“Breaking the Dam to Reunify our Country”: Alternate Histories of the Korean War in Contemporary South Korean Cinema
Journal Title: International Journal of Korean History - Year 2015, Vol 20, Issue 2
Abstract
This article analyzes three contemporary South Korean films that (re)present alternate histories of the Korean War: 2009 Lost Memories (2009 Rosŭt’ŭmemorichŭ) (Lee Simyung (I Simyŏng), 2002), Welcome to Dongmakgol (Welk’ŏm t’u Tongmakkol) (Park Kwang-hyun (Pak Kwanghyŏn,) 2005), and Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook, 2000). Despite focusing on different eras of history, I argue that they rewrite dominant narratives of the Korean War (Cold War logics of anticommunism v. communism) and instead focus on North Korean- South Korean friendships/collaborations. Each film also presents similar situations in which a group of disparate “heroes” (made up of unified Koreans) band together to circumvent the circumstances of division. This article analyzes historical conditions that influence the emergence of these similarly-themed films as well as film content in order to further think through memorial legacies of the Korean War, as well as to take seriously the radical possibilities of a different future that each film presents.
Authors and Affiliations
Kristen Sun
Russo-U.S. Joint Investment and International Relations during the Taehan Empire: 1898-1900
During the Taehan Empire, the Department of the Royal Household (Kungnaebu) was the entity in charge of the country’s main mines. While the Unsan Mine was the first mine to fall under the control of the Department of...
In Defense of the State: The Kabo Reforms, Education, and Legitimacy
Kojong’s government in the late nineteenth century initiated an aggressive program of reform, known as the Kabo Reforms, amidst one of the most turbulent times in Korean history. Previous scholarship focuses on modern st...
History and the Politics of Korean Reunification - Martin Hart-Landsberg, Korea: Division, Reunification & U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998), 266 pages
No Abstract
Credit Transactions and the Co-dependence Strategy Adopted by Three Countries' Merchants in the Foreign Settlements of Seoul and Inch'ŏn (1897-1905)
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Achievements and Future Tasks in the Field of Ancient Korean History
Great qualitative and quantitative achievements have been made in the field of ancient Korean history since liberation sixty years ago. In particular, the volume of studies in the overall field of Korean history has i...