WITHS2 Free English Subtitles for Korean Dramas

“Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around ‘em wait
The ministers of human fate
And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan—
The tender for another’s pain,
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more;—where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.”

“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
- Thomas Gray (1716~1771)

It would go somewhat like this.

We’d go down to the rental store on Sunday morning, still wearing the vestiges of the Saturday Night Fever (?) on our crania, and get a good half-dozen tapes out of the latest arrivals from the Land of the Morning Kimchi. The youngest of the lot would usually fill his scooter with amenities from the mart, his to-buy list reading like a sort of “Getting Diabetes for Dummies” handbook. Junk food, assorted fizzing crap, mysterious video tapes which, strangely enough for a bunch of mostly male teenagers, weren’t porn. This motley clique would then proceed to the Hall of Virtues, some kind of run down basement in one of the boys’ houses, magically reconfigured into a sort of antediluvian, exclusive Home Theater. A big ass TV and an ampli with speakers the size of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey adorned this mediatic shrine, accompanied by a fireplace and two extremely comfortable sofas almost out of a Barry White song, and a fridge so huge it would even scare off Roseanne Barr, at least until lunch. But, most importantly, about 6 to 8 hours of them Korean Dramas, every other Sunday, for what seemed like an eternity. Those were the days, the glorious mid 90s, when the creative juices enveloping those three fat buildings in Yeoeuido were serving the goods on an alarmingly prolific basis. Everyone was partyin’ like it’s 1999. ‘Cept, uhh… it was 1995.

Sure, not all members of this peculiar clique were as well versed in Korean as the others, so they had to get their dictionaries and pictionaries, baritone sageuk tirades and Kim Hee-Sun’s acting causing much affliction with their diction friction slips and carries. But it was monstrously rewarding to watch so many talented writers, producers and actors get the chance to make a good product, despite the copious amount of creative waste which was inundating the airwaves even back then. Albeit never comparable to the 80s, diversity was incredible, and just about everyone from the Lego armada to the “Dammit, where’s my teeth, Ophelia” gramps could find something catering to their tastes. Those were the days when a young newcomer called Choi Wan-Gyu would sleep and breathe the hospital atmosphere for three months, just to make his debut drama 종합병원 (General Hospital) a little more realistic; the days when veteran writer Jung Ha-Yeon would suddenly decide to write his first sageuk in a good 20 years, the same 장녹수 (Jang Nok-Su) which proved to be the first instance of visual content in Korea admitting what historical circles had been thinking for the last 15 years (that the reviled Prince Yeonsan was probably closer to a political scapegoat than a crazy mama’s boy on a killing spree). Those were the days of timeless masterpieces like 모래시계 (The Sandglass), and of family dramas which spoke about real people, like Kim Un-Kyung’s wonderful 옥이이모 (Auntie Ok). The days when you could say you were a K-drama “mania” proudly, without feeling a growing sense of embarrassment brewing inside.

Chapter 1
2009 – BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE SHAREHOLDER

Fast forward 13 years, and it would be hard to say this is the same industry that produced such vintage years, that heralded so many talents in front and behind the camera. It has now become a sort of cultural banana republic in itself, with behind the scene intrigues reigning supreme, and rarely leaving the spotlight to the real dramas. No year like 2008 has ever exposed the inner workings of the industry in such an explicit way, making the viewers part of all the decadence and disgrace this medium has become, whether they wanted it or not. Sometimes you really wish you could go back to the days when all you needed to know was when the rental tapes would arrive at the store, when ignorance of all this brouhaha was indeed bliss. You’d watch the drama, comment about its value or lack thereof, and that would be over. In that sense and disarming lack of quality aside, 2008 wasn’t necessarily the year or good or bad dramas, it was the moment when the magician finally went on stage to explain his tricks to the audience. Because these days it is truly a folly to be “wise” about this so-called industry; an unnerving, stress-inducing, almost unbearable folly, particularly if you know what preceded it. In this atmosphere, intrinsic quality does no longer seal the fate of any drama, It’s the entire business mindset behind it which does.

