Logo on fire

That’s right, as I am sure any enthusiast of the 12 colonies knows, The Hunger Games is getting a Hollywood makeover and coming out in March 2012.  Will it be great or will it dissapoint all the loyal fans?   It is hard to know, but equally hard not to be excited.  I am not thrilled by all the casting choices, I admit, but I am willing to give them a try.   

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen

 I think Jennifer Lawrence will probably be amazing.  She was great in Winter’s Bone, showing a steel to her acting needed to play Katniss.  The casting of Peeta and Gale, however, worries me.  They seem to be cast too much on their looks and  that might mean that this movie will swing to the Twilight side of adaptations. 

I will admit that the Twilight books were a guilty pleasure of mine, but when I saw the first movie, I really didn’t like it.   It was all pretty actor/models, standing around and mooning over each other. It didnt seem to capture the essence of the book, as it had played out in my head.   The people cast to play the very central roles in The Hunger Games need to be more than pretty faces.    (side note, for a great bit of satire relating to Edward’s relationship with Bella, watch Chad Vader, season 3 and keep an eye out for the vampire stockboy)

The Hunger Games does have some different, deeper  themes going on which should help, but so help me, if people stare at each other for minutes on end without dialogue, I will become very upset.

Lenny, soon to be Cinna

Another troubling casting choice is that of Lenny Kravitz as Cinna.   I am not sure about anyone else, but he is most certainly not the man I would have picked for this part.   He is too scruffy.  I personally picture Cinna as a smoother member of this very polished district of people.  Cinna by his very job description, is a part of an over-stylized culture, for all that he doesn’t buy into the extremes.    Although, to be fair, I have never seen Lenny Kravitz act.  I guess we have no choice but to wait and see.

I think Donald Sutherland will be brilliant as President Snow.  He has the gravitas to pull it off.  Woody Harrelson as Haymitch is a bit iffy.  He sure knows how to play a mean drunk, but he is not quite what I pictured.  I hope he will roughen up appropriately.  Ceaser Flickerman should be great, played by the always interesting and entertaining Stanley Tucci.

Own the trilogy. Go on, Buy It!

I am definitely reading the books again, before the movies come out.  And this time, I will know which parts to avoid reading in public for fear of –spoiler alert—the tears that will inevitably roll down my face.  If you havent read the books yet, do it!  You wont regret it. 

 As I am sure I am not the only one on the edge of my seat, waiting for this movie to be released and snapping up every little bit of news as it becomes available, join me in the countdown, at this, one of the many movie fansites.

About 900% of this movie took place in this forest...

Let me get this out of the way: I don’t want to write a movie review on this, so I won’t.  This won’t be a review in the strict sense of the word.  I am not going to pick it apart, scene by scene, etc.  I am just going to state a few things.  I know I am late on this bandwagon–especially considering I went to a midnight showing of the movie last week–but I feel some things need to be talked about.

Since I am not in a tryptopha-induced coma (and my originally planned shopping excursion has petered out), I figured now would be a good time to talk about it.  Sadly, this write-up doesn’t fulfill my normal Thursday writing schedule.  Anyway, on to the movie.

The short of it is, I really enjoyed this movie.  A lot.  There are completely intense moments in this movie, and it’s so very dark, especially when compared to the rest of the series.  It is a marked improvement from the last film in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Deathly Hallows is much more faithful to the source material–and it can be, since it’s split into two separate movies.

The long of it is…well…that exactly.  It’s LONG.  Though it doesn’t have the run time of some of the other movies in the series, it felt like it took forever.  I found, however, that the book tended to do the same thing.  I know that the scenes that take place while Harry, Ron and Hermione are on the run contribute to the story, they were–quite frankly–some of the the most boring in the movie.

That’s not to say that there isn’t any action.  There are plenty of action scenes interspersed throughout the film, but they seem to take forever to get to.  I blame it all on the forest scenes, of course.  I honestly think that the darkness–and I am talking literal darkness here, nothing to do with tone–also made it seem much longer than it actually was.  There was so little in the way of the day-night cycle, that it messed with my perception.

All-in-all I really enjoyed it.  I laughed, I cried (for those who have read the book, Dobby’s big scene is a KILLER!), I squirmed a little.  Most importantly, though, I had a great time with my sister (even if I did have to wake up to go to class a few hours after getting home).  I also got pretty excited for the next film which is due out next year.

Keeping with the theme I started with my first post and one on which I hope John, Shaka, and anyone else might join, I am listing more favorite things from my childhood. ( I swear my lists will leave nostalgia land soon.)  So here are some of the movies I watched over and over again as a child, and many of which I quote ad naseum to this day.

7. Puss N Boots

I watched a lot of the disney channel as a kid and they had this whole slew of fairy tale musical movies.  I remember most vividly the one for Sleeping Beauty and this one; Puss in Boots.  The songs still sometimes pop into my head.  And I mean, come on: Christopher Walken is the singing, dancing cat, himself!  I admit to buying this movie at Sam’s Club for 5 dollars, just to watch it again, when I got older.  Why does nostalgia have such power over us?  It definitely brought back the kid in me, anyway.

