Taegugki: The Brotherhood of War

                Taegugki: The Brotherhood of War (2004), in giving a “more balanced approach than earlier anticommunist films,” (Kim 303) the ultimate feeling that the film leaves us with is that there are only survivors, no winners or heroes. Despite the uplifting ending where the children are “somehow thriving and sanguine despite the utter devastation all around them, re-inscribes the film with a nationalist ending,” (Kim 306) I am not left with the feeling that the nation will blossom anew, as Kim is suggesting the end scene presents. Part of that optimistic ending is that Jin Seok (Won Bin) is re-united with his mother and says that he too will go to school. However, we see that fifty years later he is still grieving over his brother and obsessed with finding him. When he takes out the shoes that Jin Tae (Jang Dong-gun) had intended to give him, they are shiny and polished. So clearly they have not just been left there until this moment. His granddaughter, as the elderly Jin Seok gets ready to leave for the war site, mentions that last time he got sick trying to look for Jin Tae. The fact that there was a last time, and it certainly does not seem like last time was his first effort to find Jin Tae, shows that he has sacrificed his time and health over and over again in this search—unable to move on despite the optimistic expectation. In that case, Taegugki is more successful at showing the post-armistice division consciousness than Kim concludes with because what I left with at the end of the film was that people should be relieved, they should be happy—and they even act it, but in the end everyone is left with a part of them that cannot move on. Even the granddaughter cannot move on from the war because she has to see her grandfather go through all this and assist him in his search. So what had the possibility to be positive ended up disheartening, just like Jin Tae’s attempt to get his brother out of the war, Jin Seok going to see his family where Kim Young-shin (Lee Eun-joo) gets arrestest, and Jin Seok’s long search for his brother.

The Marines that Never Returned

In David Scott Diffrient’s article, he states that The Marines that Never Returned (1968) “treats the subject of the Korean War with intelligence and sensitivity, daring even to show his doomed heroes questioning its legitimacy.” (28) While I agree with the statement, I think that it is interesting to contrast it to the next movie we watched, Taegugki: The Brotherhood of War (2004). They both show a more balanced portrayal of the Korea War, as opposed to a strictly black-or-white / right-or-wrong depiction of North and South Korea. I think it is interesting to see who or what it seems brings out the courage in both movies ‘heroes.’ In The Marines that Never Returned, the troupe rescues a young girl, Young-hui, who they love and care for throughout the movie. Conversely, in Taegugki: The Brotherhood of War, Jin Tae (Jang Dong-gun) goes to war with the motivation of protecting his brother. Why do these people stay in the war if they are questioning its legitimacy? I think it is clear from both movies that true courage did not come from national pride, it came from humanity because people want to protect the ones they love. Even when the marines wavered in their conviction, ultimately they sacrificed themselves to protect the people they cared about despite knowing that it would be the end for them. And the fact that The Marines that Never Returned, which was for the most part less serious than Taegugki, can reveal the human connections that make wars worth fighting for in some people’s eyes, even to the end, is what makes it as intelligent and sensitive as Diffrient highlights in his article.

Gender in Love and War: Taegukgi, The Marines Who Never Returned and my Experiences in Peru

I spent the first two weeks of March in Cusco, Peru, a city rich with Incan and colonial history. I was working with OCAD University Professor David McIntosh on his project Quipucamayoc, a research-creation interactive media art exhibition project. The goal of the project is to re-imagine Incan and Andean traditions in contemporary contexts, using digital and wearable technology to help performers and audience members embody Andean gods and mythological figures. The Peruvian colonial case, involving the rapid modernization of the country by Spanish colonizers who forcibly destroyed Andean traditions, bears many similarities to subject material and historical context we have studied in this course.

(Myself at the Cusco carnival, March 10, 2014)

One subject of particular note in both the Andean and Korean cases is gender, particularly how it applies to conflict. A particularly strong modernizing influence in Peru was psychoanalysis--traditional societal structures of gender were re-imagined under patriarchal, Freudian ideas. This “colonization” of traditional conceptions of gender continues today in academic discourse on the subject. Meanwhile, rural Andean communities, and indeed some urban centers like Cusco, have attempted to reintegrate these traditions into contemporary life.

