Japanese Filmmaker Comes Out Against the Korean Wave

Here is one Japanese filmmaker that probably won’t have to many fans in Korea after they read this:

Japanese filmmaker Shinji Aoyama, recently in Korea to attend the Seoul Independent Film Festival, has unusually strong opinions about the Korean Wave. Aoyama visited Korea on Dec. 9 to participate in the Shinji Aoyama Specials, one of events of the Seoul Independent Film Festival, where he opened up in an interview with CineSeoul about his discomfort with the Korean pop culture fad that is sweeping Japan.

“I really want to say this,” the director said, clearly exasperated. “To me, Japanese women who flock to see Yonsama (Korean actor Bae Yong-joon) are repulsive. When I see something so repulsive, whoever they are carrying on about, it makes me feel profoundly sick.”

The way I look at this is that if he is so repulsed by Bae Yong-joon movies than he should make better movies than his. If Japanese filmmakers put together movies of higher quality and better story lines that appealed to the Japanese female audience than they would not have to worry about Bae Yong-joon taking over Japan. Instead this filmmaker in an effort probably to boost his own sagging popularity is trying to appeal to Japanese nationalism in order to slime Bae Yong-joon instead of attempting to make better movies. Playing to nationalism, this just goes to show that Koreans aren’t the only ones who do it.