6.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

So as most of you know I am an incurable romantic.  And for some reason, I loved the April O’Neil and Casey Jones’ romance.  I also loved the tension between Donatello and Rapheal, that is such a typical form of sibling rivalry and disagreement.  I liked the calm ways of their mentor, and the scene with the baby turtles jumping up and down and shouting : “Radical, Radical, Radical!”  I even liked many of the very stupid jokes, often centering around pizza.  I saw this movie in the theater with my dad and my younger sisters, and I remember singing along the to rap song that plays during the credits as we left.

5. Neverending Story

This was a  movie I found deeply scary as a young child.The shutters banging as the kid reads the book in the attic of the school, Atreyu being stalked by the wolf, even the turtle.    I was thrilled despite and because of my fear.  I remember holding my breath as Atreyu passed through the sphinx like guardians. This was definitely a dark movie for a child, but I thought Atreyu was cute, and I loved the fantastical elements of the story. 

4.Labyrinth

Looking back on this movie, it is often hard to see beyond the costuming choices made for Jareth, the Goblin King (David Bowie).  But as a younger child, I never noticed what seems obvious now.  I was terrified, when the baby was kidnapped by the goblins, and fascinated as Jennifer Connoly walked through walls.  I loved seeing so many childhood images come to life, like the MC Escher maze, or the Where the Wild Things Are character.  I loved the knight and his dog and was a little creeped out by the sidekick/guide. This movie was original in plot and apperance and then, as now, I love almost anything to do with the muppets.  

3. Flight of Dragons

So I have come to learn that not nearly as many people watched this movie growing up as I thought.  Sad, as I believe it is the thing that started my dragon obsession as a young child.  Looking back on it, there are some parts of this movie that seem incredible hackneyed and corny as an adult, such as the line between science and fantasy.  Maybe it is just the way they are played out.  However, I loved the idea of dragons as a kind of housepet/roommate.  I liked the wizards and the  princess.  I liked the idea of the escape possible from this world and the way the new world was explained once Gorbash was inhabited by the main character, Peter, who then has to learn to be a dragon.  I liked the knight, Sir Orin and the female robin hood character, and who doesn’t like a fairytale ending, when they are small?  I love the animation style, done by the same people who did the Last Unicorn and who I have since learned moved on to Studio Ghibli.  Also, James Earl Jones voices the villain.  There is no topping that!

2. Last Unicorn

As any young girl, I was a sucker for a unicorn story, but this movie, based on Peter S. Beagle’s book (he also penned the screenplay), is more than just a story for kids.  There is a lot of deeper stuff going on.  It deals with the dissapoiontments of a life lived that is not what you expected, with respect for your equals, with seeing beyond the surface of things, of having to change yourself and work to achieve your dreams and your own happiness, and even that age old cliche “Having loved and lost is better than never to have loved at all.”  This movie easily has plenty to amuse a child, and it is animated, with plently of songs, but it can easily speak to an older audience and even reading the book does not diminish the movie.  True, they are slightly different, but having the author penn them both has allowed the movie to stay true to the original in atmoshphere and themes.  Me and my younger sisters literally killed this casette tape through repeated viewings.  Luckily, the dvd is much heartier.

1. Princess Bride

Ahh, classic.  I think Cary Elwes (Wesley)  may have been might first crush.  The fantastic characters (Inigo Montoya, Fezzik, Dread Pirate Roberts), the monsters (ROUS, the shrieking eels, the prince), the great one liners, the beautiful scenery and the beautiful love story all make this a movie I can watch over and over again.  I remeber my older sisters quoting  the ridiculous accent of the priest at the marriage all the time.  This movie is timeless.  I think only the part where the grandfather and the son show up in the narration, do you truly get a sense of when it was made. But it is a movie I recommend to everyone, if I am able to find anyone who hasn’t already seen it and loved it.

I read the first book mostly so I could get more in depth information on one character: Lisbeth Salandar.  She is a strikingly complex and yet simple creature.  Her world is black and white, good and evil.  Not surprisingly, she doesn’t deal well, or expectedly, with the grey.  As readers, we get insight into her thought processes which are often unclear in the movie, as she tries to navigate a world that doesn’t follow her rules.  This is not to say that the actor isn’t good (Noomi Rapace is awesome!), but to define her too much in the movie would destroy the image of her as an unexplainable character.  Also, part of the joy of the book is the alternating perspectives.  It  keeps the mystery alive and helps the reader to understand how Blomkvist  and the world percieve her, which direclty affects how they interact with her and she with them.  She does change a little over the first two books (I am still on the library’s waiting list for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest), and I love how cryptic and resourceful she is.  Hands down my new favorite heroine.

Just a warning to the uninitiated, you will also learn a lot about Swedish history, possibly geography (if you start to look up locations, as I did), and culture.  Also, Mr. Larsson has a habit of describing even some of the most obscure characters, but never in a way that drags and sometimes in a way that becomes important later.

Word of warning for the movies.  They are more of a summary than a blow by blow, but to be fair, these books are around 700 pages each.  Also, they do get a few details wrong and are explicit in both violence and sex, so be carfeul who you bring with you (the easily offended can stay home).  Despite this, they are great movies and I encourage you to go and discover them for yourself.  The third movie has already been released in Sweden and should be released in 3-6 months, if they follow the pattern of the first two movies.  Last note…No American remake!  Everything that makes these movies great is sure to be lost when American producers try to make it bigger and more sanitized all at the same time.  The charm is in the stark landscapes, the great acting, the quiet moments of isolation and the startling violence.

