Check out this NYT piece discussing how trends in Korean film reveal certain South Korean attitudes towards both the North and the United States. Allow me to comment on some of it:
All goes swimmingly in the movie “Whistling Princess” until the Americans, dressed in black, arrive at a rock concert. As the princess kisses a hunky Seoul rocker, with a unification ballad reaching a crescendo, the Americans blow up the place with hand grenades and rocket launchers. “I thought I took a creative stance, changing the Americans from good guys to bad guys,” said Peter Lee, the filmmaker, in the office of his film company here. “Actually, I like the U.S. I visit the U.S. two times a year.”
Creative stance, indeed. Coming from people who protested the James Bond film Die Another Day because it dared to make the the bad guys North Koreans.
Such is the world of South Korean cinema, which has seemingly embraced the government’s Sunshine Policy, started in 2000 to extend an open hand to North Korea. No longer are North Koreans portrayed as devils; that role now belongs to the Americans.
Fine with me - if it gets USFK out of here quicker, more power to them.
“From those movies, we can sense that North Korea is no longer a competitor or enemy,” said Park Sae Na, a 23-year-old textbook researcher. “When we were young, we got a lot of anti-Communist education. However, we are turning toward reconciliation mood.”
In fact, for the last three years, South Koreans have seen a number of sympathetic films about the North: “Shiri,” a romance between a North Korean agent and a South Korean security agent; “Double Agent,” a love story about two North Korean moles in South Korea; “Spy,” about a hapless North Korean agent who falls in love with a South Korean art student; and “South Korean Man and North Korean Woman,” a comedy about a playboy who tries to seduce the daughter of high-ranking North Korean officer.
How cute. Wouldn’t want to let films about North Korean gulags and starving refugees fleeing to Manchuria spoil the mood of “peace” and “reconciliation,” now would we?
“I wanted to say North Koreans are the same human beings as South Koreans, we should see North Koreans as brothers,” said Park Chan Wook, the 43-year-old director of the movie [JSA], which has won virtually every South Korean film award. “I didn’t have any intention to make a movie which repeated those anti-Communist themes of my school years.”
While older South Koreans have denounced the movie as naive and unrealistic, the film has had an enormous impact on current attitudes. Last spring, during joint military maneuvers near the border, several American soldiers complained that their English-speaking South Korean liaison soldiers said they would not fire on their Northern “brothers.”
Personally, I liked JSA - found it well-acted, even if I kept expecting Song Gang-ho to suddenly break into a Paekseju ad and, as always, Lee Yeong-Ae (star of my all-time least favorite Korean flic Inch’Alla) was patently annoying. But yes, it was indicative of a disconnect discussed to by Tony over at Oriental Redneck, namely, it’s one thing to passionately desire reunification, but quite another to ignore the reality of what the North really is. Yes, the people of both North and South are “one race,” but in an increasingly globalized world, this means less and less, and what’s more, simply being of “one race” does NOT trump the very real differences between the rivals states (or “brothers,” if you will). Look, I’m sure the North Korean people are just as cute and lovable as Song Kang-ho - he of Paekseju fame - but they’re a cute and lovable group of people being starved to death by an arguably genocidal Stalinist dictatorship. German reunification carried with it meaning not because it led to Germans becoming one big happy family, but because it led to the liberation of 17 million East Germans. Likewise, any “reunification” on the Korean peninsula that does not lead to the liberation of North Korea’s 20 million inhabitants won’t be worth jack shit. And making cute ethnic feel-good movies that cut out such unpleasantries as the DPRK’s gulags, starving babies, or frightened refugees praying to God that Chinese police don’t catch and repatriate them does nothing at all to help either the cause of reunification or inter-Korean reconciliation.
As far as those complaints by American soldiers at the DMZ are concerned, I believe it was Joseph over at Infidelworld - a man with experience with these things - who pointed out that when things get ugly up along Freedom’s Frontier, it’s not the Yanks who lose their cool - it’s the South Koreans. Even in this era of Sunshine, when young South Koreans are getting shot at by their “brothers,” they have not hesitated to return the fraternal affection, to which a number of recent incidents testify.