The results are provocative ceremonies and coming-of-age rituals that involve a combination of sexuality, androgyny and war-play. In these rituals, adolescents in a community turn sexuality and sexual interaction into a game of conquest, with both men and women as strategists and active players. Victories involve outlasting the sexual partner and accumulating as many sexual partners as possible. Rather than a patriarchal system in which the male dominates the female through sex and through the phallus, this system holds a kind of feminine androgyny at its center.

I see similarities to this re-appropriation in the Korean context, namely in The Marines Who Never Returned and Taegukgi. In Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema, Author David Scott Diffrient suggests that The Marines Who Never Returned adopts melodramatic emotional outpourings commonly associated with women’s film in Korea. The character Young-hui also embodies this crossing of genders--Young-hui acts as a mascot and leader figure, giving the soldiers names and ordering them to do things. However, Young-hui also acts emotionally, and in doing so (particularly through her letters to the soldiers), allows them to express themselves as well. Young-hui thus expresses gender fluidly, in a similar way to the feminine androgyny expressed in Andean communities.

Meanwhile, Taegukgi, while also still emotional in its delivery, also emphasizes, through several action scenes involving extended hand-to-hand combat between men, a very traditional and physical notion of masculinity. It is interesting to note as well that The Marines Who Never Returned involves a scene in which the soldiers travel to a brothel and force the prostitutes, who are at first unwilling, to accommodate them. Here, the films attempt to return to modern notions of sexuality and gender, in which female bodies are passive and male bodies are active in sexual interaction. Why is this? Perhaps patriarchal notions of sex are so ingrained in modern culture that they are difficult to remove. However, I posit that this return embodies a repetition of a kind of traumatic masculinity. Perhaps the notion of sexuality as male-active/female-passive is not only damaging to female participants, but also to men. In this framework, guilt and confusion over the damage caused by patriarchal sexual structures results in violent, exaggerated depictions of the masculine. This can be seen in South American culture as Machismo, and also in these war films that depict violent deconstructions, and often destructions, of men who embody modern notions of masculinity.

Academic discourse about commonalities between South America and East Asia are unfortunately rare. I hope to see more of this in the future.

Seong Han-mo as a Victim of Circumstance

The President's Barber (2004) shows the life of a typical barber living in a not-so typical neighbourhood, which ultimately changes his life and that of his family's. The barber, Seong Han-mo, is played by Song Kang-ho, who we have seen in several other movies. In each film, he plays the 'every day man'-- seemingly harmless and a little silly at times. He reprises that sort of character here, making it seem like all the events in his life happened because he was a victim of circumstance.

Seong Han-mo does not seem like an exceptional barber. He just happened to live in the president's neighbourhood, and then his friend just happened to suggest putting up a photo of the president, which the government happened to see. And that chain of events led to him becoming the president's barber. But there is this lack of agency on Han-mo's part. This does take away from his accomplishments, but mostly, it takes away his blame.

Han-mo took his son, Seong Nak-han (Lee Jae-Eung), to the police station because Nak-han had diarrhea, which was supposed to be a symptom of communism. The interrogation that Nak-han had to go through included electro-shock tactics, which led to him losing the use of his legs when he was finally released. While Nak-han was still in custody, Kim Min-Ja (Moon So-Ri) blamed Han-mo for losing their son. As a viewer, I understood where she was coming from, but did not put the same level of blame on him because Han-mo never seemed like the kind of guy who knew what he was getting into. He took Nak-han to the police station assuming they would just babysit him, which is naive considering the tension in the community, but he just seems like that kind of guy who would not know better.

Working Through Problems and Post-Modern Time: The President's Barber and Epitaph

The film The President’s Barber depicts the working through of Han-Mo’s personal issues, and through them, Korea’s issues with its 20^th century history. In the film, Han-Mo’s child Nak-An is rendered paraplegic by torture; it is only when Han-Mo speaks up against the new president and quits his job in his first politicized action that Nak-An can walk again. Here, Nak-An’s embodiment of Han-Mo’s unresolved issues echo Freud’s discussion of repetition; Freud says, “the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed but acts it out. He reproduces it not as a memory but as an action; he repeats it, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it” (150). This film presents the eventual working through of Han-Mo’s issues as positive and definite, as a conclusive and happy end to the film.  This is in line with Freud’s conclusion that at the end of treatment, “the doctor has nothing to do than to wait and let things take their course, a course which cannot be avoided nor always hastened” (155).