Read these books.  Fall in love with the surprising and predictable Lisbeth Salander, and then watch the movies, for the abbrieviated fun of seeing the book come to life.

Coverage begins over at our sister site. Click the Picture to Beam Over.

Like Detroit Rock City meets Spaceballs

Ernie Cline just sold his novel, Ready Player One, to Random House for a few hundred thousand dollars.  Cline’s claim to fame is the ultra-geeky 2008 comedy Fanboys, which found a preteen niche amid the overwhelming amount of Apatowean R-comedies that have dominated the comedic schoolyard for nearly a decade.  Now, Cline seems to have successfully made the transition from screenwriter to novelist, and the publishing-houses are swooning.  The premise of the book seems to be your basic YA “futuristic virtual game has real-life consequences” type plot, but fans of Fanboys are waiting to see what Cline does with the screenplay, which doesn’t seem to be far behind (movie rights are going up on Monday).

If this guy can sell his novel, so can you!

When I first saw the notice informing me of my lot, I said “Hell, this ain’t so bad… might even be fun!” What the fuck was I thinking?

The story opens up simply enough: douchebag TV anchorman reports that a “fireball” has been spotted in several locations all over the world, listing countries and last known sitings. Using what can only be described as… well, just plain movie bullshit, he predicts that this fireball should be over California any minute. And he’s right. How is that possible when in 2010 I can’t even get an accurate ETA on normal things – like an airline flight – or whether my Domino’s delivery (using their so-called pizza tracker) is actually en route or is it still in the oven? Madness.

Well the world’s most predictable UFO hovers in the Cali desert highway until our slightly inebriated and waaaay crazy heroine Nancy if forced off the road by it and sits in her car, screaming hysterically. Err, drive bitch! After a few minutes of inane shrieks, her brain turns on and she runs back to town for help. Later, it will dawn on me that the town is ridiculously far from where she abandoned her car, and there’s no way she could have moved so fast back to town.

Side note: Our girl Nancy is rich. I’m talking retarded money, son. She has a diamond the size of a pocket watch around her neck.

Nancy brings her crazy ass back, telling the sheriff what she saw and begging for her husband Harry who, busy plotting with his new lover named Honey on how to steal his wife’s money, does not want to be found. Because Nancy’s rich, the sheriff and his moron of a deputy – serving as comedy relief in a movie that is, well, a comedy – have to take her back out into the desert to find the UFO. Long story short, they don’t and Nancy goes home and is drugged to sleep by her hubby, but not before telling him that she thinks the alien was after the diamond she wears around her neck. Yes, our alien came to earth to steal chains. If he was smart, he should have waited till the late 80′s to hit up an Eric B. and Rakim concert.

Another side note: Either Nancy’s got a crazy nice rack, or I’ve had too many Coronas.

Taunted by our douchebag TV anchor, Nancy goes back out to the desert in search of her UFO, this time with Harry in tow. When they finally find the UFO after searching all day, Nancy inexplicably hops out of the car and charges at the craft screaming until what looks like a cross between a pedophile and Christopher Lloyd opens up, again reaching out for her diamond. While she crazily fires shots into the thing, Harry abandons her, running back to town to pack his belongings. The police stop him and hold him for questioning until word comes that Nancy’s turned up… passed out on the poolhouse. Wounded and unconscious, is in need of treatment. Harry, saved by a crappy alibi from his lover Honey hatches a new plan – to kill Nancy using an overdose of her medication. Harry sneaks into the room, only to discover his wife is now more than just a bitch… she’s a huge one.

The Sheriff and the butler… yes the butler, go tracking the giant footprints back to the ship, where they discover that the diamonds our UFO have been stealing are power sources for his ship. And here I thought he was just trying to get his swag up. I will admit though, there is a cool shot where their faces are distorted in the crystal globes. But that’s it. The rest of this movie sucks, emphasized by our alien’s crappy brawl with the men when they try and steal his ice.

The movie pushes towards its conclusion when giant Nancy wakes up (paper-mache made hands and all), screaming for her husband Harry, who again is nowhere to be found. She literally busts out of the house, with a doctor screaming “More morphine!” Hilarious.  Nancy goes to Tony’s Club, where she knows her husband is doing some serious womanizing.

Final side note: No, I'm not drunk. Nancy's rack is outta control. It's almost as crazy as she is.

Nancy pulls some classic jilted wife moves here – destroying public property and searching hotel rooms for Harry while he hides like a little bitch. She tears the roof off the club – literally – and kills Harry’s lover Honey with a support beam she holds like a damn Slim-Jim. Then she drags Harry out, trying to carry him off. Just when she was about to break him off a piece (or just break him), leave it to Sheriff cock block to come in shooting, blowing up the transformer in the electrical tower, killing both Nancy and Harry in the process.

Oh, and then everyone just walks away. Because stuff like this just happens all the time out in Cali.

Is there a moral here? Probably, but I can’t seem to find it.

