The King & Clown Gets Oscar Nod

The Korean Film Council has decided to pick the drama The King and the Clown for the country’s movie choice to represent South Korea for the Best Foreign Film Oscar.  Here is the reasoning the film council gave:

The Korean Film Council said it picked Lee’s film over Time by Kim Ki-duk because it believed that the comedy would have a better chance of winning an Oscar nomination than Kim’s drama about a woman who resorts to plastic surgery to keep her relationship going.

Is it any coincidence that this film was picked by the film commission after the gay cowboy movie, Brokeback Mountain received pre-Oscar buzz and then went on to win three Oscars last year because of it’s gay theme?  Nominating the movie so far has been a good idea because international media such as the Guardian has picked up on the nomination and creating buzz for the movie.  There is nothing the liberal media loves to do more than promoting gay issues and South Korea is trying to cash in on it.

It is to bad because the movie The King and the Clown is actually a pretty good movie without having to play up the gay undertone in it to draw buzz.  Here is a quick overview for those who haven’t heard of this movie yet:

Jang-seng and Gong-gil are co-workers, and the one and only true friend to each other, who belong to the same acting team on the road in the 1500s during the Chosun Dynasty. But being indignant of Gong-gil’s falling prey to the powerful and rich nobleman as a pervert, Jang-seng persuades Gong-gil to come to Seoul for a big show site to make money on their own. Jang-seng, with distinguished leadership and unparalleled acting skills, in addition to his creative ideas for the shows, turns into a leader of an acting team on the road and leads his team to hit the jackpot by playing a show about the King, who takes no heed of his country but goes on the racket and his lady, femme fatale, Nok-soo. Jang-seng’s team makes a lot of money and it feels like almost the happiest moment of their lives. But they are all arrested for insulting the royal king. All the team actors are flogged like hell, but Jang-seng, so unbending with his belief that ‘there is a way out of every situation however bad,’ has the guts to say that they want the King to watch the show and that if the King laughs, they are free from the charges they’re arrested for. But in front of the King, all the members of the team are on edge and far from showing their real ability. However, Gong-gil, usually so quiet and reserved, shows an unexpectedly voluptuous girlish role and it causes the king to laugh off his seat, which leads all the members to staying in the palace. 

The movie is well acted, has an interesting plot, and does have some really funny moments in it.  Plus it really isn’t as gay as you would think with all the “gay buzz” surrounding this movie.  However, in today’s Hollywood activism is more important than good movies thus the film council probably feels the need to push the gay undertones of the movie to create Oscar buzz.  Will it work?  I don’t think so because Brokeback Mountain has already captured the Oscar I believe was reserved for the first mainstream gay themed Hollywood movie.  Sadly I don’t think there is any Oscars left for solely gay themed movies.  However, maybe it isn’t to late for the Korean Film Council to promote the other good aspects of the movie.  Either way I wish the film council luck because Korean movies for the most part are very well done and outside of Asia are not really appreciated.  An Oscar win would really give Korean cinema the world wide exposure it deserves.