All Men are Thieves: Sexuality, Consumption and Capital in Crazy Boy

As many characters in Dolai argue frequently, “all men are thieves.” Perhaps this would make a good motto for the 1985 film--its major focus is the protagonist’s battles to protect his orphanage sisters and their band from evil men who would seek to steal from them.

But steal what, exactly? Their innocence? The women are certainly portrayed as naïve and innocent throughout the film, but they also have several implied sexual encounters--most notably after their two shows at the beginning of the film. They also frequently discuss strategies for romancing said male “thieves”--they are frequently shown manipulating their appearance, mannerisms and attitudes in order to attract their suitors into relationships beneficial to the women. So perhaps innocence isn’t what the men look to take from the women. In that case, is it their sexuality?

In Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in South Korea, Laura Nelson discusses capitalism, frugality and how they applied to Korean nationalism in the 20^th century. She specifically discusses “’unearned income’, […] defined as income from investments, assets, and income transfers from others” and its connection to the “pleasure industry,” or the industries related to sex and sexual services (118). Here we find a connection to Crazy Boy--the villains are rich men who have gotten their income through drugs and property acquisition--in other words, unearned income--and who spend it on entertaining and romancing young, sexualized women. Perhaps this romancing is an exchange of capital in and of itself--the men exchange money and expensive outings for the girls’ sexuality. Note here that sex itself, the act, is not necessarily included in the transaction. The girls are merely presenting their sexuality--for example, in the pool scene when they dress in swimsuits and do tantalizing stretches for the men before leaping in the water and caressing their bodies with it. Sexual assault and exploitation on the part of the male characters, then, is the thievery of this sexual capital.

On its surface, the film looks like a classic tale of a celibate hero saving helpless girls and fighting against corrupt men who can’t contain their urges. However, at several points in the film--during discussions between the girls and during the pool scene--the women are shown possessing some degree of ownership over their own sexuality. In essence, the women agree at the end of the film to be more frugal about how they flaunt and spend their sexual capital. Nelson makes a similar connection between frugality and nationalism in historical Korean political discourse. Perhaps the women are reformed into patriots by Dolai’s influence--this would imply that their use of sexual capital was a sign of excessive consumption, and thus negative. However, this reading is complicated somewhat by the highly sexualized way that the camera frames the female characters throughout the film. Perhaps this complicated relationship belies deeper tensions between Korean nationalism, the capitalist system and gender politics.

Crazy Boy

Lee Dooyoung released the film ‘Crazy Boy’ in 1985. The film ‘Crazy Boy’ has four different series. It’s an action film, which contains the story about Seok, the manager of the girl group band, also called Dol-I, revenge the criminal who tries to rape one of the girl group band member. Most of the scenes from this film show similarities with the Hong-Kong film. Also, in the beginning of the film, the scene, where the female characters walk around the street, reminds me of the film ‘The Thieves’ by Choi Donghoon (‘The Thieves’ was released 25 years later than the ‘Crazy Boy’). Unlike the other films we watched previously, this film was not set in the Japanese colonial era. As mentioned in the reading, “Korean action movies provide a space contested by Japanese swordplay, Hong Kong action, and Hollywood action. Hwalkuk, is the term used to indicate plays and movies driven by action scenes” (Kim, 100). Since this film was not set during the Japanese colonial era, the mood (tone) was different from the film ‘The Good, The Bad, The Weird” by Kim JiWoon even though both film contains the genre of the action. Also, Kim mentioned in her reading “the Korean action movie was born into this contact zone of transculturation crowded with Japanese hwalkuk, the James Bond series, and Hong Kong action- a composite form of colonial, semi-colonial, and postcolonial contacts” (Kim, 101).

 Before the film starts, prof Cho mentioned that this film was released after the cencorship law in 1980s. Censorship law has limited the freedom of speech and the press. There were two major period of film censorship in Korea, which were the period of dictatorships and the period of heavy surveillance by the new military regime. In the film, there were some scenes where camera shows the body of the girl group bands even though this film was PG-12 when it first released. However, audience can easily see the sexual scenes within the film in the recent years, where has been a major issue that pits film producers against the Korea media rating Board. I was surprised about those scenes when it showed because usually PG-12 does not contain such those scenes.

Extended Fight Scenes

Dolai is a movie about a girl rock band in South Korea along with their manager, who the girls often call Dolai – or stupid boy.  This film has a lot of influence from Hong Kong action cinema. There are a lot of fight scenes that go on for a very long time. This reminded me of our discussion in class last week about the extended scenes in Dachimawa Lee and The Good The Bad The Weird. The extended scenes in Dolai, however, gave a different feel to the movie. In The Good The Bad The Weird and Dachimawa Lee, the scenes lengths made the viewer feel uncomfortable while watching, and most likely made the viewers wish that the scene was shorter to avoid awkward situations or heightened tensions. 

The lengthened scenes seem to be more of a stylistic choice. They were dramatically long and unnecessary, but the scenes did not make me feel uncomfortable. Also, keep in mind that I’m not including the rape scenes in this category, just the fighting between Dolai and the other men. I was trying to think about reasons other than that of a stylistic homage to Hong Kong action films for the length of the scenes.

First of all, the action scenes add a dimension to Dolai, creating an individual who not only is protective, but also assertive, and takes the issues seriously. In quite a few of the fights he did not have to get physically involved, but made the conscious decision to use physical aggression to get what he wanted out of the situation. Therefore one effect of the lengthened scenes is creating balance between protector and aggressor.

