COMMENTARY

No Rain, no gain

Kong Rithdee

The poster says ''Rain's Coming''. Rest easy, since it's not the tropical downpour that usually scares the living daylights out of a Bangkok governor, but Rain the Korean pop prince, the quick-stepping singer/dancer/actor who can elicit a scream more deranged than that of PAD hardcores. His February concerts in Bangkok were cancelled following the New Year's Eve bomb scare, but the sponsors clearly believe that young Thai groupies should receive equal opportunity in music education as other teenagers in Asian nations, and have confirmed that Rain's world tour will make a stop here in June.

Handpicked as one the most influential Asians by Time magazine last year, Rain's rise to global superstardom _ he's the hottest act across Asia who now plans a raid into the US market _ uncannily coincided with South Korean Ban Ki-moon's installation as the new United Nations chieftain.

As Ban dodges bombs in Iraq, Rain clads himself in a camouflage outfit and leaps across toxic puddles and above charred bunkers in the war-zone setting of his music video.

Is Rain's popularity boosting the image of Ban to the world? Or vice versa?

If Surakiart Sathirathai had upset the bookies and succeeded Mr Annan in New York, I imagine our buxom Tata Young might have sold a million more copies without having to resort to her half-naked MVs.

Perhaps the dual rise of Rain and Ban is not a coincidence; maybe it's a payoff from long years of strategic planning. The spectacular surge of Korean pop-cultural products _ music, TV series, movies, animation, on-line games _ is definitely not a fluke aided by aligning planets or Jatukam Ramadeva talisman, but a result of a painstaking cultural policy from successive governments that foresee how South Korea can export entertainment goods to the world the same way it exports Samsung and LG. We're talking about a country that, during the Roh Moo-hyun administration in 2003, appointed a film director, Lee Chang-dong, as the Minister of Culture and Tourism, and he played a part in popularising so many Lees and Parks and Kims and Ims and Moons to Southeast Asian audiences.

Even the US wouldn't dare make Martin Scorsese a Secretary of Cultural Affairs.

While our Siamese cultural bureau still ponders whether to hand down death sentences on college students in tight uniforms and TV smokers, the Koreans are busy with progressive thinking. Through agencies like Korea Culture & Content Agency (Kocca) and Korea Film Council (Kofic), the country invests a huge amount of won to foster an environment that ensures the nurturing and the discovery of talent, and in analysing marketing possibilities based on global showbiz trends.

Kocca owns recording studios and animation centres. Kofic, a government agency, has devised a complex financing structure that allows it to be able to invest in potentially hit movies and generate a decent cash flow.

South Korea brandishes the flag of cultural diversity in promoting its local entertainment sectors. Look closely and you'll sense a strong whiff of anti-globalisation: last year, Korean actors and directors announced their coalition with farmers in opposing the FTA between Korea and the US, which, if passed by Congress, would be the largest FTA for the United States since the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement in 1994.

Still, the South Korean government, under pressure from Hollywood lobbyists for many years, has cut down screen quota _ the number of days required by law that theatres must show Korean films _ from 146 to 73 days.

Hollywood labels this screen quota an act of protectionism, but the South Koreans see it as a necessary defence against the domination of American movies, which is apparently the case in most countries.

Cut to home turf: the Thai Ministry of Culture _ at least its progressive wing _ of the previous administration did have an idea to form an agency that could be called Centre of Cultural Content, but as has happened with other policies, the coup put a stop to everything.

Our gifted Tata Young may continue to sing and sashay, but to dream of exporting our cultural products like South Korea, Thailand is stuck with a case of no Rain, no gain.

Kong Rithdee is a feature writer and film reviewer with real.time, Bangkok Post.

Bangkok Post

Saturday March 31, 2007