In 1995, the drama business was a pretty simple affair, with rules more or less set in stone: the overwhelming majority of dramas were produced in-house by the station, PPL and various other endorsements helped save some money, and with Chungmuro still building the pillars of their renaissance and other forms of entertainment relatively dormant, ratings and ad revenues were huge. To make a quick point, 1995 had over a half dozen dramas peaking at least once over 40%, with two even hitting 60%, and this is still when SBS’ signal couldn’t fully reach the entire nation. There was no overseas or even secondary (VHS, VCD) market to speak of, and the broadcasters approached dramas with the kind of mentality the smart majors in Chungmuro showed before the big bubble exploded. That is, you grow talent in-house to secure your future (be that PD, writers or actors, through talent contests), invest in big, safe productions to make money, and redistribute the profits to make more quality-oriented, “risky” non-mainstream fare, balancing things in the process.

There was diversity, the broadcasters made good enough money (nowhere near enough to give them delusion of alleged grandeur, though), and the writers had the chance to flesh their muscles and tell a story. Actors made only a tiny fraction of what they make today and paid their dues by climbing this pyramid gradually (most of the time anyway). It was a peculiar of food chain, yes, but it kept working. Sure, there was crap just like you can find today, quite a lot of it, but you never felt like a % figure on some brokers’ marketing report, you felt like a viewer. This strange machine worked almost to perfection with all its pros and cons, until something called Korean Wave started dismantling it all piece by piece, almost a decade later.

This is not to knock 겨울연가 (Winter Sonata) and 대장금 (Dae Jang Geum) any more than I already did in the past. They were just dramas at the beginning, and I’ll pass on once again judging their merits (or serious lack thereof). Mind you, at the beginning of this Hallyu things weren’t too bad after all, at least on the surface. Many Koreans felt a sense of pride in watching anyone from Filipino housewives to Japanese okasan talk of one of their “national products” with such admiration, because be it Hyunday or Winter, Sonatas are always Made in Korea. A truckload of people visited the country, many others picked up Korean or started getting interested in the culture enough to make their poor husbands grumpy, making Korea a sort of new age Asian model to follow in terms of its entertainment industry. But you know what culture becomes, when the man deciding a drama’s main plot has an MBA from Harvard. The “cultural” aspect of it is now just window dressing used by the companies to look like less of a pack of hungry sharks to the domestic public.

Before Winter Sonata, the amount of independent companies producing dramas for TV was something like 10% of the total, the most famous being perhaps Samhwa Networks, which produced shows like Jung Ha-Yeon’s 명성황후 (The Last Empress). The real problem, and what slowly led to this state, was the gradual erosion of the broadcasting station as content producer, turning more and more into just content distributor. They didn’t realize the problems — or decided not to acknowledge them — simply because they didn’t necessarily need to: most of those productions were made under a deal which would bring the independent company half of ad-revenue yes, but almost the entire pie of exports would remain with the broadcasters. Thinking about the long term future and legacy of your station, when you have piles of green bills right under your nose NOW? Foggedaboutit.

This system, which conveniently started in 1991 thanks a certain right wing party paving the way for SBS’ success with a new broadcasting law, didn’t really make much noise until the government revised broadcasting laws over ten years later, trying to make the industry into a sort of blue ocean venture. Sure, when SBS started in 1991 they “stole” the best writers and PDs from the two leading (public) broadcasters, broke off decades long talent contracts, and steered the industry towards star casting and frivolous trendy dramas. But as long as it all remained within the confines of the TV world, it wasn’t much of a problem. Hell, all that competition was one of the major factors in the creation of the 3rd golden age of K-dramas, starting with the first episode of 1991’s Eyes of Dawn, and officially ending on the day “fusion sageuk” were born, with 1999’s 허준 (Hur Joon). The real issue was that the success of Winter Sonata and Dae Jang Geum moved a lot of outsiders who had never even snorted in the direction of TV Dramas to reconsider their plans and conveniently join the party.

