The horror genre has often been theorized as a cultural form that dramatizes unsettled but repressed social dilemmas. With respect to the legacy of colonialism, the genre shares with melodrama a recurring structure of return through which past suffering and trauma are confronted. Utilizing the convention of “the unexpected arrival,” such films furthermore delineate the problematic relationship between colonial rule and postcolonial reckonings. I here analyze two films that, although separated by several decades, both feature key dimensions of the theme of return that forms an important conceptual component of the postcolonial historical imagination. The 1966 melodrama Yeraishang is an obscure “fallen woman” film set against the backdrop of the April Revolution of 1960 and its aftermath.1 The film’s reference to that historic event compels us to pay close attention to the implications of the revolution for the project of decolonization. The 2007 horror film Epitaph belongs to a group of recent South Korean films that focus on Koreans’ experience of colonial modernity and urban life through the prism of horror. The film is unique for configuring excessive violence and spectral haunting behind the veneer of the rational order of modern medicine. Through its use of the signs of terror, Epitaph presents a complex portrayal of colonial subjectivity rare in the South Korean film tradition.2
{"title":"Horror and Revenge: Return of the Repressed Colonial Violence","authors":"","doi":"10.1525/luminos.51.f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.51.f","url":null,"abstract":"The horror genre has often been theorized as a cultural form that dramatizes unsettled but repressed social dilemmas. With respect to the legacy of colonialism, the genre shares with melodrama a recurring structure of return through which past suffering and trauma are confronted. Utilizing the convention of “the unexpected arrival,” such films furthermore delineate the problematic relationship between colonial rule and postcolonial reckonings. I here analyze two films that, although separated by several decades, both feature key dimensions of the theme of return that forms an important conceptual component of the postcolonial historical imagination. The 1966 melodrama Yeraishang is an obscure “fallen woman” film set against the backdrop of the April Revolution of 1960 and its aftermath.1 The film’s reference to that historic event compels us to pay close attention to the implications of the revolution for the project of decolonization. The 2007 horror film Epitaph belongs to a group of recent South Korean films that focus on Koreans’ experience of colonial modernity and urban life through the prism of horror. The film is unique for configuring excessive violence and spectral haunting behind the veneer of the rational order of modern medicine. Through its use of the signs of terror, Epitaph presents a complex portrayal of colonial subjectivity rare in the South Korean film tradition.2","PeriodicalId":265212,"journal":{"name":"Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114375809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In the Colonial Zone of Contact: Kisaeng and Gangster Films","authors":"","doi":"10.1525/luminos.51.e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.51.e","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":265212,"journal":{"name":"Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116463599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 galvanized on an unprecedented scale a new fervor for a uniquely national culture in Korea. In the social euphoria of liberation, intellectuals and cultural critics advocated the need to overcome Japanese domination in the broadest sense. Yet the effort to forge a new national culture soon faced a complex set of challenges deriving from the political confusion of the time and factional rivalries, as well as the pressure of the new occupying force. The US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) that replaced the former colonial regime introduced new measures of control and regulation over cultural activities to block the spread of leftist ideologies subversive to its political objectives in Korea.1 Often, USAMGIK reemployed the agents and mechanisms of the former colonial regime to oversee social activity and cultural production in Korea, provoking the ire and discontent of Koreans. Film production, distribution, and exhibition, in particular, faced stringent constraints from the neocolonial authority.2 Film production, which had been hampered by the vicissitudes of Japanese wartime mobilization, was in need of the material and institutional support of the occupation force.3 Concurrently, the new authority imposed strict censorship over film content to inhibit anything deemed subversive to its domination in Korea.4 In fact, the lack of resources for commercial filmmaking, such as shortages of production funds, raw film stock, production equipment, and postproduction facilities, delayed the resumption of full film production in the immediate liberation period.5 Film distribution and exhibition sectors also faced challenges of their own under the control of USAMGIK. The formative years of liberation under the US occupation (from 1945 to 1948) hence were marked by new tensions. How to narrate the colonial experience 1
{"title":"Under the Banner of Nationalism: The Changing Imagery of Anticolonial Leadership","authors":"","doi":"10.1525/luminos.51.b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.51.b","url":null,"abstract":"Liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 galvanized on an unprecedented scale a new fervor for a uniquely national culture in Korea. In the social euphoria of liberation, intellectuals and cultural critics advocated the need to overcome Japanese domination in the broadest sense. Yet the effort to forge a new national culture soon faced a complex set of challenges deriving from the political confusion of the time and factional rivalries, as well as the pressure of the new occupying force. The US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) that replaced the former colonial regime introduced new measures of control and regulation over cultural activities to block the spread of leftist ideologies subversive to its political objectives in Korea.1 Often, USAMGIK reemployed the agents and mechanisms of the former colonial regime to oversee social activity and cultural production in Korea, provoking the ire and discontent of Koreans. Film production, distribution, and exhibition, in particular, faced stringent constraints from the neocolonial authority.2 Film production, which had been hampered by the vicissitudes of Japanese wartime mobilization, was