Korean Films: Chihwaseon, The Host, and Lee Chang-dongs Secret Sunshine - Movie Review Example

Korean Films 4 Short Essays The Housemaid The paper discuss The Housemaid (dir. Kim Ki-young, 1960) based on a number of shots. The film is a claustrophobic and suspenseful masterpiece that has declared Korea as a core player on the global cinematic stage (The Korean Wave 32). Kim uses a simple plot whereby a family hires a housemaid. Subsequently, the family has in essence invited a ruin into their lives. This is because the housemaid is off already. However, upon husband sleeping her, there is a weak moment when his wife is away. Therefore, the maid becomes psychotic as well as obsessive. Ultimately, the power of dynamic has fully shifted as the family becomes prisoners in their home. They are therefore dominated as well as lorded by the maid that currently hold every card. Kim creates unbalancing effect based on repeated shots that comprise obsessively, heightening the intensity as well as the sensation that depicts a no escape from the small space. The shots dealt with the contemporary issues such as infidelity as well as sex out of marriage in a courageous manner. The housemaid is portrayed as a horrifying person alluded to a demon from the deep who after tasting the air up here, vows never to relinquish. The film thus warns grimly to those who stay from their marriage to the last moment despite the suffering and betrayal by their respective husbands who break the fourth wall. In addition, the film deals with the audience directly as a jolting theatrical choice. Hoon is never getting adequate sex from the wife who is then pregnant, and this makes him sets his sight on the new girl. Subsequently, Eun-Yi is swept away by the sex and subsequently finds him inevitable to resist. In this shot, we see a moment where it is too visceral to imagine in an American film as the housemaid buries her face in Hoon’s groin while she sighs lamenting how she loved the smell. Thus, the shot depicts how the mansion is a sexual hothouse as she seems to survive the environment. Moreover, the maid wears a uniform that is central to the sexual inequalities of this circumstance. This formal aspect are therefore in a closer connection to themes and genres as well as the historical moments of the film production. For example, the theme of infidelity is depicted as Hoon engages in sexual affairs with his housemaid while the wife is pregnant. The shallow space used in the film has presented the catastrophic images making the characters appear as being crushed against the background. In essence, it has in the creation of ambiguity in the film as the images lose their realistic appeal based on the image flatness thus promoting the images’ pictorial qualities. Thus, the representation of space in the film greatly impacts the reading of the film through manipulation of by the camera placement and lenses that control the depth, size, proportion and proximity of the objects and places in the film (Kim 34). We see how the Kim’s camera slides through the camped middle-class house as it peeks through the windows and around corners. This ultimately creates a tremendous unbalancing effect with the repeated shots. ‘Chihwaseon’ The paper is an interpretive paper in which I analyze the ‘Chihwaseon’ based on how Im Kwon Taek portray the role of artists in society. Further, I investigate and present how he relate ideas of about artistic practice to questions of national identity and national history. The film has received a greater audience and readers as it matches the test for depicting the political unrest of the society. The film is primarily an attempt by Im to describe a state of liberation and freedom of expression in the midst of political unrest. The film depicts the southeastern Korean culture based on the stylistic influence and subject matter. Moreover, it is a depiction of the anxious state of the Korean society and the filmmakers. The artist depicts how the strict rules leveled to control the type of the film produced has led to the conservative nature of the Korean society and thus the artist must struggle to realize their identity in this deeply-rooted conservative society. Thus, circumvents around a young painter called Jang Sueng Up as he tries to paint persistently despite the current political unrest in the country. Jang is thus depicted as an antisocial character who alienates himself from the rest who care for him. Im addresses both external and internal crisis as the film depicts the extent to which division of Korea has led to the independent existence of both north and south regions. Therefore, such independence existence of the region portrays the political dichotomy of Korea. Further, Im stress the country’s vulnerability through life a Sueng, who explicates the core focus of the film. Thus, the artist’s chief role is to reflect on the rest of the world the present political position of the Korean society. Further, Sueng tries realize the creative and spiritual freedom amidst the chaos following the going on of the 1894’s peasants’ revolution. Thus, the film revolves around the portrayal of the artist search for their identity as it depicts how the artist wishes to demonstrate how the film industry is controlled through censorship by United States. However, the artist searches for their freedom from the production films to realize their societal identity. Further, IM uses the revolt to emphasize the Korean society is stuck in a state of political unrest as the civilians advocate a less controlled environment. Moreover, Sueng paintings demonstrate the beauty found in these sufferings. Such paintings thus depict the identity of Korean artists who are talented and gifted with the lucrative abilities to produce great artworks. Nonetheless, the artistic works remained unappreciated as a result of the constant political unrest in the Korean society and hence the need for this artist to find plight in the society through mass film production. Thus, Chihwaseon vividly portrays the turbulent life and times of the Korean’s core artist (Chŏng 56). Thus, IM fights to overcome the rigidity of artistic boundaries as well as the social fetters that if permitted would be a denial of Im’s low-born and unschooled genius. Finally, Im depicts both the near apocalyptic upheaval of the Korean society as well as the intimate interior wrangles demonstrated by Ohwon’s creative and libidinous desires. The Host This is an interpretive paper on Bong Jun-ho’s films, The Host. The paper discusses the link between spectacle and narrative in blockbusters generally and specifically with respect to the ‘The Host’. Also, the discussion showcases how the