Through the Prism of Masquerade: The Colonial Past in Assassination
Journal Title: International Journal of Korean History - Year 2016, Vol 21, Issue 2
Abstract
Assassination marks a new phase of colonial representation in South Korean cinema. To explicate the film’s unique, if not revisionist, view toward the colonial past, this review focuses on an analysis of how the film fleshes out the neglected representational features that have nevertheless constituted the stuff of cinematic history toward the colonial past. In doing so, I move away from the issue of veracity which would inadvertently bog down a serious analysis of popular renditions of history. Instead, I attempt to elucidate the ways in which Assassination adroitly changes the coordinates of antinomy and tension in mapping out the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, thereby achieving a more complex and nuanced depiction of the colonial experience. Specifically, I situate the subject of collaboration at the center of the film’s analysis as it significantly complicates and relates to other key questions such as perception and appearance, the colonial legacy, and postcolonial politics, as well as symptoms of hysteria and perversion. This review also strives to shed light on the significance of the ethical drive in the film’s reckoning of the colonial and postcolonial nexus. I claim that the film breaks away from the deadlock of many conundrums and thereby promises a more radical Korea’s sociopolitical history hitherto unrehearsed in South Kore an’s cinematic history.
Authors and Affiliations
Jinsoo An
Keywords
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- EP ID EP26442
- DOI https://doi.org/10.22372/ijkh.2016.08.21.2.193
- Views 297
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