Korean Ingenuity

Here is a 'Korean Comedian Magic Show' which came on some 'gag concert' type show.



I don't know how they find audience members for these shows, but somehow they round up a crowd that seems extremely easy to entertain and amaze. Really, when the camera cuts to the audience members, it's like watching children in the bodies of adults.

The above segment is far more interesting than what regularly comes out on those shows, but alas, it is a blatant rip off of an old Penn and Teller act, move per move.




Here is Penn's reaction to it. He takes it in stride.


I was in Singapore last year and heard what I had always thought was a Korean pop song (one of the few I found interesting) while I was in a shopping mall. "Ah-ha!" I thought, "Finally an actual run-in with this mighty Korean Wave that I've heard about on a daily basis from the Korean media." When the singer began singing, it was in Japanese. It turns out the song was, like many others, originally a Japanese song that was just given Korean lyrics and fed to whatever talentless but pretty pop idol singer was being marketed at that moment by the big recording companies in Korea.

The last hit Korean movie (other than D-War, of course) was 200 Pound Beauty. It was based on a Japanese Manga (as was Old Boy). The title song was also a hit. Like almost every famous soundtrack song from a Korean movie, it was a foreign song (a remake of theBlondie tune 'Maria', in this case).

When it comes to creativity, outsourcing seems to be the only option for the Korean entertainment industry. Judging by the Korean movies, songs, and TV shows I've seen over the past year, they aren't doing it often enough.

I'd like to propose some new Korean slogans:

Korea, Be the Rip Offs!

Korea, Regurgitating!