Korean director Shin Woo-seok seems to be on a tear at the moment. Like American directors Spike Jonze and Hype Williams, his music videos for the likes of K-pop group New Jeans mean that is work now has a global audience.
Shin’s videos are interesting because they have such a strong style. The closest analogue that I can think of in the west are Chris Cunningham and Hype Williams. Shin Woo-seok is one of the few true auteurs currently in film.
One of the key themes that have been running through his work is the idea of urban fairytales. These are a mix of Korean storytelling together with Korea’s odd relationship with christianity.
A quick detour on christianity and Korea.
Korea has about 15 million christians, just under 6 million of them are catholic. While there was knowledge of christianity from China, it took off in the 19th century and growth was modest prior to 1945.
Christian churches played a key role in building out educational institutions and provided a social circle to people moving into the cities from the countryside or another city. Whereas buddhist temples would be in places of natural beauty, churches were urban. Christianity in Korea also has its issues including evangelical protestant sects clashing with buddhists.
All of this means that Korean society has a synthesis of confucianism, buddhism, protestantism and catholicism.
Urban fairytale storytelling
Shin Woo-seok combines effective elements of Korean storytelling that you see in 16-episode Korean dramas. But in films and music videos.
- Power gap relationships (for instance handsome but aloof CEO falls for young pretty employee, child and guardian, religious figure and believer)
- Troubled family life including nasty in-laws
- Childhood trauma
- Crazy plot twists (often in revenge-related dramas)
- Catharsis / emotional release
- Confession / forgiveness
- Redemption, justice / payoff for effort put in
All of which is underpinned by a couple of concepts:
- Jeung: a deep bond that is enduring and may be affectionate belongingness or emotional in nature. The sense that they are your ‘people’. It’s based on everyday proximity, like eating lunch with the same work colleagues everyday or neighbours who are in and out of each other’s homes. Western analogues might be Friends or the 1990s BBC TV drama This Life.
- Han: a kind of sorrow or lingering resentment that never leaves a character. for instance traumatic humiliation. These attenuated and stretched out for the characters. This amps up the tension and increases the pay-off at the end of the story.
More on 16 episode Korean drama mechanics here
- Episodes 1-4: the core hook (shocking incident, the high concept underpinning the show etc.
- Episodes 5-8: you see into the characters lives and their personality traits come out. Relationships may deepen, the roots of secrets happen,
- Episodes 9-12: emotional and dramatic plot twists (betrayals, separations and revelations come to the fore) sucking the emotionally invested viewer in
- Episodes 13-15: building to emotional climax as there is a major plot reveal or showdown and audience emotional release.
- Episode 16: plot loose ends are tied up and the aftermath of episodes 13-15.
Shinsegae Christmas film 2024
Shin Woo-seok’s association with New Jeans made him an obvious choice for Korean department store Shinsegae to do their Christmas film. Shin’s interpretation of what a Christmas brand film should look like is a world away from John Lewis and is a great example of his urban fairytale concept.
No spoilers, but Hello Rudolph is an unusual take on the Santa story and making children happy.
The Christmas Song
This Christmas while Shinsegae had a collaboration of stars from Seoul’s equivalent to Broadway, Shin Woo-seok worked with Google Gemini on a seasonal film. Google worked with creatives around the world such as artists in Indonesia and Australia. The common theme was how AI could be used creatively. Think Apple’s Shot on iPhone campaign, but across different mediums and countries.
Shin Woo-seok’s collaboration was the Korean part of the campaign. In The Christmas Song, Shin uses Gemini with subtlety and the lightest of touches to handle the special effects in the film.
The urban fairytale theme comes through in this film as well and there are clear stylistic similarities between the Shinsegae and Google films.
More Korean-related content can be found here.