]]> http://paperspaceships.com/films/chain-snatchers-and-giant-broads-the-4th-annual-white-elephant-blogathon/feed/ 1 http://paperspaceships.com/films/faux-mortal-kombat-trailer-what-did-you-think/ http://paperspaceships.com/films/faux-mortal-kombat-trailer-what-did-you-think/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:53:27 +0000 Scott http://paperspaceships.com/?p=2425

So if you haven’t seen this yet, a couple of days ago, this Mortal Kombat Rebirth trailer appeared on YouTube in an attempt to generate interest in a reboot of the franchise.  It’s more of an eight minute scene than a trailer, and it focuses on portraying various characters (e.g. Reptile, Baraka) as brutal serial killers.  What’s interesting about this trailer is that it was directed by Kevin Tancharoen, whose claim to fame is Fame (which isn’t exactly similar to Mortal Kombat).

After watching the video, I felt like it was a substandard Seven with wicked action sequences.  Unfortunately, action spectacle doesn’t really do it for me like it used to, but if you hold this against something like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, you’re sure to see a vast improvement.  Don’t take my word for it.  Check it out for yourself, and let us here at Paper Spaceships know what you think.

I have covered the idea of the division culture in Korean film in this very column (and probably will cover again given the prevalence of it in the culture) before focusing on the economic, technological, and social divide in both Shiri and Repatriation. I’ve also explored it within the family. However, these definitions of historical and cultural division do not singularly define the idea of Korean national division. In this article I will explore the division of mind and body in Choi In-hoon’s The Square and Kim Ki-duk’s Bad Guy (Nappeun Namja, 2002) and how they relate to the historical division and economic division respectively. Choi In-hoon’s protagonist, Lee Myong-jun, is the intellect divided from the body. He attempts to fix this trauma, and cure his loneliness through doomed relationships with two women and two nations. Kim Ki-duk’s protagonist, Han-gi (Cho Jae-hyeon), is the physical divided from the intellect. He attempts to overcome this trauma through the misogynistic male fantasy of turning a woman into a prostitute. I will attempt to illuminate these sexual divisions, and how they illustrate the re-imagining of division in Korea as an exclusively masculine enterprise. I will also show how the protagonists of both The Square and Bad Guy are drawn inevitably towards death because their lack (be it corporeal or psychic) does not allow them to function in a divided society.

The Intellectual

Lee Kang-hun's (aka kokoon) wonderful cover/illustration. http://kokoon.egloos.com/5106504

Choi In-hoon’s novel The Square was first published in 1960, just months after the April 19^th Student Revolution that overthrew Rhee Syngman’s authoritarian government. What followed was a brief experiment of democracy during which Choi could finally publish his novel, which harshly criticizes both North and South Korea. This brief period of freedom (only to be followed by another 27 years of military dictatorship) allowed Choi to question Korea’s identity after years under Japanese colonial rule followed by occupation by the United States, a United States sponsored military regime, and a national war. Choi imagines Korea’s division through the protagonist Lee Myong-jun. His division is the traditional historical/ideological division between North and South, and the trauma of this division is imagined as an intellectual crisis. As an existential character, Myong-jun is a product of his experiences in both the South and the North and the choices that he made while living in both Koreas. He is a literal embodiment of division. His interactions with both the North and the South leave him disillusioned and alone, and thus unable to function in either society he is led inevitably to suicide. Through him Choi can criticize both political states, and the impact that the division has had on Korea.

Myong-jun’s intellectualism, supported by his education in philosophy, separates him from the rest of society. He endlessly questions his actions and the actions of those around him, yet he cannot fully communicate with anyone around him. He believes with his education he should be able to “come to some sort of acceptable conclusions about the world and life…He had to find out why people lived, and how they lived meaningfully. Within the limits of daily life, of what he saw with his eyes and felt in all the variety of everyday things, he could find absolutely no meaning” (Choi, 13). He is on an impossible quest to define the human existence, and he is alone in his journey. He is alone within himself, trapped by his own intellect. He cannot physically install himself within the world around him; instead he is relegated to the role of the commentator where he does not act on society, but rather society acts on him. The scene where the police interrogate him when he is in the South is a good example of this inability to communicate with the society around him, as later in the novel the scene is mirrored as he attempts to overcome his intellectual prison by switching roles with these police officers.

Myong-jun is brought into S Police Station because his father had gone to the North, and was a prominent figure in their propaganda radio programs. He is faced with being pre-labeled as a Communist, just because his father is one. It is here that Choi’s political critique collides with Myong-jun’s intellectual prison. Myong-jun is unable to argue against the political suppression of South Korea under Rhee’s regime. He is questioned about his education, and when he replies that he studies philosophy he is met with a sneer. “So, if you’re in philosophy, you’ll know all about Marxism” (Choi, 41). The detective equates intellectualism with a left-leaning ideology, and therefore undesirable to the United States (and Rhee’s puppet government) who were attempting to set up South Korea as a bastion of democracy to suppress the spread of Communism. Myong-jun cannot argue against their indoctrinated hatred of intellectualism, his argument is only met by physical violence. This is the moment of his final separation from the South. He cannot live in a society so driven by uninformed, violent suppression. “ ‘I could kill a Red bastard like you and not even a ghost would know you’ ” (Choi, 43), says the police detective. And he could, when he releases the bloodied Myong-jun out into the streets no one reacts. Indeed there is no difference between this police force, and the Japanese force that oppressed Korea during the colonial period. “It was perfectly clear as far as catching Reds was concerned there was no difference between the present and Japanese times” (Choi, 47). Freedom from Japan did nothing for Korea as the United States merely used the same tools of state suppression that it was supposedly freeing Korea from. This ideological division is impossible for Myong-jun to overcome, although he attempts to do so through his love for Yun-ae. However this love is doomed to failure, as he cannot overcome his introverted intellectualism to convey his feelings to her.

