blue swallow

“Blue swallow” is the film based the true story of the female pilot from South Korea (Park Kyung Won) in 2005 by Yoon Jong-Chan. In the film “Blue Swallow”, director Yoon portrays the time period of 1900s. Even though the film was made in 2005, director Yoon focused on the time period (Japanese colonial era) in this film well. I would thought that this film was made in 1900s, if the actors were not familiar to me, nor filmed in colors. I was also amazed about the “flight shooting” of this film. I thought all the flight scenes were made by computer graphics, however, based on the director Yoon’s interview, I realized that he put his efforts on shooting this scene, and had to stay about 2 weeks in Los Angeles to take these scenes. While watching the film, I could get the main character, Park KyungWon, was the girl from 1900s but she was stick to 2000s. There were several scenes that caused me to think this way. For example, in the beginning of the film, Kyungwon stays outside of the classroom while others were sitting in the classroom and learn English. This indirectly shows that KyungWon’s fater is very conservative since he does not let her to study. However, KyungWon did not give up her desires of ‘flight’, so she decided to go to Tokyo flight academy.

Personally, I respect KyungWon’s decision and her desire of the ‘flight’, but her decision led tragic ends at the end of the film. For example, Jihyuk and Kyungwon went to the police office since Jihyuk’s friend (news reporter) provoked by mentioning Korean independence and shootings. The scene when Japanese officers torture Jihyuk and Kyungwon indirectly shows how Japanese tortured Koreans during the Japanese colonial era. The one quote from Yoon’s reading indirectly reminds me of this scene, which was: “the new woman was only passing fad who could not possibly meet the basic necessities of the family” (P. 79). Park KyungWon, who is “educated woman”, can be referred as the “new woman” that Yoon mentioned in the reading. If Park KyungWon give up flying to Joseon, and accept Jihyuk’s propose, they would not been to the office, nor Jeonghee had to become female worker in Japan.

               However, why could not Park Kyungwon explains about the all fact that she had to follow Japanese’ decisions in order to make her flight to Joseon?  She would have enough time to explain about the fact that it was not her decision of flight with Japan’s national flag. Like the Son KiJeong, the first medal winning of the marathon, had to participate 1936 Berlin Olympics as a member of the Japanese delegation. He was asked to compete under the Japanese name (Son kitae), and had to run with the Japanese national flag. However, Son Kijeong had time to explain about the fact to the Koreans, and as shown in the picture, he covers the Japan’s national flag with the flowers. Some Koreans think Park KyungWon as one of the pro-Japanese group, since she does not explain about the fact that she had to accept the Japanese’ decisions in order to keep her flight to Joseon. The conversation between Kyungwon and Jihyuk at the scene when Park Kyungwon went to see Jihyuk at the prison was pitiful. Kyungwon mentioned that just following Japanese’ decision is unfair, however, Jihyuk said that ‘you never thought about whether you are Japaense or Joseon-in’ and just follow Japanese’ decicison, since Joseon did not do anything (nor helped) to KyungWon.