Mr. Park’s next film is an account of No Gun Ri, a massacre in which American soldiers killed about 250 Korean refugees in July 1950, a few weeks after the Korean War broke out. According to a 2001 Pentagon report, the Americans, largely inexperienced soldiers transferred from occupation duty in Japan, fired on the civilians, believing that North Koreans soldiers had infiltrated the group.
Oh, this is rich. In the spirit of inter-Korean peace and reconciliation, may I suggest a joint North-South production? Maybe you could have American defector Charles Robert Jenkins (who has acted in a Nork propaganda film, from what I understand) machine-gunning white-clad Korean civilians / patriots while screaming “Die! Die! Die!” Dare I recommend Edward Daily as technical advisor? Jesus, what’s your point, Park? You’re obviously not looking for “truth” - you’ve already proven you’re willing to overlook certain “truths” when they prove too unpleasant. If you wanted to help the cause of justice, I can think of a ton of similar incidents - Cheju Island, the Yosu-Sunch’on incident, Ko’chang, Mungyeong, just for starters - that cry out for your concern. But I guess that would be impossible - opening up old wounds isn’t what your after. Ethnic / anti-American naval-gazing, however, is.
Meanwhile, Shin Sang Ok, a renowned director of the Korean War generation, said he has had no luck finding financing for his project, a dramatization of fighting in North Korea near Heungnam Port that allowed for the evacuation of 100,000 refugees and 105,000 troops to safety in the South. About 5,000 American and South Korean troops were killed.
Wouldn’t want to allow Shin to make a movie that slaps youngsters upside the head with a heavy dose of reality. Granted, if this is a Korean historical film, it’s gotta have its fair share of bullshit, and just because his film can’t find backers doesn’t mean it’s because of its anti-North Korean theme. Perhaps the script just sucks. Who knows, but Shin deserves credit for having the balls to chose a topic that flies in the face of the Seoulywood intraracial love-fest going on right now. Heck, if you’re going to bring up 50 years old incidents, Heungnam seems as good as Nogun-ri.
Unlike the younger filmmakers, Mr. Shin knows North Korea. In the late 1970’s, he and his wife, Choi Un Hui, say they were kidnapped in Hong Kong on the orders of Kim Jong Il. They had to make movies for Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il. “In each movie, there has to be a minimum of three appearances of praise of Kim Il Sung,” said Mr. Shin, who made about a dozen movies in the North in the 1980’s. “There cannot be love themes in the film, because love is only with Kim Il Sung, not between a man and a woman. Film is considered the ultimate political tool in the North, because behavior and consciousness can be moved by film.”
Mr. Shin was jailed three times for trying to flee, before he and he wife finally succeeded in escaping in 1986. “I want to make the `Schindler’s List’ of North Korea,” Mr. Shin said. “People there are suffering like the Jews in Auschwitz. The entire country is a gulag. I want to make a hit with such a movie feature. Then the world will know that North Korea is a land without human rights.”
God, I’d love to see a Korean director make a hit Korean film on the horrors suffered by North Koreans. However, I’m not sure if such a film will ever be produced before unification. For a good number of people - including many of the political elite - the political and economic strangulation of the North Koreans masses by their own government is a taboo topic. In part, I understand why this is - it’s a most unpleasant reality to deal with, especially when you take into account the blood ties, and to be perfectly frank, that reality is doubly painful when you consider that there’s not a great deal the South Koreans can do to alleviate their suffering (short of invading) except to sit back and watch. But to be honest, if that reality is too painful for South Korean movie directors to present, I’d rather see them avoid discussion of the North all together than present an image of it that is misleadingly one-sided.
UPDATE: Apparently, Conrad of the Gweilo Diaries finds this trend distasteful as well.
