Crazy Boy: Transculturation of the Action Genre

The film Crazy Boy surprised me, and at the same time reminded me of other films that I had seen previously. The reason for my surprise was the level of sexuality in the film. From my limited experience of current Korean movies and dramas, I have found that sexuality is relatively under wraps. Therefore, I found it interesting that whilst in today’s western society everything is sexualized, the Korean film industry has taken an opposite approach. Perhaps, the graphic sexual consequences that the girls face are used to encourage the domestic lifestyle. As the girls find out in an unfortunate turn of events “all men are thieves.” This turns out to be true with every male character except for crazy boy. Who, with his youthful appearance and clumsy nature is the only pure character. Crazy boy is a multifaceted character, first appearing to be the graceless, blundering manager with nothing but good intentions. Then, as soon as he removes his glasses and takes off his jacket, in a Clark Kent like manner, he transforms into this super cool, highly skilled martial artist.

Throughout the film I found myself drawing commonalities between Crazy Boy and other action movies. Specifically, between movies made by other action movie icons, such as; Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. The clever comedic martial arts choreography was extremely reminiscent of the amazing Jackie Chan. As well,  inspiration from Bruce Lee was undoubtedly obtained for the film. This reminds me of a concept that Kim mentioned called “transculturation,” (Kim 101) which was defined as, “a phenomenon of the contact zones where subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from material transmitted to the by a dominant or metropolitan culture.” (101 Kim) Referring to this point, Korea is seen gaining inspiration from the metropolitan culture of China. The identification of Korea’s genre of action originates from the influence of many paces and continues to diversify and grow from that point on.