the structural consistency. Here, the structural consistency refers to no compliance to rational regulations or trade. The process of genre reorganization in the 1990s happened while securing some distance from the convention of making the structural consistency a sacrifice. The direction was to reinforce control through reasonable rationalism and logic of capital. It developed into romance, which would start with comedy to keep distance from the objects through laughter, heighten the level of remarks, and expand criticality, symbolize emotions with taste items, and build through the logic of mutual consensus and practical trade. In the 1990s, the South Korean films thus developed in a direction of moving away from the narrative of urgent pathos based on unconditional familism. It was on the same track as the entry of the South Korean society into the upgraded orbits of democracy and capitalism as the twins of modern rationalism since the latter part of the 1980s.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.83-92
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• 2014

We examined the annual film distribution portfolio of a Korean film distributor, Lotte Entertainment, investigating how the company puts big-budget films and low-budget movies together. As a result, the distributor was found to invest more than 80% of its whole budget in producing medium-size movies. The more successful box office, however, was witnessed from big-budget films that the company spent more than 6 billion Korean wons. With respect to genre, comedy and drama were the most and second-most frequently produced. However, Those two genres were not the most successful genres in the box office. Korean movie-goers favored actions and thriller the most and second most. Comedy took only the third place of the Korean box office, signifying a discord between the portfolio and the Korean box office.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.243-256
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• 2021

is a film that lifted Director Joon Ho Bong and Korea to the world-class level. A number of researchers have released findings of studies on based on their own interests and perspectives. The current study discussed the historical facts of black comedy in film and how black comedy from play has been used for epic characteristics and formal measures, although it was not a specific rule, through the perspectives of contemporary writers, such as Beckett, Ionesco, Durrenmatt, and Brecht. Some tools used for comedies and tragedies shared the same concept with black comedy in film and black comedy was a unique characteristic of film. The study analyzed how black comedy was signified in for paradox and nonalignment of purpose/intent and consequences as epic characteristics and parody, grotesque, and coincidence as formal measures. It also discussed the meaning of Director Bong's black comedy in and how the audience accepted it. Both the contemporary writers and Director Bong has a compassionate perspective, but the his was different from the work of other contemporary writers. Therefore, the study discussed his creativity behind .

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.96-103
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• 2006

'Kitsch', having emerged after the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, has been playing a role of interconnecting pop culture with high level culture, now claiming new aesthetic values in a variety of pop cultures of our industrialized modern society and holding its position as a cultural phenomenon. In the realm of fashion which is very much attached to everyday life, kitsch has also been expressing new forms of beauty through the liberation from and destruction of the fixed ideas. This study addresses the issues as to how we obtain the basic understanding of kitsch and shows how it was expressed in the fashion of the actors starring in the recently released Korean comedy movies.