‘Korea needs to encourage vertically integrated media conglomerates. . . . While there is a concern for the projected monopoly of information, in order to cope with the large-scale TNCs, we need media conglomerates to match their size and resources’ (Kim, 1996).7 In this regard, sprawling family-owned, big business groups in Korea, or chaebol, such as Samsung, Hyundai and Daewoo, to name a few, expanded into the media sector to include production, import, distribution and exhibition. In the process, the conventional Korean developmental regimen of an export-oriented econ- omy continued, as evidenced by a remark made by a senior manager of the Daewoo group’s film division: ‘It is our duty and responsibility to export Korean films overseas’ (Groves, 1997). In the context of the public’s rising interest in ‘our culture’ provoked by Sopyonje, and the improved film- viewing environment enabled by chaebol investment, including expanding