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Film and television

The popularity of Korean films has risen since the success of Shiri in 1999. South Korea is one of the few countries where Hollywood productions do not enjoy a dominant share of the domestic market, partly due to screen quotas requiring cinemas to show Korean films at least 73 days a year.

Shiri, a film about a North Korean spy preparing a coup in Seoul, was the first in Korean history to sell more than two million tickets in Seoul alone. It also earned $14 million at the Japanese box office alone, helping it to surpass box office hits such as The Matrix and Star Wars. The success of Shiri motivated other Korean films with larger budgets. Upon release, Shiri attracted 5.8 million theatre-goers; these numbers outscored the local theater attendance for the Hollywood-made film, Titanic. The venture capital firm KDB Capital, the main firm that invested money into the production of Shiri (specifically, around $333,000), would end up earning more than 300 percent in returns (Shim, 33), helping to spark the Korean government's interest in the possible profits that can be awarded through the entertainment industry.

In 2000 Joint Security Area achieved huge success, surpassing the benchmark set by Shiri. The following saw Friend manage the same. In 2001, the romantic comedy My Sassy Girl outsold The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter which ran at the same time. Park Chan-wook, the director of Joint Security Area, has gone on to direct many popular films in Korea and abroad, and is best known for Oldboy. Kim Ki-Duk, another well-respected filmmaker who is noted for using minimal dialogue to create an emotional response from the audience, is known especially for 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. As of 2004, new films continue to break records, with many Korean productions achieving greater popularity than Hollywood films. Both Silmido and Taegukgi (The Brotherhood) were watched by over 10 million people, almost a quarter of the Korean population. Silmido is based on a true story about a secret special force, while Taegukgi is a blockbuster about the Korean War from the director of Shiri. The social satire and monster movie The Host (2006) broke Korean box office records and grossed $1.8 million in the United States.

This success attracted the attention of Hollywood. Films such as Shiri are now distributed in the United States. In 2001, Miramax bought the rights to an English-language remake of the successful Korean action comedy movie, My Wife is a Gangster.

Many Korean films also reflect the unique circumstances of the division and reunification of Korea.

In 2016, Train to Busan, directed by Yeon Sang-ho created a new sub division genre of zombie-like film in South Korea. Unlike many more western-made zombie films, Yeon uses an entirely Korean cast to establish and display a Korean-only film. Becoming a Korean zombie blockbuster film, modeled after Shiri(1999) , Train to Busan earned a worldwide grossing of US$93.1 million. The film reflects social and economic challenges in a developing South Korean society, creating a realistic perspective of the future.

In 2020, Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho, which depicts the economic inequality situation in the country, won four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film, becoming the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.