Blue Swallow plot line

Blue Swallow has an undeniable feminist story line, Park Kyung-won's determination, independence and success in the face of a conservative father and a previously all-male career path. The story itself stands out as feminist, but within this larger context there were a few specific repetitions I noticed that really drove home the feminist view point. For example, Han Ji-Hyuk is shown crying in more than one scene of the movie. First, we see him crying while being yelled at by his father for not following the military path he was meant to take. This contrasts to the scene in which a young Kyung-won is being yelled at by her father for bringing home school materials but rather than cry, she yells back, saying that he would have to kill her rather than stopping her education. Ji-Hyuk is shown crying once more at the flight academy, and this is again contrasted to the strong image of Kyung-won.
As well as the more subtle notes of feminism, I found the method of presenting the story quite odd. Throughout the first half of the movie, the background, the conflict, the resolution, are all about Kyung-won's journey in becoming a pilot. Later, when the journalist killed Ji-Hyuk's father, other officials and then himself, I was taken aback because I had not been expecting the introduction of a Korean nationalist movement into the story. I felt the tension between the characters when Kyung-won mentioned her desire to fly back home to Korea, but other than that had not noticed strong clues into the murder-suicide scene and the following arrests, torture and execution. This may have been a result of something being lost in translation, which brings up its own issues of switching the languages of films, or perhaps a previous knowledge of Korean nationalism that I am missing. Either way, I found that the plot became very chopped up, and found it quite surprising.