 

The second effect of the scenes has to do with Koreans identifying with a man who is struggling not only financially, but also as a man. He is not taken seriously in his line of work, and is given an underdog-like quality. Having the extended fight scenes make up for any emasculation that he may feel  throughout the rest of the film.

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.

Crazy boy, women, and gisaeng

            The movie Crazy Boy is the first Korean movie that I have ever watched, that was produced in the 80s. The extravagantly curly hair and their fashionable attire made me think back to my mother’s photo album. Many of my mother’s photos from her 20s and 30s are taken in ski resorts and pools, with extravagantly curly hair and fashionable clothes.

            The beginning of the movie starts with a scene where the band women wearing full make-up and chic attire walk proudly in the street – a scene very similar to the one in the well-known American drama Sex and the City. These two works are similar in that they both seem to send a message of the new role of modern and independent women. The effect is further amplified in the Crazy Boy because it is set in Korea where the role of the women historically was conservative. A drastic contrast between the traditional Korean women and the women in Crazy Boy provides a dramatic effect. The movie seems to portray a change in how the Korean women acted, thought, and valued. However, it is important to remember the fact that the women portrayed in the movie are band players. An interesting comparison could be drawn between the women in Crazy Boy and the identity of Korean gisaeng. For example, one of the band members states that she would want to marry a rich guy and become affluent. Even though this is against what is expected from Korean traditional women, it is not in a stark contrast with how we expect gisaeng to think. Therefore, I believe that the movie easily can lead us to think that the majority of Korean women in the 80s thought that way. Further comparison could potentially lead to interesting results. 

Transculturation in Korean Action Films

            Crazy Boy is a Korean cinema released in 1985; the genre of the movie could be considered as an action film. The movie is about a young guy who is a manager of a girl band and never runs away from evil. The crazy boy is depicted in the movie as if he is naïve and innocent. He believes himself as a guardian angel for the girl band “Thriller”. His urge to go on fight with any evil in the movie is very clear and apparent. The audience would easily feel an impression of this movie’s resemblance with Hong Kong action films. In Kim Soyoung’s “Genre as Contact Zone: Hong Kong Action and Korean Hwalkuk”, she defines transculturation as “a phenomenon of the contact zones where subordinated or marginal groups select and invest from materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture (Kim 101). Since South Koreans are restricted from directly going to the Continent, Hong Kong was a place to emulate and of trendsetter for the Korean cinematic culture. It is due to Hong Kong’s economic wealth in the 1960s and 70s. Many Korean action films that resemble with the Hong Kong Action films were mostly released in the 1970s (Kim 99). Plus, transculturation is not only for Korean action films’ resemblances with Hong Kong action movies, but also Korean cinemas in the 1960s and 70s were still largely influenced from the post-colonial Japanese breeze and American culture that dominated after the Korean War. Crazy Boy no longer has the influence of the Japanese colonial authority, but it still has the influence both from Hong Kong and American from my perspective. The Crazy boy seems similar to Jackie Chan of his early days in Hong Kong actions films which action scenes are quite comical. Plus, even his look is similar to Jackie Chan. The prominence of Hong Kong films transmitted to South Korea; not only South Korea imported the Hong Kong action films, but they produced similar actions films that were originally called hwalkuk. Hwalkuk had been in Korea for a while from the Japanese colonial period; however, those films are mostly about young boy who fights against with the colonial authority due to the girl he loves is abused by the colonial force. Even though the dominant male character is still present in Crazy boy and he rescues girls from danger, this movie is quite different from the original hawlkuk. Hence, it is easily noticeable that transculturation was significant in terms of the movie production in South Korea after the colonial period when the dominant cultural materials from the United States and Hong Kong were transmitted to South Korean culture. 

The gender dynamics in The Crazy Boy

I rather appreciate how ambiguous the power dominance could be presented in Crazy Boy – there seems to be two levels of power exchange: through sex and violence. Because of this flow of gender dynamics the audience have a constantly reforming and deforming viewing experience.

The crazy boy is in the center of this power change. He could be the powerful dominant hero, fully showcasing his “maleness” at the same time the timid shy manager who is literally “good for nothing” – the problem is that his power is almost always gained by exercising violence; whereas his women counterpart by their sexual appeal, to an extreme point the audience might question The crazy boy’s sexual ability. Of course it might be assuming to analyze the psychological activities taken by both sex, but the generic pattern is clear: women fully and consciously utilize their sexual leverage to gain attention and power; whereas it seems the crazy boy is somehow forced to be violent due to some legitimized cause. Then when the problem comes, namely the sexual assault, one would have the conclusion that “the girls ask for it” and the guy doesn’t go for trouble but have clean up some other people’s mess– the reluctant hero.

I don’t want to go into the depiction of women this time (enough feminist rant, to whom this blog might concern), but the mirror reflections in the film. There are several scenes where the cameras first shoot from the ceiling mirror or from the glass floor, reflecting her legs – often somehow shaken and distorted. At first I thought it was the hint of power switch: the climax of her gaining sexual dominance over man/audience, but then I realized it was quite the opposite. Reflections, especially the shaken ones are the disfigured and weakened images of the original, meaning she actually loses the essence of  “being”, deprived of her authenticity.

I compare this to the concept of “transculturation”. Although the subordinated/marginal groups could always add unique interpretations to the transmitted materials (by the dominant), the reflection nature of “transculturation” decisively determines it would always be the weakened distortion, even if at the surface it might appear as the reassertion of power and identity.

These are ideas not fully developed – for example is this power (in the film as gender dynamics) structured as linear or pyramidal? Say in the reading the emulation among Japan, Hongkong and South Korea (sometimes also Hollywood) – do the adaptions impose the same cultural capability and influence?t