Song Kang-Ho is one of the most recognizable faces of the burgeoning field of Korean cinema. The actor shot to global acclaim in 2019 for his starring role in Parasite, which famously became the first foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for best picture. This was far from the start of the career for one of Korea’s most prominent actors though, as fans of foreign cinema will likely have already been well aware of Song prior to Parasite.
The actor had already starred in several films that had a significant presence in western audiences teaming up with some of the nation’s most acclaimed directors including Park Chan-Wook, Kim Jee-Woon and Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho. Song counts Sympathy for Mr Vengence, The Host and The Good, The Bad and The Weird amongst his credits as well as Snowpiercer which was later adapted into a Netflix Original series.
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Song will be teaming up with Kim Jee-Woon once more for a promising upcoming feature Cobweb. The pair collaborated on the aforementioned The Good, The Bad and The Weird as well three other films including Kim’s directorial debut The Quiet Family. This latest feature will also be the first to come from Anthology Studios a new production house co-founded by Kim and Song along with former Warner Bros. Korea production head Jay Choi.
Anthology Studios aims to put a focus on up and coming talent in the Korean film industry and provide a platform for them to launch their careers. Korean film and TV has enjoyed a major renaissance with western audiences of late which continued strong into this year with Squid Game, which broke records for Netflix. Anthology Studios hopea to capitalize on this momentum and continue to allow their industry to grow as a major cultural export to rival the likes of Bollywood and Japan.
Attaching the major names behind the studio to the first project could be a great way to launch prestige for the brand presuming Cobweb is an international success. Not a lot is known about the project so far beyond the casting announcement, only Kim’s previous announcements that the film will be ‘experimental’ and meta. Shooting will take place entirely on a soundstage and the narrative will feature a film within a film gimmick.
If done well, these types of projects can be very provocative and impactful such as Synecdoche, New York from the master of meta cinema Charlie Kaufman. But there are plenty of pitfalls to fall into and it remains to be seen how Kim’s usually bombastic and quirky style will mesh with this kind of narrative. Cobweb does conjure plenty of intrigue though and the Korean media moguls seem to have thrown confidence behind it with Anthology Studios already being purchased for a reported £18 million by JTCB Studios even before their first film is released.
Kim, meanwhile, recently completed work on Dr Brain in conjunction with Apple TV Plus, the series was used as part of the showcase that marked the recent launch of Apple TV in Korea. It also marks Kim’s largest release via a Western media outlet since his 2013 film The Last Stand, his only Hollywood project to date. Song will also be back on the big screen soon in Emergency Declaration, which premiered at Cannes this year and is set for release in early 2022.