in need of the material and institutional support of the occupation force.3 Concurrently, the new authority imposed strict censorship over film content to inhibit anything deemed subversive to its domination in Korea.4 In fact, the lack of resources for commercial filmmaking, such as shortages of production funds, raw film stock, production equipment, and postproduction facilities, delayed the resumption of full film production in the immediate liberation period.5 Film distribution and exhibition sectors also faced challenges of their own under the control of USAMGIK. The formative years of liberation under the US occupation (from 1945 to 1948) hence were marked by new tensions. How to narrate the colonial experience 1","PeriodicalId":265212,"journal":{"name":"Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126207327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Manchurian action film cycle emerged in the mid-1960s, revisiting and refashioning Korea’s colonial history. The cycle began with Im Kwon-taek’s Farewell to Tumen River (Tuman’ganga chal ikkŏra) in 1962, peaked from 1963 to 1965, and entered an eclipse in the early 1970s. Along with the 1970s action films that frequently feature Hong Kong as a romantic backdrop for masculine romance and action, Manchurian action films occupy a special place in the constellation of South Korean cinema.1 They highlight the physical actions of masculine heroes as the principal means by which to figuratively render the colonial past and manage the era’s unique social and historical dilemmas. These films typically present the stories of Korean resistance guerrillas and their heroic struggle against the powerful Japanese military force in Manchuria during the colonial period. Forced into exile, the nationalist warriors engage in guerrilla warfare and eventually defeat the Japanese army in local battles through espionage operations, uncommon valor, and exceptional prowess. The films project the militant struggle of anticolonialism into the multiethnic space of Manchuria and affirm the relevance of a combative anti-Japanese nationalism in the shifting sociocultural landscape of South Korea in the 1960s. The Manchurian action film, in other words, codifies and expands the cinematic vocabulary of nationalism anew by romanticizing and mythologizing the militant nationalist struggle of diaspora Koreans against the Japanese. While the dream of a unifying nationalism is the most obvious feature of the films’ narratives and characterizations, a closer analysis shows the ambivalence 3
{"title":"The Manchurian Action Film: A New Anticolonial Imaginary in the Cold War Context","authors":"","doi":"10.1525/luminos.51.d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.51.d","url":null,"abstract":"The Manchurian action film cycle emerged in the mid-1960s, revisiting and refashioning Korea’s colonial history. The cycle began with Im Kwon-taek’s Farewell to Tumen River (Tuman’ganga chal ikkŏra) in 1962, peaked from 1963 to 1965, and entered an eclipse in the early 1970s. Along with the 1970s action films that frequently feature Hong Kong as a romantic backdrop for masculine romance and action, Manchurian action films occupy a special place in the constellation of South Korean cinema.1 They highlight the physical actions of masculine heroes as the principal means by which to figuratively render the colonial past and manage the era’s unique social and historical dilemmas. These films typically present the stories of Korean resistance guerrillas and their heroic struggle against the powerful Japanese military force in Manchuria during the colonial period. Forced into exile, the nationalist warriors engage in guerrilla warfare and eventually defeat the Japanese army in local battles through espionage operations, uncommon valor, and exceptional prowess. The films project the militant struggle of anticolonialism into the multiethnic space of Manchuria and affirm the relevance of a combative anti-Japanese nationalism in the shifting sociocultural landscape of South Korea in the 1960s. The Manchurian action film, in other words, codifies and expands the cinematic vocabulary of nationalism anew by romanticizing and mythologizing the militant nationalist struggle of diaspora Koreans against the Japanese. While the dream of a unifying nationalism is the most obvious feature of the films’ narratives and characterizations, a closer analysis shows the ambivalence 3","PeriodicalId":265212,"journal":{"name":"Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124623768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The 1965 bilateral treaty that brought together South Korea and Japan as regional Cold War partners meant both new opportunities and new hindrances for the local film business and filmmaking in South Korea. Film policy, censorship practices, publicity campaigns, cultural discourses, and film production were newly focused on film exchanges with Japan. Yet entering into cultural dialogue with the former enemy proved to be far more complicated and emotionally fraught than anticipated. It brought up repressed issues of decolonization and highlighted the blind spots of nationalist cultural politics in postcolonial South Korea. As films of the 1960s presented new subjects, themes, and attitudes toward the colonial past, the legacies of colonial popular culture also came to the fore, reshaping the onscreen representation of the colonial period in the ensuing decades.
{"title":"Film and the Waesaek (“Japanese Color”) Controversies of the 1960s","authors":"","doi":"10.1525/luminos.51.c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.51.c","url":null,"abstract":"The 1965 bilateral treaty that brought together South Korea and Japan as regional Cold War partners meant both new opportunities and new hindrances for the local film business and filmmaking in South Korea. Film policy, censorship practices, publicity campaigns, cultural discourses, and film production were newly focused on film exchanges with Japan. Yet entering into cultural dialogue with the former enemy proved to be far more complicated and emotionally fraught than anticipated. It brought up repressed issues of decolonization and highlighted the blind spots of nationalist cultural politics in postcolonial South Korea. As films of the 1960s presented new subjects, themes, and attitudes toward the colonial past, the legacies of colonial popular culture also came to the fore, reshaping the onscreen representation of the colonial period in the ensuing decades.","PeriodicalId":265212,"journal":{"name":"Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134443509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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