Necrophilia or Love Story?

The intent to structure “Epitaph” as a horror movie is focused on an adequate depiction of the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early twentieth century. The entire colonial experience was gruesome and chaotic; however, the modernity that came in during this period was yet irresistible to most Koreans as the subtitle of the film entails: “Bewitched by Love”. The film has three episodes in a recurrent place: Anseng Hospital. I would like to focus on the first episode and I personally think the first episode well depicts the Korean circumstance that the force was bigger than her (Korea); however, at the same time, Korea in the early twentieth century was in a desperate need of modernization.

The first episode of “Epitaph” has brought me closer to the dynamics of the Japanese occupation and its assimilation process in Korea. The hospital intern, Jong Nam is bound by the matrimonial commitment to the hospital director’s daughter: Aoi. Their parents arranged their marriage when Aoi and Jong Nam were young. The time setting of the film is very crucial; it is set in 1942 when the Pacific War was at its peak. Their arranged matrimony could symbolize the initial Japanese colonization in 1910. When Aoi and Jong Nam are at their marriageable ages, Jong Nam has no choice but to accept the arranged marriage even though he has no desire to do so. Jong Nam also says in the film that he barely remembers Aoi because he met her when he was very young. This suggests that the later colonial generation might not be even aware of how Japan started to occupy Korea. Even though the Korean nationalism arose at the time, yet it was visibly the minority and the Japanese influence in Korea was almost natural as Jong Nam accepts the arranged marriage with no other option in the film.

On the other hand, Jong Nam is assigned to work in the morgue. He feels still complicated about his arranged marriage. A new dead girl is delivered into the morgue; Jong Nam soon falls in love with her. Jong Nam eventually makes love to her. In fact, she is Aoi whom is the hospital director's daughter and dies of an accident. This grotesque necrophilia can also be entangled with the Korean colonial experience in terms of the Japanese strategic assimilation in Korea. The nouvelle technologies, refined attire, the sophisticated western cultures were apparently eye-catching to numerous Koreans. They were brought to Koreans by Japanese as a part of the strategic assimilation process. The Japanese rulers set a motto to turn everyone into Japanese including Korea, Taiwan and other Japanese colonies. As Jong Nam feels confused about his marriage, Koreans might have also felt confused about their identity as Korean. They reached a crossroad between Korea and Japan. Jong Nam could be an indicative of a Korean who was tempted by the modern ‘things’ aforementioned. The film director depicts this by use of necrophilia to indicate how the assimilation process was morally unethical. As mentioned previously, the first episode well depicts how the whole colonial experience was that the force bigger than herself (Korea). At the same time, Korea had no choice but to adopt the Japanese modernity. The storyline of the first episode almost summarizes the thirty six years of the Japanese occupation in Korea. On the top of the basic storyline, the use of a horror genre effectively decorates the expression of the catastrophic colonial experience. 

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