In case you haven’t read it yet, check out the Chosun’s piece on the way in which Korean writers have dealt with the issue of U.S. troops in Korea. Here’s the intro:
That a foreign army should be treated unkindly when it appears in novels and poetry is something that isn’t exactly news even to those in nationalist literary circles. This situation was much the same as anywhere in the world in the 20th century. Putting aside the way in which the Soviet Red Army was depicted in North Korean literature, the multi-faceted way in which U.S. troops are seen here in the South — as an allied army, a foreign army stationed on Korean soil and an army of occupation — has been a very important literary subject.
Firstly, USFK itself is often depicted as an “Axis of Evil,” but it has also been depicted as providing for the people who lived outside the bases and the “foreigners’ whores” (Korean: yang-gongju) a place to carry on their rough, daily lives.
Read the rest on your own. The pic, BTW, is from Kim Gi-deok’s film “Address Unknown” (Korean: Suchwiin bulmyeong). I’m actually a big fan of Kim Gi-deok, despite having felt physically uncomfortable watching every film of his I’ve seen. “Address Unknown,” however, is a one I haven’t seen. I’ve heard a lot of negative things about it (namely, it’s tough to make a movie involving American GIs in Korea if you’ve never actually met one), but then again, I’ve heard a lot of negative things about all of Kim Gi-deok’s films, including the ones I really enjoyed. Probably behooves me to rent the thing.
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I wonder which Russians will play the Americans?