Japan's passive marketing activities from the outset based on Korea's psychological closure is also attributed to the phenomenon. "Spectator numbers have yet to skyrocket because Japanese performers lack in star power," said Cho Sung-gyu, representative of film importer firm Sponge. "Japan is aware of this, but they are not in a hurry to remedy it."

At a magazine stand in Japan, Korean actors like Bae Yong-jun and Won Bin grace the most magazine covers.

No "Japan complex" is found among those in their 20s, main consumers of mass culture. The most important yardstick accordingly is 'taste," and differences in taste are responsible for sluggish Japanese culture in the country, some specialists noted. Film critique Chun Chan-il said, "Korean films are exceptional and exciting in subject matters and embrace world universality. But Japanese films are much stronger in idiosyncrasy, which does not appeal to Korean viewers."

Records of such popular Japanese singers as L'arc-en-Ciel, Hikaru Utada and Glay (phonetic) sell more than a million sheets in Japan. In Korea, however, 15,000 sheets of their records are sold at the most. In their public performances here, too, many seats are empty. "We did not expect much in the Korean market from the beginning because of the vast differences in the record industry environments of the two countries," said Akira Tanaka, Sony Japan's deputy international marketing chief. The viewing rate of Japanese dramas aired on cable television runs around 1 percent, below that of Korean dramas running for a second or third time.

But Japan's reaction is changing slowly. The Japanese government, along with local autonomous bodies, poured over W7 billion into the 17th Tokyo Film Festival, which closed on Oct. 31, showing an ambition to take back the reputation of the "top Asian film festival" from the Busan Film Festival.

(Pak Eun-ju, zeeny@chosun.com )