Remasculinization of Korean Cinema , livre ebook

345

pages

English

Ebooks

2004

Écrit par
Kim Kyung Hyun Kim

Publié par
Duke University Press

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

345

pages

English

Ebooks

2004

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

08 mars 2004

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822385585

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

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 Korea's 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 auteurs-Park 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.

Voir

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

08 mars 2004

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822385585

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema

Asia-Paciﬁc

Editors: Rey Chow, H. D. Harootunian, and Masao Miyoshi

Kyung Hyun Kim

   

The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema

         

    

     

  

     

   

©  Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Typeset in Minion by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. Frontispiece:A Fine, Windy Day(Param purŏ choŭn nal), , directed by Yi Chang-ho

For my parents Byung Kon Kim and Yeon-sup Lee

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Hunting for the Whale

I Genres of Post-Trauma



 At the Edge of a Metropolis inA Fine, Windy Day andGreen Fish

 Nowhere to Run: Disenfranchised Men on the Road inThe Man with Three Coﬃns,Sopyonje, andOut to the World

 ‘‘Is This How the War Is Remembered?’’: Violent Sex and the Korean War inSilver Stallion,Spring in My Hometown, andThe Taebaek Mountains

 Post-Trauma and Historical Remembrance in A Single SparkandA Petal

II New Korean Cinema Auteurs

 Male Crisis in the Early Films of Park Kwang-su

 Jang Sun-woo’s Three ‘‘F’’ Words: Familism, Fetishism, and Fascism 





 Too Early/Too Late: Temporality and Repetition in Hong Sang-su’s Films 

III Fin-de-siècle Anxieties

 Lethal Work: Domestic Space and Gender Troubles in Happy EndandThe Housemaid

 ‘‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’’: Transgressive Agents, National Security, and Blockbuster Aesthetics in ShiriandJoint Security Area

Notes  Select Filmography of Major Directors of the New Korean Cinema  Index 

Acknowledgments

The book was ﬁrst conceived during the mid-s—at a time when various South Korean newspaper and magazine articles reported that its unhealthy na-tional ﬁlm industry might virtually be eliminated in a few years. Such predic-tions have proven to be capricious. On the contrary, Korean cinema in the early decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century holds one of the most impressive box-oﬃce records among the active national ﬁlm industries. In an exhibition environment replete with modern multiplex theaters where Hollywood ﬁlms are known to have beaten every competitor, Korean cinema remains an anomaly. Its local products draw a large number of spectators—much larger than the days when quotas on import ﬁlms were more restrictive and ﬁlms relied on one-screen re-lease. Korean cinema reached a historical climax in  when it held all of the top ﬁve records in the annual box oﬃce. It was the ﬁrst proﬁtable year in decades for the entire industry, before production costs again rapidly exceeded the in-come revenue in . The buying, selling, bankrupting, and rumored merging between two distribution giants (Cinema Service andEntertainment) have made up the bulk of headlines in trade magazines since then. The ﬁrst two years of the new millennium (–) should be remembered for the rising popularity of crass comedy ﬁlms and the waning of the New Korean Cinema. Films likeKick the Moon(Silla ŭi tal pam),My Wife Is a Gang-ster(Chop’ok manura),Hi Dharma(Talma ya nolja), andMarrying the Maﬁa (Kamun ŭi yŏnggwang) topped the box-oﬃce chart for months and strongly reminded the Korean ﬁlm industry of a tactless tagline, ‘‘the box oﬃce is never

Voir