Suddenly, huge venture capital was poured into 외주제작사 (independent producing companies), many of which were thrown in the ocean of the Kosdaq. It seemed like a good deal for the broadcasters, since they could spend the same, and take advantage of the massive investing prowess and marketing smarts (?) of these new players. Production budgets skyrocketed along with oversea location shooting, star casting became the new creed leading the industry, and soon enough, dramas were suddenly the new hot potato in town. The fact almost none of those new kids on the block knew anything (or even cared) about dramas probably went from one broadcaster’s ear to the other, silenced by the sound of dead presidents grazing their sight. But, sure enough, in a couple of years it started becoming the leit motif of just about anything negative associated with the word Hallyu.

These glorified sharks in tuxedo would scout PDs and writers from the public broadcasters with huge sums, play in cahoots with management agencies to get the best deal going and secure star casting, and then the rest was just downhill. Broadcasters, particularly MBC and SBS, started almost completely abandoning in-house productions to favor the indies’ output, cutting long running projects, and opening the era of crazy competition between independent companies. More importantly, first SBS then MBC canceled their short drama programs. To many people, particularly outside Korea where they had little to no exposure, all something like 베스트극장 (Best Theater) or 오픈 드라마 남과 여 (Open Drama Man & Woman) meant were short dramas of little interest, because of their often unknown casts and self-contained nature. What in truth they represented was training farms for young writers, PDs and actors to hone their skills, prepare for their big jump to miniseries and whatnot. All of today’s major names in the TV writing world, from Jung Ha-Yeon to Noh Hee-Kyung, even people like Moon Young-Nam and Im Sung-Han started there. Think of it as the equivalent of what short films meant to Chungmuro’s top directors.

But look at SBS ever since they eliminated short dramas, and you’ll find out the only new talent with potential they discovered behind the camera after the cancellation of short dramas was PD Hong Chang-Ok of 강남엄마 따라잡기 (Gangnam Mom) and 신의 저울 (The Scale of Providence). How about MBC, and their post-Best Theater discoveries? Lee Yoon-Jung of 태릉선수촌 (Taereung National Village) was pretty much their last discovery of note after Lee Jae-Gyu went freelance, but a quick look at her career past that little gem, and you’ll see how she’s only been producing insipid trendy pap like 커피프린스 1호점 (Coffee Prince). Sure enough KBS, which kept 드라마시티 (Dramacity) alive until early 2008 despite all the trouble, has been blessed with a ton of young talent in the last five years, starting from Park Chan-Hong and Kim Ji-Woo of 부활 (Resurrection) to Ham Young-Hoon of 얼렁뚱땅 흥신소 (Evasive Inquiry Agency), not to mention a certain Kwak Jung-Hwan. It doesn’t get any simpler than that: short dramas are the backbone of the industry, their future. And they got rid of them. Why? Because they didn’t bring in any money right away. That’s how bad things have gotten.

So with indies dominating the scene, the idea of long term projects started to become a thing of the past. In the 90s, you’d pretty much know what would be broadcast in December at least by February or March of the same year, because they prepared things way in advance. This gave writers time to write properly, actors to understand their characters, and producers to invest more time into a quality product, even if they still shot on the fly (enough that vile amateurs would change their finales based on net reactions). The best examples would be 여명의 눈동자 (Eyes of Dawn), which shot almost in its entirety before broadcast in late 1991, and particularly 1996’s 임꺽정 (Im Kkeok-Jeong), one of the very first Korean sageuk approaching the idea of pre-broadcast shoot. A good portion of the writers employed on TV would turn their scripts way ahead of broadcast, and 쪽대본 (“post-it scripts,” roughly) were hard to imagine.

The situation today is almost the complete opposite. Whereas in the past a drama production could take a year or two in pre-production and planning alone, these days you get the green light from the independent company with a short synopsis cooked up in a couple of months, try to cast a big star or two (possibly with that ominous “Hallyu” label in front), and then go knock at the broadcaster’s doors. If they accept, then you go through casting (a.k.a. going for drinks at room salons with management agencies’ top suits and engaging in “favors,” since the idea of “casting director” on Korean TV means just about as much as bikini vendors do in Siberia), and only about two months before broadcast actually start shooting. Should the big star drop out for whatever reason, then the entire production can easily go up in flames, making a mess out of the lineup, and forcing other dramas to either relocate or completely screw up the schedule. And let’s not even begin talking about those crazy “live shoots.” There would be enough examples to fill a book, but honestly these days being an exception to this rule — say, surprise surprise, dramas like 달콤한 인생 (La Dolce Vita) – would make the news instead.

