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This article explores how technicians working in the cinema exhibition arm of the Korean conglomerate CJ Global are pioneering the diffusion of four-dimensional (4D) motion widescreen cinema technology. It analyzes the 4D work-flow processes being developed to connect Asian and Hollywood films with local audiences via motion and environmental special effects, as well as some of the cultural assumptions underlying this new technology transfer. As a case study, this article investigates how the Korean 4D team in Beijing is seeking to appeal to Chinese audiences through this innovative process, while assisting CJ Global’s expansion across China and the world. This study sheds light on a new type of inconspicuous transnational collaboration that is enabling Korean post-production practitioners to contribute to the expansion of the film industry in China and its integration of technical innovation and ideas from outside the country.

The 1927–1928 Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia sought to strengthen the domestic film industry's competitiveness against foreign investment, technology and manpower. Although it concluded before the wide-scale rollout of sound exhibition, it began collecting evidence after the coming of sound had already begun to make waves. Beginning in 1924 and continuing beyond the Commission, agents of the US De Forest Phonofilms company, primed the local market for sound through a series of publicity events. Their activities lead the local trade press to dub the Australian Phonofilms franchise as the instigator of a ‘Talkie War’, challenging the Commission's ability to curtail the expansion of human capital and technology from the USA. Within a year of its conclusion, agents from the US Western Electric company arrived in Australia to wire the major capital city theatres with sound. Initially, this strengthened Hollywood's foothold in ways that the Commission was anxious to avoid. Hoyts Th...

The South Korean film industry represents a masculine-privileged gender regime that over the last few decades has shown a newfound strength both at home and abroad. However, challenging this masculine privilege are a growing number of important though unheralded female writers–directors operating in both the independent and commercial sectors of the industry. In this article, the authors present a case study that explores the work of five of these female writers–directors within this context. They begin by asking two key questions: can female writers–directors find a voice within the Korean film industry that challenges the traditional gender stereotypes both within the industry and in the wider Korean culture? How can the Korean experience connect to the Western experience? The first methodological step in explicating the case study is to set out a particularly Western theoretical approach that emphasises the idea that masculine privilege exists hegemonically within the so-called ‘hegemony of men’. The authors then go on to highlight specific elements in the work of these female writers–directors that expose aspects of both challenge and constraint within the hegemony of men. They conclude that, although the work of these female writers–directors indeed challenges tradition and gendered stereotypes sustained within the hegemony of men, such challenges represent moments of reformism rather than revolutionary systematic change.

This article analyses the distinct local responses to the coming of sound to the Australian cinema and examines the reactions to the American modernisation of the motion picture industry. The story documents how sound technology was promoted by the trade press, inventors, and the American electrical companies, each with a different agenda. The most active Australian sound systems and companies are discussed and located within the context of modernity. Film Weekly and Everyones, Australia's two major film industry trade magazines at the time, promoted the coming of sound as a technology battle—a ‘Talkie War’. Hollywood film distributors were portrayed as military victors in a ‘war’ to wire Australia with American technology. It is hoped to offer a richer and more complex understanding of the rise and development of sound technology by presenting new research on this, a largely unknown aspect of Australian film history.

This study considers the recurring themes contained in selected films shown in Korea before and after Japan’s defeat to offer insights into how Japanese and US occupation authorities attempted to capture the hearts and minds of the occupied. In order to show how this theoretically worked, this chapter examines two of the most notable co-productions from the early 1940s, Homeless Angels (Choi In-gyu, 1941) and Suicide Squad at the Watchtower (Imai Tadashi, 1943, hereafter Suicide Squad). This investigation also includes a number of Hollywood films shown in Korea between 1946 and 1948, such as In Old Chicago (1937) and You Can’t Take It with You (1938). In each case, the occupation authorities screened films to reorient Korean audiences toward their social, political and economic worldview. Despite tremendous scope, most histories of the Japanese and US occupation periods lack a rigorous discussion of this significant cultural policy.1 Furthermore, conventional accounts of cinema in Korea only address the struggles that Korean filmmakers experienced during both eras, highlighting the limitations that threatened the expression of local culture.2 This investigation builds upon these former studies by providing a complementary viewpoint on how such screenings resulted in complex intersections between cinema, culture, and politics, before and after Japan’s defeat in 1945.

We argue that during the 1940s Hollywood films had an important role to play in the creation of a postwar South Korean society based on the new global U.S. hegemony. The connections between political and economic change in South Korea and socio-cultural factors have hitherto scarcely been explored and, in this context, we argue that one of the key socio-cultural mechanisms that supported and even drove social change in the immediate post-war period was the Korean film industry and its re-presentation of masculinity. The groundbreaking work of Antonio Gramsci on hegemony is drawn on – in particular, his understanding of the relationship between “commonsense” and “good sense” – as well as Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity. The character of Rick in the 1941 Hollywood classic Casablanca is used to illustrate the kind of hegemonic masculinity favoured by the U.S. Occupation authorities in moulding cultural and political attitudes in the new Korea.

Since censorship was lifted in Korea in 1996, collaboration between Korean and foreign filmmakers has grown in both extent and visibility. Korean films have been shot in Australia, New Zealand and mainland China, while the Korean digital post-production and visual effects firms behind blockbusters infused with local effects have gone on to work with filmmakers from greater China and Hollywood. Korean cinema has become known for its universal storylines, genre experimentation and high production values. The number of exported Korean films has increased, as has the number of Korean actors starring in films made in other countries. Korea has hosted major international industry events. These milestones have facilitated an unprecedented international expansion of the Korean film industry. With the advent of the ‘digital wave’ in Korea – the film industry's transition to digital production practices – this expansion has accelerated. Korean film agencies – the pillars of the national cinema – have played important parts in this internationalisation, particularly in promoting Korean films and filmmakers outside Korea and in facilitating international events in Korea itself. Yet, for the most part, projects involving Korean filmmakers working in partnership with filmmakers from other countries are the products of individuals and businesses working outside official channels. That is, they are often better understood as ‘transnational’ rather than ‘national’ or ‘international’ projects. In this article, we focus on a range of collaborations involving Korean, Australian, New Zealand and Chinese filmmakers and firms. These collaborations highlight some of the forces that have shaped the digital wave in the Korean film industry, and illustrate the increasingly influential role that the digital expertise of Korean filmmakers is playing in film industries, both regionally and around the world.