Take-home final exam of Korean Melodrama class - Term Paper Example

In the context of cinema, shinpa is used to describe the melodramatic films made mainly between 1913 and 1923. These films were the ones which had strong theatrical elements as compared to the pure film drama which was influenced from the western style. Shinpa films were criticized by the critics in the beginning but later the contemporary audience received them very well. The shinpa films were appreciated but then they suddenly disappeared. Today, they exist in some form (Gateward 44). Shinpa originated in Japan and it meant a new wave to the old plays.

Filming in Korea was initiated by the shinpa troupes who adapted them from Japanese plays. This style eventually had a huge impact on the Korean cinema. Shinpa came as a modernization in the colonized Korea where the film and theatre combined and produced silent films with songs in the background. It also brought new concepts to the Korean cinema; the earliest being family conspiracies with an intellectual who has been sent abroad to study. This was the earliest and most evident characteristic of shinpa (Gateward 44).

Contradiction between two values, describing pain and confusion to catch the attention of the viewers to bring them out of the old values and get them into new modern ones. The struggle between the two values or two feeling of a person is the shinpa form portraying the collision between traditional and modern Korea. The traditional Korean melodrama was largely influenced by the western culture as Korea was largely dependent upon the American economy and culture both. However, there were still many of the ideas that belonged to popular culture.

Shinpa got hold of this culture and it started developing. Eventually, with the development of the cinema and the modernization, shinpa lost its control. Shinpa was considered to be a colonial hangover and it was forced out of cinema. Melodramatic films of families and youth took over and shinpa had disappeared. Shinpa’s stylistic elements