The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema (Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society)

Annotation In one of the first English-language studies of Korean cinema to date, Kyung Hyun Kim shows how the New Korean Cinema of the past quarter century has used the trope of masculinity to mirror the profound sociopolitical changes in the country. Since 1980, South Korea has transformed from an insular, authoritarian culture into a democratic and cosmopolitan society. The transition has fueled anxiety about male identity, and amid this tension, empowerment has been imagined as remasculinization. Kim argues that the brutality and violence ubiquitous in many Korean films is symptomatic of Koreas on-going quest for modernity and a post-authoritarian identity. Kim offers in-depth examinations of more than a dozen of the most representative films produced in Korea since 1980. In the process, he draws on the theories of Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, Gilles Deleuze, Rey Chow, and Kaja Silverman to follow the historical trajectory of screen representations of Korean men from self-loathing beings who desire to be controlled to subjects who are not only self-sufficient but also capable of destroying others. He discusses a range of movies from art-house films including To the Starry Island (1993) and The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996) to higher-grossing, popular films like Whale Hunting (1984) and Shiri (1999). He considers the work of several Korean auteursPark Kwang-su, Jang Sun-woo, and Hong Sang-su. Kim argues that Korean cinema must begin to imagine gender relations that defy the contradictions of sexual repression in order to move beyond such binary struggles as those between the traditional and the modern, or the traumatic and the post-traumatic. In one of the first English-language studies of Korean cinema to date, Kyung Hyun Kim shows how the New Korean Cinema of the past quarter century has used the trope of masculinity to mirror the profound sociopolitical changes underway in the country. Since 1980, South Korea has transformed from an insular, authoritarian culture into a democratic and cosmopolitan society. The transition has fueled anxiety about male identity, and amid this tension, empowerment has been imagined as remasculinization. Kim argues that the brutality and violence ubiquitous in many Korean films is symptomatic of Korea's ongoing quest for modernity and a post-authoritarian identity. Kim offers in-depth examinations of more than twenty-five of the most representative films produced in Korea since 1980. In the process, he draws on the theories of Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, Gilles Deleuze, Rey Chow, and Kaja Silverman to follow the historical trajectory of screen representations of Korean men from masochistic, self-loathing beings to subjects who are not only self-sufficient but also capable of destroying others. Discussing a range of movies from art-house films including The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996) to higher-grossing, popular films like Shiri (1999), Kim argues that Korean cinema must begin to imagine a manhood that moves beyond such binary struggles as those between the traditional and the modern, or the traumatic and the post-traumatic. I. Genres Of Post-trauma ; 1. At The Edge Of A Metropolis In A Fine, Windy Day And Green Fish ; 2. Nowhere To Run: Disenfranchised Men On The Road In The Man With Three Coffins, Sopyonje, And Out To The World ; 3. Is This How The War Is Remembered?: Violent Sex And Korean War In Silver Stallion, Spring In My Hometown, And The Taebaek Mountains ; 4. Post-trauma And Historical Remembrance In A Single Spark And A Petal -- Ii. New Korean Cinema Auteurs ; 5. Male Crisis In The Early Films Of Park Kwang-su ; 6. Jang Sun-woo's Three F Words: Familism, Fetishism, And Fascism ; 7. Too Early/too Late: Temporality And Repetition In Hong Sang-su's Films -- Iii. Fin-de-siècle Anxieties ; 8. Lethal Work: Domestic Space And Gender Troubles In Happy End And The Housemaid ; 9. Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves: Transgressive Agents, National Security, And Blockbuster Aesthetics In Shiri And Joint Security Area. Kyung Hyun Kim. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [277]-312) And Index. Filmography: P. [313]-319. Kyung Hyun Kim argues that the trope of masculinity has been used in Korean cinema to mirror the socio-political changes that have affected the country over the past 25 years. As anxiety about male identity has grown so empowerment has been imagined as remasculinization Argues that although the last two decades of Korean history were a period of progress in political democratization, the country refused to part from a "masculine point of view" which is also mirrored in Korean cinema.