This is the first in a four-part series featuring IBK’s support for cultural content. ― Ed

When director Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” was released worldwide in 1992, the blockbuster about genetically-engineered dinosaurs going rampant in a pilot theme park was a wake-up call for South Korea’s economy.

The movie, which was based on Michael Crichton’s bestselling science fiction novel of the same title, earned some $850 million at the global box office that year. This was equivalent to Hyundai Motor exporting some 1.5 million cars. But the Korean auto giant only shipped 640,000 cars overseas at the time.
 

Realizing the importance of not only making movies but also other cultural content a vital part of the country’s economic growth, Korea began setting up various policies to support the creative industry ― which had many talents but lacked financial resources to carry out lucrative projects.

The government called on financial players including banks and venture capital funds to closely collaborate with the content sector.

The Industrial Bank of Korea, a bank tailored to small and medium enterprises, has been in the forefront in helping the Korean content sector to become a value-added service industry.

It has established ties with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and continuously provided support through lending, investment and consulting to ensure the success of Korean content such as movies, dramas and animation at home and abroad.

The bank said that it planned to provide financial assistance worth some 750 billion won ($674 million), or 250 billion won a year, from 2014 to 2016.

Its move has so far paid off as recently seen from a string of box office hits produced with IBK’s financial support.

“Miss Granny,” a fantasy comedy movie; “Kundo,” a period-action film; and “Roaring Currents,” a movie about the legendary Joseon Admiral Yi Sun-sin battling the Japanese in the Myeongnyang Strait, have all become box office hits.

IBK also saw success with the TV animation series “Robocar Poli,” a character cartoon about transformative rescue robots.

“Banks need to play a very important role in order to boost and make the Korean cultural industry a part of the country’s core growth sectors,” said IBK officials.

“We have been developing various financial products such as intellectual property funds customized to the culture industry.”

The products are customized to support various stages of filmmaking such as planning, marketing and post-production.

Industry sources said that content such as movies and animation, which are considered collaborative art forms, are very similar to the start-up industry as they both need people with diverse backgrounds to “work together and create something from nothing through an ecosystem.”

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)