Conundrums of Flashback- Korean Horror Films and Representation of Colonial Past -
DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2011..26.009
Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
Research Area : Interdisciplinary Research
-
This paper examines questions of colonialism in two South Korean horror films: <Public Cemetery under the Moon> (Kwon Chulhui, 1967) and <Epitaph> (The Chung Brothers, 2007). As for <Public Cemetery,> I interrogate the peculiar transformation of the character of prologue from hideous beast-man to dandy pyonsa narrator and its political implications. What is at stake here, I claim, is distinct historicist gambit, according to which the colonial legacy, defined in terms of popular culture, can be overcome and marginalized. Valorized as a new horror in Korean film scene, an omnibus horror film <Epitaph> features three related stories set in a modern hospital against the backdrop of the late colonial period. I focus on the episode of the male protagonist and illustrate how his episode addresses and articulates the larger themes of memory and amnesia, while showcasing his yearning for passive perversion. The inquiry includes notions of violence, suffering, and the “return,” all of which are often central to the spectral universe of horror genre. I approach the film as a key text that addresses and problematizes the thorny problems of colonialism through generic imagination of horror. In particular, I bring attention to the implications of the inter-ethnic romance and reconciliation, the two themes for which the film’s presentation of spectral terror is structured with significance.
-
[other] 김기영 / 1961 / 현해탄은 알고 있다 / 한국문예영화사
[other] 권철휘 / 1967 / 월하의 공동묘지 / 제일영화사
[other] 김현석 / 2002 / YMCA 야구단 / 명필름
[other] 김지운 / 2003 / 장화, 홍련 / 마술피리
[other] 김용균 / 2005 / 분홍신 / 청년필름
[other] 윤종찬 / 2005 / 청연 / 코리아픽쳐스
[other] 정범식 / 2007 / 기담 / 영화사 도로시
[other] 정용기 / 2007 / 원스 어폰 어 타임 / 윈엔터테인먼트
[other] 정지우 / 2008 / 모던 보이 / KnJ엔터테인먼트
[other] 하기호 / 2008 / 라듸오 데이즈 / 싸이더스FNH
[other] 박대민 / 2009 / 그림자 살인 / CJ 엔터테인먼트
[book] 김소영 / 2000 / 근대성의 유령들 : 판타스틱 한국영화 / 씨앗을 뿌리는 사람
[book] 백문임 / 2008 / 월하의 여곡성:여귀로 읽는 한국공포 영화사 / 책세상
[book] Bliss Cua Lim / 2009 / Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic, and Temporal Critique, Durham and London / Duke University Press
[book] Timothy Corrigan / 1991 / A Cinema Without Walls: Movies and Culture After Vietnam / Rutgers University Press
-
188 Viewed
Print this page
Download PDF