However, in a post-modern world where grand narratives with happy endings often break down, does Freud’s notion of definitively “working through” personal issues still hold? In the film Epitaph, Lee Su-In helps the child Asako work through her personal issues in a method consistent with the way Freud describes. However, at the end of her treatment, Asako dies, and Lee Su-In is made to horrifically re-enact her memories. This film posits that the very modern notion of working through issues through repetition and remembering is not sufficient in a post-modern world where time is no longer linear. Indeed, in many films in the course, including The Host, Welcome to Dongmakgol, Dachimawa Lee and The Good, the Bad, the Weird, time has non-linear (cyclical, circular, disjointed/multiplicitous) qualities, and this reflects in their conclusions and messages.

Ultimately, The President’s Barber’s attempt to impose a grand narrative on its story is not entirely successful. The film’s happy moments and nostalgic orange tint betray a much darker story, in which a desperate, disenfranchised family tries to heal their paraplegic, tortured son, and only their despondent failure and resulting political apathy bring him back to health. Perhaps this film reflects an attempt by Korea to work through its past--but as long as time is viewed in only a modern fashion, this may prove impossible.

The president's barber

The movie The President’s barber reflects modern Korean history. Although the movie doesn’t mention the name of the presidents, it makes it obvious that the presidents in the movie are Lee SeungMan, Park Chunghee and JeonDooHwan. All three presidents are depicted as working against democracy, despite the fact that South Korea was a democratic country already. Although the movie uses colourful lights and music to perhaps lesson the shock of the portrayal of the little child being tortured, it almost left me shivering to see that(although it may be fictional) what the government has been doing led to such result. 

Furthermore, Hanmo, the barber’s obedient behaviours towards the government officials was almost as if he was obeying the king’s orders as if he was living in Joseon dynasty.  He was no more than a slave, and the atmosphere depicted in the movie was no different from North Korea; everything was censored and controlled. Nakan, on the other hand, portrays what democracy should actually be. He says what’s right in front of the president’s son, even in front numerous government officials. The society at the time, considered saying what’s right a revolution, and freedom of speech was banned. As the actor who seems to be Park Chung Hee states, he says that he does not like educated people. This implies that Park used the ignorance of naive citizens to gain power and dictatorship. Last scene in the movie where Hanmo tells the president to come back when he grows his hair implies his will to be ‘free’ and actually get to live in a democratic society. Although he gets beaten up, he is able to feel more comfortable. The film interestingly described the period that my grandparents and parents described to me, in a new perspective. 

The President's Barber & The Butler

  The comparisons have been made between The President's Barber and Forrest Gump, mostly referencing the similarities between two somewhat slow characters who were thrown into historical events without their knowledge as a means of telling a historical narrative from a (somewhat) neutral view point. However, I'd like to make the comparison between the President's Barber and the more recent film The Butler. The Butler was released in 2013, the true story of Cecil Gaines, the African American butler who served in the White House for 30 years under 8 different presidents during difficult times for the black population in the U.S. In the film, Cecil is present in the White House during the period of the Civil Rights Movement, MLK, the Vietnam War, Kennedy's assassination, and other major historical events. This is very similar to Han-mo's story in which he is exposed to political, historical events of the 1960's in South Korea from inside the Blue House while serving as the president's barber.

  In The Butler, Cecil is at one point asked if he is "political" to which he responds "no sir", a safe answer for an African American man in the U.S. at the time. This reminded me of Han-mo's tendency away from politics as he follows the instructions and opinions of his friends, participating in the rigged elections but not really knowing what was going on (in the flash still shots of the poll station in the black out, Han-mo just looks surprised and clueless). Another similarity is that in both films, the protagonists son gets much further involved into the politics of the country than his father, ironic since the fathers are personally serving the presidents. In The Butler, Cecil's son becomes a follower of Malcom X and a member of the Black Panthers, he is a Black activist ashamed of his father's position in the White House. In The President's Barber, although it is less of a pointed decision on the part of Nak-han, he still is thrown into politics in a way that his father never has been as he is captured and tortured by state police who suspect him as a spy. Comparing these two extremely similar films has made me wonder what the purpose of choosing a narrative like this is, choosing to expose history through the eyes of someone right next to it, but not quite involved in it. I think that both films are trying to use the protagonist as a middle ground in-between the state, who they serve, and the opposition, their sons - Cecil's son as a political and social activist and Nak-han as a representation of what happens to "the enemy." The film can then claim to take a neutral stance on the political, historical events, while still revealing the misgivings of the state at the time and not censoring the strong opposition that existed.