Module description
From K-pop to Korean television series and cinema, South Korean culture has boasted its popularity both within the East Asian region and across the globe. Since the so-called South Korean film renaissance of the 1990s-2000s until the recent box office mega-hits such as Train to Busan (2016) and Along with the Gods (2017-8) and the Oscar winner Parasite (2019), the Korean film industry has been showcasing its versatility through its adapting to the changes of the global film industry and transforming of popular genre conventions.
This module surveys the history of post-war Korean cinema since the 1950s to the present, in particular its relationship to: (1) urban space and gender (2) popular genre (3) trauma and history and (4) authorship.Coupled with a contemporary blockbuster such as The Suspect (2013, starring Gong Yoo) and an indie film Microhabitat (2017), classical Korean cinema of its golden era (1950s-60s), including Madame Freedom (1956) and The Housemaid (1960), will be discussed in the light of representation of (urban)space and gender through diverging genre conventions of action-blockbuster, melodrama and horror. The module further examines various ways in which the traumatic history of contemporary Korea-colonial and military dictatorship era and subsequent democratization process-is narrativised and re-imagined in film and television medium.Films that will be discussed and analysed will include but are not limited to: The Suspect (Won, 2013),Micohabitat (Jeon, 2017), Madame Freedom (Han, 1956), The Housemaid (Kim, 1960), Memento Mori (Kimand Min, 1999), The Priests (Jang, 2015), My Own Breathing (Byun, 1999), Peppermint Candy (Lee, 1999),On the Beach That Night Alone (Hong, 2017), and Reply 1994 (TV series, 2013).
Assessment details
- Participation by entering discussion questions through KEATS (10%)
- On-line test 24 hours (30%)
- Essay 2000 words (60%)