London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

New book on Kim Ki-duk coming to stores this week

Last year saw the comeback of Kim Ki-duk, winning the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes with Arirang. The release of a new book on one of Korea’s most controversial directors is therefore timely. Coming to Amazon UK this week then, and to Amazon US last month, is a new book on Kim Ki-duk from the University of Illinois Press.

Here at LKL we were thoroughly disappointed by the collection of essays on Kim Ki-duk published in France nearly six years ago by Dis Voir. We’re hoping for something more substantial and grounded in cinematic text from this year’s study by Hye Seung Chung. The details below, taken from the University of Illinois Press website, look promising.

Kim Ki-duk

Contemporary Film Directors
Hye Seung Chung

Kim Ki-duk, by Hye Seung ChungA searing study of a controversial international auteur

This study investigates the controversial motion pictures written and directed by the independent filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, one of the most acclaimed Korean auteurs in the English-speaking world. Propelled by underdog protagonists who can only communicate through shared corporeal pain and extreme violence, Kim’s graphic films have been classified by Western audiences as belonging to sensationalist East Asian “extreme” cinema, and Kim has been labeled a “psychopath” and “misogynist” in South Korea.

Drawing upon both Korean-language and English-language sources, Hye Seung Chung challenges these misunderstandings, recuperating Kim’s oeuvre as a therapeutic, yet brutal cinema of Nietzschean ressentiment (political anger and resentment deriving from subordination and oppression). Chung argues that the power of Kim’s cinema lies precisely in its ability to capture, channel, and convey the raw emotions of protagonists who live on the bottom rungs of Korean society. She provides historical and postcolonial readings of victimization and violence in Kim’s cinema, which tackles such socially relevant topics as national division in Wild Animals and The Coast Guard and U.S. military occupation in Address Unknown. She also explores the religious and spiritual themes in Kim’s most recent works, which suggest possibilities of reconciliation and transcendence.

“The definitive work on Kim Ki-duk. Hye Seung Chung consistently brings new insights and an original perspective to this divisive director’s work.” — Daniel Martin, Queen’s University Belfast

Hye Seung Chung is an assistant professor of film and media studies in the department of communication studies at Colorado State University and the author of Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance.

Links:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.