Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 7 No. 1, January 2003
Hye Seung Chung
One Culture, Two Cinematic Nations: Korean Cinema
_Contemporary Korean
Cinema: Identity, Culture, Politics_ Manchester and New York:
Manchester
University Press,
2000 ISBN:
0719060087 viii + 244 pp. Although South Korean
cinema has gained sporadic media attention in the
international film festival circuit since the late 1980s,
the scarcity of English-language scholarship and subtitled
films has discouraged non-Korean researchers from delving
into the subject, despite burgeoning interest in East Asian
culture in the West. It is therefore reassuring news that a
small number of English-speaking scholars residing in the
United States (David E. James, Kyung Hyun Kim, Nancy
Abelmann, Kathleen McHugh, and Frances Gateward) are in the
process of publishing pioneering anthologies on various
aspects of Korean cinema. Nevertheless, it can safely be
said that Hyangjin Lee's _Contemporary Korean Cinema:
Identity, Culture, Politics_, a slim volume deriving from
Great Britain, is the first English-language academic book
on Korean cinema published outside of Korea. Moreover, Lee's
contribution to the field is exceptional because it is the
first book in any language to comprehensively examine the
parallel histories of North and South Korean cinemas -- an
attempt that has not yet been completed even in Korea.
Despite its shortcomings, _Contemporary Korean Cinema_
deserves attention from students and scholars keen on
exploring the fascinating discourses surrounding the
ideologically divergent, yet culturally convergent cinemas
of the two Koreas. In her introduction,
Hyangjin Lee sets the premise of her book as a comparative
study of 17 North and South Korean films which explore
'socio-historical themes' specific to the concerns of a
divided nation (2). She points out that ideological
dissimilarities in films from the communist North and the
capitalist South are counterpoised by ethnic and cultural
homogeneity (the rhetoric of single nationhood and Confucian
familialism) permeating the fractured national cinemas (4).
Defining ideology -- specifically that rooted in gender,
class, and national identity -- as the conceptual framework
of her project, Lee also provides a succinct survey of
'theories of ideology' from Karl Marx and Louis Althusser to
Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault, as well as hermeneutic
configurations erected by Clifford Geertz and Roland
Barthes. Lamentably, one of the weaknesses of Lee's book is
that the author fails to connect these theories to the body
of her film analysis in either an organic or judicious
fashion. Although she name-drops Marx and Geertz later in
the volume, the theoretical discussion in the Introduction
seems to stand independently from the rest of the book,
which primarily focuses on the relation between film and
political history rather than theory. In the first chapter,
entitled 'The Creation of National Identity: A History of
Korean Cinema', Lee charts out a comprehensive overview of
Korean cinema from its embryonic stage during the Japanese
colonial period (1910-45) to the bifurcation of respective
national cinemas in the post-Liberation North and South. As
Lee argues, Korean film has constantly been subjected to
stringent state censorship (16), whether it was the colonial
government suppressing anti-colonial, nationalistic films,
the North Korean Workers' Party directly controlling all
aspects of production, distribution, and exhibition, or
South Korea's authoritarian, military regimes (1961-1993)
severely censoring politically subversive subjects. Lee
consigns some 160 Korean films made during the colonial
period to five categories: *Shinp'a* dramas (melodramas),
nationalistic resistance films, the KAPF (Korean Art
Proletarian Federation)-initiated 'tendency films', literary
films, and pro-Japanese propaganda films (24-5). Whereas
South Korean film historiography embraces the colonial
period as a germane component, the North Korean counterpart
severs its connection to the pre-socialist era in spite of
the fact that KAPF filmmakers contributed to the erection of
a 'socialist-realist tradition' during the early 1960s (29,
34). In North Korea, cinema has been a propagandistic tool
for educating the masses about Party policies and the
legitimacy of Kim Il Sung's absolute leadership. The North
Korean film industry fell into the bellwether supervision of
Kim Jong Il -- the son of Kim Il Sung and a renowned film
buff -- who was appointed as the director of film art in
1968, and authored _The Theory of Cinematic Art_ (the
'bible' for North Korean filmmakers) in 1973, before he
succeeded his late father in 1994 (31-2). Lee identifies two
critical moments of change in the North Korean film history:
the late 1960s to the 70s when the KAPF socialist realism
was replaced by 'Great Leader's literature' (anti-Japanese
revolutionary films), fostered by Kim Jong Il to establish
the cult of his anti-colonial father; and the 1980s, which
saw the emergence of the 'hidden hero' films glorifying
ordinary workers' contributions to the socialist society and
the popularization of historical films with less didactic
content (38-9). Despite political
oppression and censorship under successive anti-communist,
military governments, South Korean cinema has generated more
diverse generic, stylistic, and thematic expressions in the
logic of entertainment -- its commercial industry standing
in marked contrast to that of its propaganda-oriented,
nationalized northern counterpart. Since the mid-1960s, the
South Korean government has maintained a screen quota system
which requires exhibitors to play domestic films for a
certain number of days a year (gradually increasing from 90
to 146 days), thus regulating the import of foreign product.
