The Marmot’s Hole

You may recall Eddie Murphy talking about Italian-Americans after they’ve just watched “Rocky.” Uri Party lawmaker Jung Chung-rae apparently had one of those moments after watching director Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host” (Korean title: “The Monster”). But rather than pick a fight with the nearest U.S. serviceman, Jung chose to exercise his heightened sense of national pride and historic grievance in a Sep. 8 column to OhMyNews entitled “We Must Look at the United States, the Real ‘Monster’ of This Land”. It’s definitely one for the scrap book. In a way, he seems to have taken North Korea expert Aiden Foster-Carter’s advice to concentrate on the real monsters on the Korean Peninsula. You want the money quote? In a piece like this, it’s hard to choose, but this one will probably do:

The United States, in the name of the over-50-year-long Korea-U.S. alliance, has profiteered politically, militarily and economically. The bones spit out by the film’s monster after it had eaten the victims were horrifying. Imagine the bones excavated from Nogun-ri and other places during documentary television programs on modern Korean history.

Using its superior strength, position and intelligence (i.e., information), the United States has trampled on the Korean Peninsula, monopolized it and devoured it. Despite this, people still praise the monster’s actions? Just like the monster in the film.

Keep in mind this is a serving ruling party lawmaker (not that his views, as expressed in the column, are necessarily representative of those of his party). You can read the rest below… if you have the stomach.

*Note: This wasn’t an easy translation, so if anyone wants to take issue with it, feel free to post suggestions below.

We Must Look at the United States, the Real ‘Monster’ of This Land
OhMyNews, Sep. 9, 2006

Not so long ago my wife and I went to a late-night cinema. It was the day when the film “The Host,” drawing over 13 million filmgoers, was setting a new all-time box office record. Perhaps because it was a late-night showing, or perhaps because everyone who wanted to see the film had already seen it, the CGV Theater in Sangam-dong was quiet. Moving around for good seats, I finally held my wife’s hand and lost ourselves in the film.

Screen Monopoly that Eats Films like a Monster

The mass media has been boisterously proclaiming the rise of Korean film with the success of “The King and Clown” earlier this year and “The Host.” The news last night said that last week, the top seven films at the box office were all Korean films.

This is something to celebrate. Both “The King and Clown” and “The Host” are A-grade films in their subjects and content, acting, investment and distribution. They are well-made, interesting and moving films. With the film world troubled by the reduction of the film quota, the films’ successes were fortunate.

But I oppose equating the success of those two films with a victory for “Korean film.” They say some 60 Korean films are released every year. Only a few succeed.

Yesterday, there was a public discussion in the National Assembly about “The Crisis in the Korean Wave and its Diagnosis.” Not all Korean Wave TV dramas are succeeding. We learned that certain popular “killer content” products like “Winter Sonata” and “Daejanggeum” built the Korean Wave brand and were driving the market. Other works were struggling.

Korean film is the same way. The number of Korean filmgoers is limited, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that films are playing a zero-sum game over that total.

A film that draws 13 million clearly has a right to be proud and praised. But we must pay attention to the fact that there are many films suffering beneath that success story. Not that I am trying to find fault with films attracting a lot of filmgoers, but I think we shouldn’t consider only those films that are blessed with investment, production and distribution as good films.

When a particular film monopolizes over 50 percent of screens and drags in all the filmgoers like a fishing net, another good film has no way to survive. Since investment, production and distribution capital is too concentrated in particular big companies, the ill effect is even greater. More than anything else, this monopolistic structure causes side effects and comes back to roost as films harming themselves.

The fact that films are frequently coming to ruin because they can’t make the theaters isn’t good for anyone. So some are quietly saying that we must re-adjust this screen monopolization, which eats up other films like a monster.

U.S. Tyranny, a Government that Distorts the Facts, and Citizens Who Don’t Care

Just like how the film “The Host” is flexing monster-like strength off screen, on the screen, the monster fully visited monster-like violence within a Korean reality. To start from the conclusion, the film’s monster stands for the monster that is the United States, which wields superhuman strength in Korea. The film begins with the birth of the monster that would turn the peaceful riverside of the Han River into a scene of carnage.

As represented by USFK’s illegal release of formaldehyde into the Han River, the tragedy on the Korean Peninsula began with the unclean sperm of the United States fertilizing the egg of the Han River. The monster’s outrages and its eating of people shows the similar tyranny displayed by the United States toward the Korean Peninsula.

The thing that snatched away in a second a peaceful Han River and a harmonious family was a mutant monster. Wasn’t the bloody struggle of Park Gang-du (played by Song Gang-ho) and his family, who tried to rescue from the monster the pure middle school student Hyeon-su, just like the struggle for the independence of the Korean Peninsula? The Korean government didn’t believe Park Gang-du’s screams that his daughter was still alive.

In fact, what does the attitude of the government, which covered up the facts and instilled fear along the Han River by making up a story about a non-existent bacterial infection, symbolize? Would it be too imaginative to say that in the end, the government’s request for U.S. intervention and the Molotov Cocktails of the Korean civic groups and young people fighting against it [the intervention] was a metaphor for the democratization struggle of the 1980s?

That “monster incident,” which continued to instill fear in the Korean Peninsula even after the monster was killed, was brought to a conclusion by a brief announcement by U.S. authorities. All the announcement said was that a monster had attacked the riverside of the Han River, and that there was never any bacteria. Yet the Korean Peninsula, nay Pak Gang-du who had lost his father and daughter, coolly turned off the TV upon hearing the news. He wasn’t interested. He was more absorbed in making a living with his new son (?).

People Who Praise the Monstrous Acts called America

No responsibility or fundamental countermeasures were given for the appearance of the monster, its causes or the damage that resulted. Perhaps director Bong Jun-ho wanted to indict the prevailing condition of closing our eyes to justice and truth. I was furious at the ending scene, which indicted the reality of the Korean Peninsula, which did not get furious at the monster.

The air of treason concerning the issue of the transfer of wartime operation command is extraordinary. Since we transferred military operational command on July 15, 1950 during the Korean War, our president has been unable to exercise his constitutional position and rights as commander in chief. Because of the issue of military command, the Republic of Korea has been an independent nation in appearance only for over 50 years.

The United States, too, says it will return operational command by 2009. But what do you know. Wasn’t it said the pro-Japanese collaborators during the colonial period were even more despicable than the Japanese themselves? These people hold demonstrations saying they will refuse to accept operational command, which the United States, too, said it would give back. What nationality are these guys, anyway?

The United States, in the name of the over-50-year-long Korea-U.S. alliance, has profiteered politically, militarily and economically. The bones spit out by the film’s monster after it had eaten the victims were horrifying. Imagine the bones excavated from Nogun-ri and other places during documentary television programs on modern Korean history.

Using its superior strength, position and intelligence (i.e., information), the United States has trampled on the Korean Peninsula, monopolized it and devoured it. Despite this, people still praise the monster’s actions? Just like the monster in the film.