Myong-jun attempts overcome this lack of physical prowess through relationships with two women, one in the North and one in the South, but neither can fully satisfy him leaving his quest for physical mastery unfulfilled. How can he overcome loneliness if “There was no way that Eve, formed from Adam’s rib, would have the power to dispel his loneliness. Eve never had her own independent existence; she was just the shadow of Adam” (Choi, 77)? In this view women are objects that must be subjugated to man in order for man to regain his humanity. The women cannot enter into the discourse of division in this point of view, because they are merely shadows of men. It is here that we see division defined as purely a masculine endeavor. In The Square love is seen as the only bridge back to humanity, and the only way to master the alienation that the individual faces within modern society. “The only time Myong-jun was sure of his own humanity was when he held her in his arms” (Choi, 97). However, he cannot truly love these women because they do not conform to his own male fantasies. He does not understand women and sees them as animals, as objects. He constantly describes both Yun-ae and Un-hye in sections, slicing them up into parts and ignoring the whole. Yun-ae in the South resists his advances, while Un-hye will not give up her belief in the communist ideology for him. The very thing he has mastery over keeps him from communicating with them. He has no hope to regain his humanity and he cannot physically act out his aggressions, and is in this way physically impotent.

We see this impotence when Myong-jun returns to the S Police Station, this time as the interrogator. He is disillusioned with the North, finding not the culture of revolution and equality he hoped for but a nation of hand-me-downs. He had hoped for a society where he could live his life with a sense of things achieved that were based off of intellectual reasons. But the revolution was not actually enacted, merely handed down from the Soviet invaders. The soldiers even have recycled Japanese uniforms. He attempts to sublimate this disillusionment with a torridly sexual affair with Un-hye, but she is both adverse to intellectual discussion and leaving her ideological affiliation for him. So we find Myong-jun on the other side of the interrogation table facing Tae-sik. He beats Tae-sik in an attempt to cultivate a feeling of purpose, and out of jealousy that Tae-sik was able to consummate his relation with Yun-ae through marriage. “Lee Myong-jun swung his leather belt so that he might cultivate the feeling of enemies of the people inside himself, whereby he could hate the people captured and brought in” (Choi, 123). He even attempts to rape Yun-ae, but is unable to fulfill this desire. He cannot bring himself to the logical culminations of these violent acts: murder. Instead he helps Tae-sik and Yun-ae escape, left only with his relationship with Un-hye as a tie to the North, but this ends when she is killed in action.

So Myong-jun is left homeless, and womanless. “In his store of emotions in South Korea he had never discovered anything except disdain. In North Korea all he got was disillusion; there was no source for acquiring the feeling of hate” (Choi, 122). He is caught with no place to go, so he chooses a neutral country. Where he hopes he can life a life of anonymity.

A neutral country. A land where no one knows me. A city where even if I roamed the streets all day long not a single person would strike me on the shoulder. Not only would there be no one who knew what kind of man I was, but there wouldn’t even be anyone trying to find out. A hospital porter, or a fire-station guard, or a theatre ticket seller, the sort of job where insofar as possible the level of mental strain was low, and all one had to do was repeat the same act all day long, that’s the kind of job he would take up. (Choi, 139)

Yet this would be impossible, it would be denying all of his experience up to that point, something an existentialist would not do, as this experience is what defines him as himself. Myong-jun is too intellectually aware, and too physically impotent, to join the working class. He has nowhere to call home, and his search was futile. He had trapped himself within himself, and he has no choice at the end but suicide. He cannot function in the divided Korea, or any other society. The psychic mastery he claims is his biggest fault, and death is the only way out. “He relaxed now for the first time” (Choi, 152).

The Corporeal

Purely Physical

Kim Ki-duk’s Bad Guy was released in Korea in 2002 during a time far removed from that of 1960s Korea. Korea has gone through rapid industrialization, urban development, brutal and violent repression of activist movements, democratization, and a financial crisis that increased unemployment and the division between the classes. The division that Kim Ki-duk is interested in is not one of the nation and ideology, but rather this economic inequality that divides South Korea. His films concern the lowest classes in Korean society: thieves, pimps, prostitutes, beggars, and gangsters. These characters do not suffer the same physical lack that an intellectual like Myong-jun suffers, rather their lack is largely both economic and familial. Han-gi, like many of Kim’s protagonists, has physical mastery but suffers from an intellectual inability. His quest to turn Sunhwa (Won Seo) into a prostitute is an attempt to forcibly remove this class and intellectual barrier. His struggle to achieve this psychic mastery comes through the misogynistic subjugation of women, as if through them he can enter normal society.

