The Korean Girl With a Japanese Name

It is hard to ignore how beautifully horrific the movie "Epitaph" is and I think it reflects the Korean perspective of Japanese colonialism in many ways. However, one particular scene from the movie seemed particularly intriguing: the little girl who fell in love with her Japanese stepfather and accidentally killed her whole family. I would like to shed some light on this matter and its hidden implications.

First of all one could notice is that this girl was originally a Korean girl but with a Japanese name. When Japan plundered Korea and made her (Korea) a colony of Japan, in an effort to elaborate justifications for seeing Korea as a part of Japan in order to legitimate Japanese political, economic and cultural domination (Rethinking Colonial Korea: P3), all Koreans were expected to have a Japanese name. Thinking in that way, the Korean girl with the Japanese name can be a metaphor for the Korean nation, stripped away of formal identity and forced to comply with Japanese colonization. The little girl was fine with her name and fine with her mother marrying the Japanese man but soon fell in love with her stepfather and told her mother to that she hoped her mother would disappear so she could sleep with her stepfather instead. That scene of the girl, her mother and her stepfather right before the car accident is like a shadow of Japan (stepfather), colonized Korea (little girl) and pre-colonized Korea (mother). Imperialists believe that imperialism always delivers the goods to its colonies (Introduction: P6), but in truth it ultimately destroyed the old Korea. Yes, modern society is perverse, just like the abovementioned relationship between the mother, daughter and stepfather, yes, Japanese colonial domination was unique and adapted to the responses of Korean society (Introduction: P5), and yes, with time Korea may have accepted Japanese colonialism and modernization with open arms, but just like in the movie, in the end the country that suffered the most loss of identity was still the pre-colonialized Korea. And on top of that, it was the colonized Korean society (the little girl) that later suffered all the nightmares and illusions, ultimately contributing to her death.