This book explores South Korean cinema’s inimitable relationship with the urban landscape and identifies the ways in which Seoul is utilised as a celluloid canvas, national artefact and, above all else, a distinctive cultural backdrop. Using five different approaches to urban space, from five distinctive and contrasting theoretical perspectives, Urban Landscapes in Post-Millennial South Korean Cinema investigates and seeks to understand why the cinematic representation, identity and presence of Seoul have been central to the preservation and recognition of the South Korean film industry as an independent, autonomous and nationally unique institution.
Author(s): Gemma Ballard
Series: East Asian Popular Culture
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 178
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
About the Book
Contents
About the Author
Chapter 1: Introduction
An Exclusive Club: Issues with the ‘East Asian’ Paradigm
Place, Space and the Urban Landscape: Identifying the Comparative Boundaries of South Korean Film
References
Chapter 2: The Psycho-geographical City
Seoul: The People’s City
Diegetic and Non-diegetic Identities: Rethinking the Relationship Between Audience and Character
Reinstating the Self: 3-Iron’s Challenge to Collective Postmodern Thought
Frames Within Frames: The Photographic Narrative
3-Iron’s Important Role in Our Broader Understanding of South Korean Cinema and Its Engagement with Seoul/the Cityscape
References
Chapter 3: The Generic City
Adoption and Inheritance: The Question of Cinematic Ownership
Monster Metropolis: Ambivalent Conventionality in Korean Blockbuster Horror
Society on Screen: Magnifying Urban ‘Reality’
Postmodern Vistas: Reflections, Reproductions and the Dual Nature of Identity
The Domination of the Korean Blockbuster
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: The Hyper-masculine City
Troubled Beginnings: Questioning Post-war Masculinity
The Next Phase: Korean Gangster Film and the Ultimate ‘Anti-hero’
Fragile Figures: Identity and Place in The Man from Nowhere
Violent Spaces: Re-examining the ‘Fight Scene’
Conclusion: A Return to Confucian Sensibility?
References
Chapter 5: The Suppressive City
Transgression and a Threat to the Confucian Order: Representations of the Korean Woman in the mid- to late Twentieth Century
New Beginnings: The Revival of Gender Heterogeneity
Goodbye to ‘Seoul’: Questioning Urban Paradigms and Reading National Identity as Myth
A Different Kind of Girlhood? Reevaluating the Functionality and Relevance of ‘Sonyeo’ Narratives in Korean Cinema
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: The Oppositional City
Adversarial Cities: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Urban Space
Conflicted Sentiments: Attachment, Antipathy and the Urban West
The Trouble with Difference: Okja and the Dilemma of National Cinema
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Final Word
References
Filmography
Index