Visually seperated from society.

We open the film as Han-gi is wandering through crowds of college students. He is immediately marked as out of place with his black clothes (most of the students around him have light color shirts), short-cropped hair, and most importantly the scar across his neck. He looks threatening and he exudes physical mastery through the way he walks and moves. Our first view of Sunhwa is a classic example of cinema’s male gaze. We slowly track down her body, taking her in as sexualized parts rather than a whole woman. This is similar to how Myong-jun describes both Un-hye and Yun-ae. When Han-gi sits next to Sunhwa she is visibly uncomfortable and ignores his presence, sneering in disgust at his appearance when she gets up. This rejection is strongly classed within the film; she (an educated middle class woman) is disgusted that such a vulgar and horrible man would be interested in her. What follows is both Han-gi’s final show of physical mastery over her, and his emasculation and humiliation at the hands of Sunhwa. After this rejection, Han-gi sits silent (for he cannot talk) as Sunhwa talks to her boyfriend and gives sideways glances at him. So he violates her in an attempt to bring her down to his level. He grabs her head and forcibly kisses her in front while the boyfriend tries vainly to pull him off. A kiss is an intimate thing, and to be forcibly kissed by a stranger in public must be terrible. This is the films first (but not last) rape scene in which the male fantasy is played out through Sunhwa’s violation.

The first of the many rapes.

This is also the only time in which Han-gi will get to have Sunhwa in any sort of sexual way. It takes three military men, and a crowd of onlookers, to beat Han-gi into submission where they hold him, bloodied, waiting for him to apologize to Sunhwa. Of course this apology never comes because Han-gi is both silent, and unwilling. However, Sunhwa at this moment emasculates him in front of this crowd by both slapping and then spitting on his face. This is the movies first exchange of bodily fluids between Sunhwa and Han-gi. With this exchange, Sunhwa in essence steals Han-gi’s phallic power and the rest of the film is Han-gi’s quest to get it back. She takes the sexually dominant role here, with her spit substituting for semen. This exchange also gives Han-gi the reason he needs to subjugate her to the level of prostitution. In order for him to regain his mastery over her, he needs to bring her down to his social level where he can be the one in power as her pimp. The movie in a sense is the literal display of the horrid male fantasy that all women are prostitutes within.

There is always a distance, a seperation between the two.

However he never fully regains this phallic lack, in my interpretation of the film it is only found through a final, dying fantasy. He cannot perform sexually around Sunhwa, instead he must act out voyeuristic fantasies from behind the specially fitted mirror. It is here where he can watch other men violate her, and it is also here that he becomes infatuated and captivated by her. From behind the safety of the glass he can fetishize her, turning her body into a Lacanian phallic symbol. On the other side of the glass, when he occupies the same physical space as her, he cannot communicate. His phallic lack at that point does not allow for a sexual relationship past the purely voyeuristic. He tries when Sunhwa is passed out from drinking after she discovers that he was responsible for her new situation, but it merely leads to another one sided exchange of bodily fluids: she vomits on his shirt. Sufficiently put in his place, he takes his sexual frustration out on another prostitute, but cannot fully perform.

Playing mine is bigger than yours is dangerous.

Love here, like in Choi In-hoon’s novel, is seen as the last bridge for the masculine to rejoin humanity. Here the love is horrible and violent. While Sunhwa does have control over Han-gi through this emasculation, we must remember that she is still not fully in control. She is merely an actor through which the male fantasy can be fulfilled, and Han-gi still has control over her situation. She is slowly broken down to his level, a violent destruction of her class and educational background. This is the only way through which Han-gi can express his twisted love. Every customer violates her, and this constant rape destroys her identity. This is an abhorrent tale, but it is so visually beautiful it is hard not to enjoy it on some levels. Sunhwa is a constant reminder to Han-gi of his sexual, economic, and intellectual lack. He must look elsewhere to try to reassert himself, even within his own world of gangsters and pimps. He does this through violence, although his phallic lack begins to translate into an inability to enact violence, as sex and violence to him become melded into one thing. At first he can still assert himself, he beats Sunhwa’s first customer (and the taker of her virginity) with a phallic baseball bat. He may not be able to be with Sunhwa but he can dominate over her customers. Later in the film however there is a interplay of violence between his small gang (who he controls not through speech but violence) and another. Another pimp attempts to use Sunhwa right after he is released from prison and Han-gi, feeling threatened that another man from his level is competing for her, removes him from the room. In the street Han-gi is hit over the head with a brick, after which he fold up a poster and stabs one of the pimp’s men with it. Not to be outdone, the same man returns later and stabs Han-gi with a ridiculously large (it must be at least four feet long) shard of glass in a moment of male phallic competition. As he is struggling and bleeding in the streets, Sunhwa looks at him with pity and horror. It is her presence here that creates this physical lack in Han-gi. She does not belong to his world, and only by completely destroying her identity can she exist in the same class as him. This violation of class barriers is what eventually kills both Sunhwa and Han-gi.