Under the double-edged system of governmental protection and
censorship, South Korean cinema saw the emergence and
withering of the 'Golden Age' of the 1960s, the 'Dark Age'
of the 1970s, and the New Wave in the late 1980s to the 90s.
Lee's account paints a panoramic picture of South Korean
film policies, representative works, and generic tendencies
in the context of social and political history, while
omitting the auteuristic approach to major directors such as
Shin Sangok, Yu Hyonmok, Im Kwont'aek (Im Kwon Taek), Chang
Sonu (Jang Sunwoo), Pak Kwangsu, and Hong Sangsu, that many
in this field have grown accustomed to. In chapter two, 'Gender
and Cinematic Adaptations of _Ch'unhyangjon_', Lee compares
five films based on one of Korea's most beloved folk tales,
_Ch'unhyangjon_, out of more than a dozen versions produced
in both North and South Korea. Although Lee regretfully did
not (or perhaps *could not* because of unavailability of the
film at the time of writing) investigate Im Kwont'aek's most
recent adaptation, _Chunghyang_ (2000) (the first Korean
entry into the competition section of the Cannes Film
Festival and one of the few Korean films available in the
North American video/DVD market), her comparative analysis
of three South Korean and two North Korean adaptations
admirably illustrates how the shared cultural tradition is
variably registered by filmic versions from two radically
opposed ideological systems. _Ch'unghyangjon_ is an
archetypal Confucian tale which eulogizes an ideal feudal
womanhood, epitomized by the female protagonist Ch'unhyang,
an illegitimate daughter of a *yangban* (the ruling-class)
and a *kisaeng* (courtesan). The story celebrates an
inter-class romantic union between the virtuous heroine and
a man of the *yangban* class. Despite its setting in the
pre-modern, caste-dominated Choson Dynasty, _Ch'unghyangjon_
invites repeated modern interpretations due to its relevance
to contemporary gender and class problems. According to Lee,
all five films uphold the Confucian gender role between men
and women, which can rather expectedly be articulated as
male domination vs female subordination (90). Three South
Korean films -- the Golden Age auteur Shin Sangok's _Song
Ch'unghyang_ (1961), Pak T'aewon's _The Tale of Song
Ch'unhyang_ (1976), and Han Sanghun's _Song Ch'unhyang_
(1987) -- furthermore reflect the transmogrifying
contemporary sexual morality, respectively featuring
Ch'unghyang as a chaste, mature woman; a childlike teenager;
and an erotic sexual object (75-83). Whereas the South
Korean films concentrate on a love story between two
individuals, North Korean films -- Yu Wonjun and Yun
Ryonggyu's _The Tale of Ch'unhyang_ (1980) and _Love, Love,
My Love_ (1985), a musical version made by allegedly
abducted South Korean director Shin Sangok -- foreground the
class struggle between the abusive ruling-class and the
exploited masses (97). In the North Korean versions,
Ch'unghyang is a 'figure of dual nature as a respectable
wife and a representative worker' (99). While both South
Korean and North Korean Ch'unhyang films conform to the
patriarchal gender hierarchy, Lee notes, the latter examples
interject a socialist translation by stressing the heroine's
indomitable working-class spirit. The third chapter,
'Nationhood and the Cinematic Representation of History',
offers an intriguing yet incomplete interpretation of the
role of ideology in the nation-building of the two Koreas.