5 Comments
A Few Comments in Defense of the Sunshine Policy (I don’t have time to write a politcal treatise):
In face of political realities, it seems extremely unlikely that the “liberation” of the North Korean people will take place any time soon…
Yet, why is this so??? The Cold War ended over a decade ago, and most of the nations in Eastern Europe and around the world have already been freed from Communist oppression. The status quo in Korea has been maintained long enough!!
There is still a viable solution to this fifty year standstill: through economic engagement and normalized political relations, North Korea can be enticed to reform and open up their isolated, communist system, without need for regime change. In fact, China has already progressed quite far down this road, without need for any sort of concrete “liberation”. In response to many possible arguments to this plan, I have this to say: The Cold War ended over a decade ago and with it, any possible logical argument against such a policy have become obsolete. If you any objections, e-mail me at Parkjay@aol.com.
With a policy of engagement, the US and the international community have nothing to lose, and there is a good possibility of success, which would result in the fostering of peace and stability in the NE Asia region. Along the same lines, the North Koreans, faced with an opening up of economic sanctions and a long awaited normalization of political relations will also have nothing to lose…. after fifty years of stormy weather over the Korean peninsula, the sun will shine at last…..
If you have any comments, e-mail me at parkjay@aol.com
You know, all this drivel that some elements of the South Korean political spectrum puts out concerning whether North Korea or the U.S. is the main impetiment to reunification - I say the U.S. should unilaterally take an action that would solve the problem once and for all.
We leave South Korea.
We also do not come back, whether the result is positive or negative, and without regard to who may hold these points of view.
So, if the whole peninsula experiences the same level of success in the near future, as South Korea currently enjoys - then good for them.
If the whole peninsula ends up eating grass and doubling the size of their female cheerleading corps - well good for them on that account too.
Then the main value that this element of Korea values - “unification uber alles” will be accomplished, and the U.S. shall play no part in whatever becomes of Korea.
I think we can find better uses for the military assets that we constantly devote to South Korea. If the South Koreans have not learned by now what it is that helps them be so successful, then we should devote that effort somewhere else. Frankly, it wont effect my personal life whatever the South Koreans do, or how miserable their lives inevitably become if they succumb to North Korea.
For make no mistake - all of Korea will become much more like the North if everyone voluntarily reunifies. The North will not voluntarily reunify unless the resulting political system is Stalinist. And if the South Koreans are too stupid to see this, then let them be educated.
We have 50 years invested in these people. If this is as far as they have come, lets pull the plug.
Great post!
Koreans stupefy me with their unskeptical belief in what they see on the big screen. I had Koreans tell me that the CIA killed Kennedy. When I asked how they knew that they replied they saw it in Stone’s movie “JFK”, as if that wasn’t transparently Oliver’s wet dream that he wouldn’t have served in Nam if Kennedy hadn’t of been offed (disregarding Jack’s well-documented buildup in said country). But I digress…
Unfortunately, although I’d like to see the U.S. pull out of Korea entirely, it’d send the wrong signal to China and Japan. Japan would go nuclear in seconds and China would see an opportunity to make Korea a tributary like in the old days. I think removing 2ID and 8th Army from artillery range, to somewhere like Pusan or Changwon, and able to quickly move to regional hotspots, would send all the right signals:
- To China: Ha, ha, we’re still in your neighborhood and able to actually respond quicker to a crisis in Taiwan. Do you feel lucky, punk?
- To Japan: We’re still here, buddies, and able to move quicker than before. Don’t touch those plutonium stockpiles just yet.
- To South Korea: We’re no longer a trip wire. Deal with your own defense, you ungrateful freeloaders. Uri nara? I’ve got your uri nara.
- To North Korea: You can’t touch our troops after we bomb your nuke plants. Go ahead and shell your caring blood brothers to the south, though, if it makes you feel better.
Another Fisking of this article can be enjoyed at http://seeingeye.blogs.com/new.....sking.html