Bad Guy has several codas, and these create varying interpretations of the film. The whole film could be read as purely a fantasy of Han-gi, with none of the events after that first kiss and emasculation actually taking place. The logic defying inclusion of a beach scene (the very same beach as Kim’s The Birdcage Inn which is also about prostitution and has many similarities to this film) in which Han-gi and Sunhwa watch a woman in a red dress drown herself and Sunhwa discovers two impossible photographs is reflected in the final scene. These photographs could not possibly exist as they are of her and Han-gi before any events in the film take place. The picture is out of a false past, where they are together without the class difference, and Han-gi is not a product of violence and class inequality (he has no neck scar in the photo). It is their love without the sexual subjugation, the violence, and the economic and phallic lacks that drive their real relationship to tragedy. Later after Han-gi’s underling stabs him (both for violating Sunhwa by bringing her into prostitution and for causing the other underling to go to jail by killing the rival pimp) both Han-gi and Sunwha return to the beach wearing the same clothes as they are in the picture. However, I argue that this is really the only fantasy in the film. I view the ending as Han-gi’s dying fantasy, and the woman who drowned herself in the earlier beach scene was Sunhwa led to the only conclusion that is available to her character. I do not believe he survived the stabbing, and the rest of the film is the conclusion of his impossible quest to fulfill his masculinity through Sunhwa. This is certainly a logical interpretation, as when Han-gi changes shirts (because the other one is soaked in his blood) he is miraculously cured, and Sunhwa is happy living as a prostitute in a traveling brothel in the back of a truck. In reality, Han-gi never survived the last stabbing. He couldn’t, the quest he is on cannot be obtained in reality because he could never transcend modern society’s class divisions and the phallus he seeks is merely imaginary, an impossible object of power. Sunhwa on the other hand cannot return to her previous class existence, as her connections to the middle class intellectual have been severed. Yet she cannot return to prostitution because the sole reason keeping her there (Han-gi) is now dead. She has served her purpose within the narrative, and she now has no reason to live.

Again, as we have seen so many times before, division here is a masculine discourse. Han-gi is the one who attempts to break the division, and the woman is merely a masochistic object on which he acts out his sadistic male fantasies. The woman is not an independent actor, rather she is a function, used to drive the male toward his impossible redemption. Her existence relies on this masculine fantasy, without a male to subjugate her within a patriarchal power structure she is led inevitably to her death. Kyung Hyun Kim, in his book The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema describes our mutual contention with Kim’s films:

My contention rests not on the fact that his films consistently appeal for the abnegation of the men who have committed rape, or that Kim’s depictions of sexual violence are too graphic, but rather that only men are given performative roles in them. Women function as masochistic and passive objects predicated on the patented image of mother and whore. The male characters shuffle between virtue and irredeemability, between care and violence, and between reality and fantasy while often the women must remain immutable even in these ‘folktale-like’ films. (Kim, 9).

I share his question of whether Korean cinema could ever focus on a story of a woman who is not imagined as a whore, mother, or wife. There is a bigger question though: can there ever be a reimagining of division in Korean film or literature that transplants it from a reaffirmation of masculine dominance to a feminine one?

Once used the woman has no place in the diegesis any more.

Conclusions

This question of division in both The Square and Bad Guy, whether it is a national/ideological or an economic/class division, is portrayed as a masculine trauma where another division in Korean society is reaffirmed: the division of the sexes. Both protagonists suffer from a lack, be it physical or intellectual, sexual or economic, or combinations of all of them and they attempt to regain entry into a society that they have rejected or have been rejected by through violence and the subjugation of women. Yet these fantasies and acts of sexual power inevitably fail and the characters are drawn closer to death. Even though both works were created in separate times, during which Korea was as different and the division these works discuss, their method of dealing with national trauma is similar. The characters of Myong-jun and Han-gi are both prevented from interacting socially with the world around them by the very things that they have mastery over.  They cannot function in modern society lacking this ability to socialize, and take this out on the women in their lives. This question of division as a masculine subject, and the lack of a female counterpoint is something that deserves, and demands, further discussion.

Works Cited

Primary Sources

Bad Guy. Dir. Kim Ki-duk. Pref. Cho-Jae-hyeon, Won Seo, Choi Duek-mun, Kim Yun-tae and others. LJ Films, 2002. DVD. CJ Entertainment.

Choi, In-hoon. The Square. Translated by Kevin O’Rourke. Devon: Devon and Sidmouth Printing Group, English edition, 1985.

Secondary Sources

Kim, Kyung Hyun. The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.

North/South division deeply affects families as well.

If Shiri is the ultimate example of right-thinking propaganda cinema (as blockbusters are usually conservative to allow them to gain the maximum audience), Kim Dong-won’s documentary Repatriation is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Kim is essentially the father of modern Korean documentary film having been a part of the democratization movements of the 70s and 80s his humanistic style of documentary is an extension of the political beliefs and activism he practices in daily life. I plan on writing more about him and his work in this column so keep tuned. He is one of my film heroes and a genuinely pleasant man as well. This week was the 30th anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre and I felt I needed to write about something that was political and in the spirit of the Minjung movement that worked so hard for democracy in Korea. Kim Dong-won is both of those things and his Repatriation in which he spent 12 years chronicling his relationship with North Koreans trying to get back home after being released from jail is just that.

The heroes of the film.