Eliminating long-term projects for the future to make money now could be understandable, if the money was actually good enough to go crazy over it. It’s barely enough to survive, on the contrary. For instance, Pan Entertainment and KBS made a few tens of million dollars each, thanks to the success of Winter Sonata, money which already vanished long ago. Of course it did create ancillary market revenue, but visitors to NamI Island don’t pour money into the KBS coffers, if not for a paltry little royalty to slap His Scarfness and Jiruhime on a poster near the entrance. Wonder how much Japan made between 2003 and last year thanks to this drama alone, with their countless DVD releases, magazines, OST CDs, Yonsama coffee mugs, used knickers and whatnot? 3 TRILLION Won. Trillion, and that’s not a dog’s name, Bubba. MBC made decent money with 내 이름은 김삼순 (My Lovely Sam-Soon) in 2005 and quite good business with 주몽 (Jumong) a year later. You could easily say that, without the humongous money coming from Japan, 태왕사신기 (The Legend) would have been the most colossal flop since Reverend Moon’s Inchon. But is it really worth it to completely destroy your industry from within, just to barely break even on some gargantuan production only huge on cachet and Xbox-like sensory overload, whose protagonist doesn’t even understand the character he’s portraying, as he spends half the time controlling which way his Panten Pro-V perm is pointing to?

You might be asking yourself, then. Why on earth risk losing so much money on such crazy projects, when simpleton-friendly daily potboilers with asinine plots and amateurish acting cost peanuts to make and get you 20-30% guaranteed? The answer is the key to all this problem: most independent production companies only make a portion of their revenues from the drama themselves. The real money is made through the Kosdaq, with wild speculations pumping up share prices. You cast a huge Hallyu star for your next project, and therefore have good chances of making it big in Japan or the rest of Asia? Bingo, your share goes up 15%, or better. That is why people like Choi Wan-Gyu still have a job in the industry, despite not having produced anything worth the paper it was written on since 2001’s 상도 (Sang Do). They know how to push the buttons of the mainstream (simple, superficial, redundant crap you can watch while doing the dishes, requiring nothing more than a two-digit IQ to follow), and excite foreign buyers with big words, despite never actually delivering what they promise.

That is why hugely expensive sageuk that all look, sound and smell the same continue to be made; why young so-called “stars” who can’t act to save their lives get paid mid to high 8 figures per episode just because of their name or slightly prettier mug, or because of the amount of okasan in Japan who have to change their underwear whenever they’re on. It’s all about alleged glitz and glamor, the prospect of success. About expensive parties at five star hotels with foreign reporters inundated by kool-aid, announcing the advent of a new era for the Hallyu. In truth, the vast majority of those shows will turn into a childish trendy drama with a stinking script, which is going to end up into the same vicious circle of shooting 18 to 20 hours a day in inhumane conditions, and wrapping up its last episode three hours before broadcast, while lazy writers and inept planning directors sit on their asses already scheming their next stratagem to make more money at the expense of the industry. Call it K-drama’s own bling, if you will. Eh.

But then, the bubble suddenly explodes. The Kosdaq isn’t helping anymore, overseas contracts and the huge money those poor souls threw at the wall is not sticking anymore (because, whooo hooo mama, they smelled the rat!), and – shock of all shocks – eight years of Bushonomics finally pulling a Hindenburg on the entire globe translate into quite a few advertisers saying bye bye to the TV market, as it just isn’t worth it anymore. Result? Ad revenue is down big, over 30% in November alone, and dramas are getting the 兔死狗烹 (cook the hound when the hares have been run down) treatment, with already a few formats victim of the new persona non grata slant of the broadcasters, such as SBS’ Friday Dramas, KBS’ second daily drama, and MBC’s weekend slot which once broadcast greats like 신돈 (Shin Don). Almost all the independent companies are now losing money at an alarming pace, a good third of them on the verge of collapse, while the three broadcasters keep favoring third-rate, squirrelly daily dramas like 너는 내운명 (You Are My Destiny) or 아내의 유혹 (Temptation of a Wife), simply because they bring them el dinero.