Lee argues that anti-imperialism and anti-communism
respectively serve as the undergirding ideologies
articulating nationhood in North Korean and South Korean
films (105-6, 118). While Lee convincingly analyzes _Ch'oe
Hakshin's Family_ (1966), _The Sea of Blood_ (1969), and
_Wolmi Island_(1982), three North Korean films which overtly
express anti-imperialistic sentiments against either U.S.
troops or Japanese colonizers to justify the communist cause
and Kim Il Sung's leadership, her reading of anti-communism
in South Korean films leaves much to be desired. As Lee
admits, her first example, the Golden Age classic Yu
Hyonmok's _A Stray Bullet_ (1960), does not address
anti-communism but speaks of the post-war chaos embodied in
the 'clash between traditional Korean culture and the
Western, or more precisely, US culture' (120). However, her
second example, Im Kwont'aek's critically-acclaimed _The
Banner Bearer without a Flag_ (1979), exudes direct
anti-communist messages by identifying the corruption and
brutality of communist agitators as the root of social
illness. Chong Chiyong's (Chung Jiyoung) celebrated
_Southern Guerrilla Forces_ (1990), Lee's last example,
problematizes the black-and-white ideology of anti-communism
through the humanistic story of fugitive communist
guerrillas rebelling in remote areas of the T'aebaek
Mountains during the immediate aftermath of the Korean War.
Lee contextualizes this ideological shift in the global
political scene of the late 1980s, which assuaged the
hostility between the two Koreas (130). She elaborates that
'the rejection of the hackneyed Cold War ideology [in
_Southern Guerrilla Forces_] testifies to the shifting
sensibility of the audience toward films dealing with the
South-North political confrontation and their demands for a
more mature discussion of nationhood in the 1990s'
(135). In this light, it is
ironic that the action blockbuster _Shiri_ (1999), filled to
the gills with conservative Cold War cliches, broke box
office records upon its release. _Shiri_'s unprecedented
commercial success was subsequently challenged by another
gargantuan hit, _JSA_ (2000), which depicts the oscillation
between friendship and tension among North and South Korean
soldiers patrolling the Joint Security Area. Lee's analysis
might have been richer and more complex by updating her film
selection to include more recent representations of the
North-South relation and adding an auteuristic perspective
to her textual examination. Im Kwont'aek and Chong Chiyong,
for example, come from completely different generational,
intellectual, and professional backgrounds. Having entered
the industry not long after the Korean War with little
formal education and no other ambition than making a living,
veteran director Im has maintained his prolific career with
minimal interference from censorship boards because of his
politically flexible work ethics and predilection for
cultural and familial subjects. Chong, on the other hand, is
a politically-conscious New Wave filmmaker armed with an
elite literary education who, along with Chang Sonu and Pak
Kwangsu, represents a generation who came of age during the
1980s *minjung* movement, an anti-authoritarian
democratization effort collectively waged by intellectuals
and workers. Like _Southern Guerrilla Forces_, Chong's 1992
anti-war epic _White Badge_ provides a counter-hegemonic
view of contemporary history by questioning the legitimacy
of participation in the Vietnam War. Lee's transparent
dichotomy of North Korean anti-imperialism and South Korean
anti-communism also fails to capture the dubious role of
U.S. soldiers in South Korean films. Although South Korean
films do not represent U.S. troops as outright evil
scallywags, like North Korean films do, many films --
including _Silver Stallion_ (1990), _Spring in My Hometown_
(1998), and _Address Unknown_ (2001) -- portray American
soldiers negatively as either womanizers, rapists, or even
killers, exerting anti-imperial sentiments in a similar,
albeit less explicit, way as those found in Lee's North
Korean example, _Ch'oe Hakshin's Family_. Perhaps the author
might have expanded her ideological interpretation by
revisiting and substantiating her theoretical summation from
the Introduction; for example, her quote taken from
Foucault: 'as soon as there is a power relation, there is a
possibility of resistance' (8). Despite oppressive military
regimes' anti-communist propaganda, resistant, dissenting
voices have always existed in South Korean cinema in the
