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Lawbreaking Films in Park Chung-hee Era

Youngjae Yi 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

One of the changes that Korean films confronted in late 1960s and 1970s is the division of audience by generation, region, gender, and class. At this time, Hong Kong martial arts/fight movies and gangster movies that were so called ‘chivalrous genre’ were the two main axis of action films in Korea 70s. Especially, the ‘chivalrous genre’ is the most local application toward the trend ‘action and sex.’ of transnational contemporary films. What became the wide-ranging narrative foundation of ‘chivalrous genre’ was the story of Kim Duhan, a real life person who turned into a gang, white terrorist, and politician. This political gang’s story recreated the modern Korean history from the colonial era to the Korean war at the dimension of a personal history. It clearly emphasized South Korea’s two enemies, Japan and the Communist and won victory from the two, showing the typical example of masculinity that South Korea wanted. Chivalrous genre can also be directly correlated to the late Third Republic and the Yushin reform system after 1972. These films found out how to display violence safety here, where law appears everywhere in the most arbitrary way in the name of emergency measure. This was made possible by having lawbreakers as the main characters, who are already tied up by law and are already intertwined with the law as they violate the law.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.