Of the 30 or so major indies that produce most Korean dramas today, only Samhwa Networks (La Dolce Vita, Mom is Dead Upset and The First Wives’ Club this year) and Chorokbaem Media (Kingdom of the Wind) are still doing relatively well. The Kim Jong Hak Productions which gave us anything from 해신 (Emperor of the Sea) to masterpieces like 하얀거탑 (The White Tower)? They just promised they will make their final payments for The Legend and 이산 (Yi San) in their latest round of press propaganda, but if they don’t produce a huge hit within the next 18 month this might be the first illustrious victim of the crisis. Yedang Entertainment (which does dabble a lot more in the music business, mind you) has been losing 70 billion won for each of the last two years, and that’s more or less what’s happening all over the board. What’s more, there’s a sort of civil war raging on behind the scenes, which exploded when the indies’ top dogs met with Minister of Culture Yoo In-Chon — with the once great producer Kim Jong-Hak of Eyes of Dawn saying the broadcasters were akin to a “socialist state,” eating up all the revenues for themselves. Broadcasters have been trying to patch up the wounds using the worldwide economic crisis as an excuse, which only was the icing on the cake of a vicious circle continuing for years. It’s a glorious, drama-like mess of epic proportions, the likes of which even silly meta-drama cow manure like 온에어 (On Air) couldn’t ever put on the stage. Ticket to the Moon? How about Ticket to Andromeda?

While the indies are using unprofessional actors and their antics to indirectly make an example out of overpaid stars (whose fees shot to the sky thanks to… guess whom?), the Big 3 are suddenly returning to talent contests, unceremoniously abandoned a few years ago; they promised they will resurrect the short drama format, and focus a lot more efforts on in-house productions, even going as far as establishing a sort of salary cap for the stars. The likely scenario will be a hugely chaotic 2009, with probably some mergers, a good few names either pulling out of the game or going completely belly up, and the dog eat dog competition for the few available spots (constantly shrinking) becoming even worse. What’s more, the Lee Myung-Bak government is trying its damnedest to privatize MBC (despite their claims that they aren’t) and make KBS their own personal Pavlov’s dog (a female one), in addition to SBS having already a very right wing slant and GNP presence among its major investors, so there will be energy in the air. What will these next two years spell for the future of this industry? Hard to fully predict right now, but it will sure be exciting, one way or another.

Regardless of what happens politically, should the broadcasters finally get rid of the influence of independent companies and go back to the basics, we might finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. There would be less fancy and expensive dramas for quite a while, save perhaps for one KBS sageuk and another few big projects per year. But they’re likely to become much better, more professionally produced dramas. They would start planning long-term again, and it’s quite likely something a little different than this year would happen, with dramas not just failing because of bad planning and their makers never really getting the chance to do any better, but merely because they didn’t have the talent period. It would be hard for many, and a lot of companies and stars would abandon the small screen to go back to the warm covers of Chungmuro, which thankfully is starting to slowly change its mindset about production and the Hallyu bubble. We would see less stars but more actors, less Viking-looking “creators” hogging the market but more real writers with flair and cojones, and probably less visceral “fun” but more intelligent, meaningful content. It could be the dawn of a new beginning, and the first step of great things to come. Or… not. And be afraid, be very afraid of that.

Should this peculiar war end otherwise, should the indies find other ways to hog the airwaves with their increasingly hopeless ploys, then we will soon forget such a thing as “Korean dramas” ever existed, because in two years all that will grace Korean TVs will be cheap daily dramas and weekend dramas targeted to ajummas, with the occasional long and useless sageuk thrown in the mix. No genre dramas, no miniseries, nothing really targeting young viewers and the non-mainstream. That will be the future, if things don’t start to change very soon. Now, doesn’t ignorance sound a little more like a silver platter of pure, unadulterated bliss?

PAGE 2 – KBS
PAGE 3 – MBC
PAGE 4 – SBS
PAGE 5~ – AWARDS