works of iconoclastic directors, including Yu Hyonmok and Yi
Manhmi in the 1960s, Yi Changho and Ha Kiljong in the 1970s,
and a group of talented New Wave filmmakers from the late
1980s onward, whose films have criticized unequal
distribution of wealth, the exploitation of working-class
people, and American military intervention and cultural
imperialism. Hence, it is difficult, nearly impossible, to
determine the coordinates of a 'national identity' through
the prism of any one ideological perspective without risking
the exclusion of numerous oppositional voices that challenge
the official discourse. The last chapter, 'Class
and Cultural Identities in Contemporary Korea', abruptly
reformulates her earlier emphasis on ideological conflict as
the source of national division and split subjectivity, by
foregrounding class as not only a determining factor of
Korean cultural identity but also a 'major contributor to
the breakout of the Korean War' (144). According to Lee,
both North and South Korean societies are stratified into
distinct class groups: the core (or ruling), the unstable
(or basic), and the hostile (or complex) stratum in North
Korea; and the working, new middle, old middle, and capital
classes in South Korea (145-7). Lee perceptively identifies
education as a crucial determinant of class mobility in both
societies. As she notes, in both North and South Korean
films, 'intellectuals are assigned a privileged place in
society as a role model for the uneducated masses' (183).
Her class model is indeed useful in recounting the selected
South Korean films, Pak Chongwon's _Kuro Arirang_ (1989) and
Pak Kwangsu's _Black Republic_ (1990), 'realistic' social
problem dramas made by New Wave directors whose status as
intellectuals directly reflects that of their diegetic
protagonists who step out of the constricting boundaries of
their middle-class lives to represent and educate the
*minjung* (oppressed masses). Again, one might wish that the
book delved more deeply into recent class situations and the
role of intellectuals as represented in 1990s Korean cinema.
Two significant factors attributed to destablizing the
authority of middle-class (male) intellectuals since the
latter part of the 1990s: first, the collapse of communist
countries and the termination of the *minjung* movement and
military dictatorship which dissolved their political causes
for class struggle; and second, economic stagnation and the
dramatic 1997 foreign currency crisis (the IMF Crisis) which
generated massive layoffs and resulted in the unemployment
of white-collar workers, and considerable reduction of the
middle-class population. Accordingly, a number of South
Korean films produced since the mid-90s -- such as Chang
Sonu's _To You, From Me_ (1994) and _Lies_ (1999); and Hong
Sangsu's _The Day a Pig Fell into the Well_ (1996) and _The
Power of Kangwon Province_ (1998) -- depict emasculated,
frustrated intellectual males futilely attempting to escape
the boredom of daily life and circumvent the pressure to
achieve professional, monetary success through exploitative
and deceitful sexual relationships with underclass working
girls, married women, or underage temptresses. For educators and scholars
working in various disciplines -- whether film studies,
media studies, East Asian studies, or Korean studies --
_Contemporary Korean Cinema_ is undoubtedly a valuable
resource. Obviously, this book can best be used by those who
are specifically interested in socio-historical aspects of
both North and South Korean films rather than traditional
auteur, genre, and film theories. For seasoned film
scholars, the author's frequent Bazinian collusion of film
and reality, the lack of systematic theoretical treatment of
auteurs, genres, spectatorship, and post-colonial Third
Cinema discourse, and anemic aesthetic analyses of selected
films can be rather frustrating. However, as Lee specifies
in the Conclusion, the premise of her book is to illuminate
the potential of Korean cinema as a 'subject for
sociological research' (193) and the value of this study
lies primarily, if not exclusively, in this particular
purpose. University
of California, Los Angeles,
USA Copyright ©
Film-Philosophy 2003 Hye Seung Chung, 'One
Culture, Two Cinematic Nations: Korean Cinema',
_Film-Philosophy_, vol. 7 no. 1, January 2003
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol7-2003/n1chung>. Join the _Film-Philosophy_
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