While Shiri is concerned with making the working class and complex discussions of the problems surrounding division invisible, Repatriation relentlessly makes these marginalized sections of society visible.  The heroes of this film, the unconverted long-term prisoners and the politically active communities that shelter them until repatriation, are the very elements of society the agents in Shiri seek to suppress. It is a product of the Minjung movement mentality, and the fact it is shot on video sharply contrasts the high-gloss of the blockbusters I have discussed so far in this column. As it is an activist film, it is decidedly working class in its concerns and aesthetics. It openly (and forcefully) discusses the economic disparities of modern South Korean society, one of the major focuses of the Minjung movement. While Shiri makes the argument that reunification is impossible because of the barbarity and lack of progress (technologically and in terms of Westernization), Repatriation makes the argument that it is impossible for reunification until both Koreas can solve the problems that plague their systems of government.

From the very beginning the film positions the lower working class as more open, liberal, and willing to challenge preconceived notions and stereotypes. Bongchun-dong, director Kim’s own villiage, becomes the prisoners first home because, as the director says in his narration, that it is the only community that could accept these old men. Immediately their lower class allows them to accept other marginalized people into their midst. The fact that they had an active interest in the Minjung movement also helped, as the three main goals that the Minjung movement began with were the democratization of the government, social justice, and the reunification between North and South Korea in mind. Their presence in the community even reinvigorates their movement, and Cho Chang-son’s background as a poor farmer allows him to fit into the community better than Kim Seok-hyoung who was a well-educated intellectual. There is a sense in the film that money corrupts, and those with poor backgrounds are somehow more pure and innocent. This is directly referenced in the face of Kim Young-sik who is too honest to survive in South Korean society. He is not devious enough for the evils of capitalism, and the sweetest man in the film is shown to only follow his heart and for this he gets swindled.

The evil of North Korea.

The lower class is portrayed as being much more traditional and Korean, especially when compared to the overt Westernization that is present in Shiri. Again this is an artifact of the Minjung movement, which sought to define a new Korean identity and a connection between tradition and modernity. While characters sleep in western beds and eat at outdoor cafes in Shiri, the men and women in Repatriation sleep on the floor and eat Korean food. Folk songs and traditional medicine are prominently displayed. The film, being set in the invisible spaces that Korea does not want to show the world (see The Sangkye-dong Olympics for a very literal argument that this is true), creates a space in which the North Koreans can be human. We see them doing the menial labor that we only see one person (who is subsequently knocked over and out of frame) doing in Shiri. The South Korean government has failed to support all of its people, but North Korea is also at fault here. Though the prisoner’s view of North Korea is a country that is prosperous and successful, it is an outdated picture. They left at a time when Communism was working, and concerned with the problems of humanity. The film displays North Korea as another failed system, which also cannot support its people. In fact much is made of the food shortage in the film, with the prisoners refusing to believe it and Ishimaro Jiro’s inability to enter into North Korea because of it. We also see how the film positions the press in Korea as pandering to the upper-class conservatives. The wild accusations (and they may be true but it is doubtful) of cannibalism is also brought up in Shiri and serves as another way South Korea positions North Korea as temporally primitive and behind South Korea. Yet in this film it is used subversively to portray South Korea as afraid and insecure. There is no discussion of the United States aggressive stance (and economic stances) to North Korea as a factor in the mainstream press. Yet here is where we also get the problem with the film. By making the invisible entirely visible, it forgets the visible world and only gives glimpses into the upper class reaction (which is always portrayed as ignorant and prejudiced) to the repatriation. We get one young business man who’s time with the unconverted prisoners remind him of his activist days as a student. However, he disappears from the film after this leaving these invisible spaces to go back to the visible work of his job where he can go with the flow and forget.

Menial labor becomes a political message for the prisoners, as they use it to show not only the hard working spirit of the Korean people (working hard for the reunification) but also the problems with the South Korean society. They cannot get welfare, and live in utter poverty, not only because they are North Korean but also as lower class members upward mobility is next to impossible. Only by returning to North Korea are the prisoners able to move upward, and when they do they become products themselves to the North Korean government. They are used for propaganda, showcased as national heroes. Yet there is no mention in the North Korean videos of the years that the prisoners spent outside of jail. To this video we see, it is as if they went directly from jail to being repatriated. Just as they become products in the national economy of propaganda in North Korea, images of North Korea become consumer goods in South Korea. We see blockbusters such as Shiri and Joint Security Area becoming more popular, and North Korean images being cleaned packaged and sold to the public by the South Korean media. Yet even Kim Dong-won is hesitant as to whether reunification is possible once the prisoners return to the North, their new economic status changes them in his eyes and he prefers to remember them during the years they spent in Bongchun-dong. Reunification becomes impossible in this film for the opposite reason, the lower class can accept North Korea as comrades in their struggle but see both governments as flawed and broken. If North Korea were to enter into economic partnership with the South it would merely perpetuate the problems of capitalism into a new area. For reunification to work, both systems need to be radically altered and there needs to be open discussion of topics that both governments seem to want to keep invisible. Also I would like to point out with the recent UN report on freedom of expression in South Korea is worrying, and there needs to be more directors like Kim trying to engage the public in political discourse in an attempt to fight the apathy that the comforts of modern South Korean life have afforded the youth.