Older Korean Movies

 spvz29:

Melomane -- Thank you.  I will look into this.  What I am finding is that there is a major effort to preserve Japanese classics, but no effort to preserve Korean films.  I wonder why.  I also wonder if they are preserved inside Korea.  I hope so.

KOFA

(that's actually a pretty good acquisition rate for the 80's on!)

They operate the VOD service and the youtube channel both mentioned before.  And I didn't realize until today that they have released some things on DVD.  The list is here; I do see some of them on yesasia too.  

I would think that many old Korean movies actually *are* out there and available in Korea and perhaps other Asian countries. The demand for older Korean movies is not as high as newer ones, though, for most non Korean fans, so most would likely not be subtitled or distributed outside of Asia. Plus, with titles that never made it to DVD, they would be almost impossible to find online anywhere, even Korea. This goes for any country. Have you ever tried finding old Taiwanese movies subbed and online? Unless they were made during the kung fu craze of the '60's and '70's, it is nigh impossible! 

The demand for older Japanese movies is much higher. There is a larger market even outside of Asia for them, so that is why you can find them much easier and many with subs. 

 CherryBunny:

The demand for older Japanese movies is much higher. There is a larger market even outside of Asia for them, so that is why you can find them much easier and many with subs. 

This is most likely that Japan was still an big at Japanese cinema to the international audience at the time before, mainly due to fact that Japan economy was still powerful until it went into recessions in 1989. Japan's newest films are now in terrible budget while Korea's newer film is much greater when it comes to budget.