Shim Hyung-Rae on 디워 (D-War): It's Just Hollywood and Us

Shim became one of the most popular comedians in the country during the 80s, with his favourite character 'Young-Gu'. After several Comedy awards, Shim reprised his Young-Gu character on many films throughout the early to mid 90s, and eventually opened his own company, focusing on the 괴수 (Monster) genre. His latest tour de force has attracted the Korean Media's attention, not only because it'll feature established Hollywood actors like Robert Forster and Jason Behr. This time it's about its bugdet: 145 Billion Won, about US$ 147 Million. Might not look much compared to some recent Hollywood blockbusters, but it makes the budget for Kwak Kyung-Taek's 태풍 (Typhoon) (20 Billion Won, the highest in Korean film history) look like the vitamins bill of Arnie's latest flick. And, of course, it will allow 'D-War' to become the most expensive Korean film of all time... for a long time (I hope). Not that there's much in this film that's Korean, except for a little conceptual art, and Shim himself.

Of course that's bound to shock any Korean journalist, when the industry spends an average of about 5 Billion Won on films, and about 8 to 10 on blockbusters. But Shim, in a recent interview with Star News, explained why it's taking so long to produce this film (6 years now), and why it's so expensive:

"We've worked on this film for the last 5 years, so it's obvious the budget was astronomical. Look at Bong Joon-Ho's 괴물 (The Host): their post-production for only one monster cost a good 10 Billion Won, and that's only one. We have thousands of monsters in 'D-War'. But it's still much less than King Kong, with its US$ 200 Million budget. This film stars people like Amanda Brooks and Jason Behr, and we shot it all in the US, so you have to compare it with their standards, not ours. We just have to be careful when talking about things like these. Now that the budget figure is out, everyone is trying to speculate where all that money went, and that can create some headaches. If you looked at the Korean film industry a few years ago, most people would have thought making a film like this would be a miracle. There's only two places where you can find visuals of this level: Hollywood, and our company, nowhere else."

Is this confidence... or what? You'll judge by yourself this Summer, when 'D-War' releases worldwide.

[Sources: Star News, Yahoo Korea]