He puts back the drunken victim’s
objects in between punishing his opponents. He takes time to zip up his boots
while facing an opponent who has just slashed a police officer. He outruns the
rapist/pervert and slaps him silly, breaking down the rapist into crying for
help in various ways.
And thus, the veritable picture of
an over competent hero is portrayed for us through Hwang Seok-ah, the
secret superhero who sheds his outer persona to fight crime and protect the
people preyed on. The majority of the time, he is a subservient, basically
henpecked, manager who accepts taunting and meekly does all the chores required
of him but for small periods of time, he sheds this identity along with his
outer clothes to become a force to be reckoned with, who will protect the
wronged and commit crimes of justice, clad in the characteristic white tank top
I associate with heroes in martial arts movies.
The recurring motif
of him outclassing his opponents each time is characteristic of the superhero
side of the impaired superhero Kim Soyoung brings up her article “Genre as
Contact Zone.” His superhero side can also be extended to his protection of the
girls in the band – they may not be all as long drawn and physical as the other
fights but he does his best to make sure the girls aren’t sexually taken
advantage of. He either punishes the man ogling the girls or keeps them from
taking advantage of the girls by interfering in dates. This can also be seen as
his impairment or rather his kryptonite – he becomes misdirected in which group
of girls to guard at the ski resort because he is overly active in protecting
them leading them to send him in the direction of the other group. Ultimately
he does not succeed in protecting all the girls in the latter half of the movie
and this turns him more hesitant in doing anything as he beats himself up for
it.
His other impairment
would be socially – his reputation is that of a Dolai – dull and foolish or
crazy, neither very complementary. People don’t hold him in such good regard,
taunting him and reminding him of his perceived incompetence. Neither is his
social capital that good – he is neither well off nor part of the upper classes
of society, is treated harshly/badly by most and needs to pander to the upper
ups.
However this deficiency
also allows him to escape notice for the most part like Clark Kent and the one
eyed swordsmen and other impaired heroes mentioned by Kim I would think – who
would expect these meek or physically and thus visibly ‘impaired’ people to
harbor such great fighting power? (Except we know better). Kim draws parallels
between the handicap and the state of the nation in that they were both left fractured
by history and needing to start again from this new starting point. This idea
be applied to the movie industry – as we were told the industry was picking up
after a stagnant period. The implications of the relationship between history
would also be interesting in terms of the political situation of that time,
while South Korea was under the military government – could Dolai’s constant struggles
against the framework of society and corruption and sex exploitation in society
not be transposed to a struggle against the military rule and the degradation of
society’s morality as the consumption in the sex industry grew, respectively?
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