film advances the spectacular aesthetics of blockbusters monsters films. Finally, the paper demonstrates the value of the film as whether it is spectacular or narrative in terms of being used as a black comedy and family melodrama. Therefore, the paper primarily teases out the implicit, probably instinctive assumption on the reason for big-budget blockbuster storylines are shot off other culturally sanctioned narratives. There has been a shift from the classical and postclassical blockbusters Hollywood cinema. However, both spectacle and narrative have remained integral features of both classical and postclassical blockbusters films. Indeed, on one hand the blockbusters cinemas are deeply-rooted in the classical narrative tradition of the well-made play. Conversely, the blockbusters are also anchored on the menu-driven and one-attraction-on-top-of-the-other conventions of popular theater. Therefore, it is never new about the impulse to construct a story that circumvents large-scale attractions. For example, it is a customary to rate the 1950s surge of lavish, expensive and spectacular epics as precursors of the modern blockbuster era despite their show off new technologies. In essence, the spectacle and narrative are never mutually exclusive as the key feature of cinema attractions remains sweeping historical continuities and never portrays a discontinuity. Therefore, spectacle and narrative are never necessarily mutually exclusive. Despite the fact that cinematic spectacles hold some autonomous allure, it is probable that they are always integrated into the emotional structure of expectation that heightens their appeal. Therefore, narrative and spectacle advocates a common objective such as creating a concentrated emotional experience. Therefore, Keating designed a ‘Cooperation Model’ that rules out the likelihood of any sustained separation of spectacle and narrative in blockbusters cinema. ‘Filmmakers must, therefore, ‘decide which spectacles are needed, and then make it seem that they are there for internally motivated reasons’ (Rick, 1992, 27). Thus, the filmmakers must establish narratives structures that are closely linked to the ideal of organicity in appearance. Indeed, it would be wrong to suggest a shift from classical narrative to postclassical spectacular films. Conversely, even the most spectacular and effects-driven contemporary blockbusters present an integrated appeal blending aspects of narrative and spectacle. On the other hand, the film advances the spectacular aesthetics of blockbusters monsters films. The Host is a typical depiction of a monster movies. For example, the first moments of the film depicts how the creature is modeled via careless American scientist that ordered the assistant from Korea to dispose of chemicals into the water systems. We see the monstrous manner in which the creature enters and immediately attacks Hyun-Seo in broad daylight. However, unlike the other blockbuster monstrous films, The Host goes beyond a mere monster attacks as it advanced to showcase how Hyun-Sue family conjointly finds her. Thus, Bond summarizes a range of genres and tones in one movie. The movie is thus a science fiction, an action movie, a satire about government and society and dysfunctional family drama (Meyer 39). Thus, Bong uses the metaphorical monster of conformity, hypocrisy and corruption to depict the literal monsters in the ‘The Host’. Thus, the film can be seen as an extension of Godzilla’ ‘Influenza’ as the monsters reflect the manner in which the callous choices of the society comes back to bite all in the ass. Indeed, Bong depicts the family as being forced to fight with a creature they never modeled as ultimately two members of the family are foregone. Further, Bong showcases how the government does not have the interest of its citizens as it perpetuated a hoax about the virus to have originated from the creature to avoid being responsible. The monster is the societal failures as the monster is ultimately seized by Park, Nam-joo and Nam-il despite the army and government intervention. Thus, the film is a spectacular as we see Bong using his social commentary in a deft fashion to convey his chief emotional accessible ending that depicts an act of sacrifice saddest and heartbreaking. Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine The paper is an interpretive discussion of the analogies created by the Secret Sunshine between cinematic experience and religious experience. Moreover, the paper demonstrates the film’s reflection on the visibility or invisibility of the divine. Finally, the paper depicts how such a concern relate to both the religious themes of the diegesis and the film’s commentary on the cinematic apparatus itself. The film circumvents a widow (Shine-ae) who wages a fierce war against God after horrifically losing both her husband and the son (Seon Jung-yeop) as her goal for turning to Christianity is never forthcoming. The film is that of a lucidity that seeks to see more of the world and to see it better. ‘May be you believe only in what you can see. You doubt what you can’t see.’ The quote showcase a challenge the filmmaker posed to himself and to his heroine that circumvents matters of faith and cinema. Thus, depicting the need to and desire to find the meaning beyond a merely visible and the impossibility of the certainty where there is no evidence. Thus, the film is visceral emotions and abstract notions artwork that investigates faith in all its power, cruelty and strangeness (Jung 45). It focuses on the particularities of human nature as well as the experience accounting for the experience and the inevitability of religion. In essence, the Secret Sunshine portrays the invisible in what is foremost a visual cinematic medium. As the upheaval crops about half an hour into the film, we see Jun kidnaped and found dead at the riverbank based on people’s perception that her mother is well off. Thus, this happening explicates the subject of the Secret Sunshine about Shin-ae’s relationship with God to illustrate the idea of God. Thus, Lee’s Secret of Sunshine demonstrates how religion uses us as well as how we use religion. The central scenes to showcase the analogies created by the Secret Sunshine between cinematic experience and religious experience is Shin-ae’s conversion and disillusionment scenes. We see Shin-ae in a catatonic grief after Jun’s death stumbling in a ‘prayer meeting for the wounded souls.’ The passage of documentary intensity comes almost immediately to showcase the mysterious workings of faith, as well as the suggestibility of humans. Thus, Shin-ae accepts the will of God and decides to pay a visit to her son’s killer in jail to offer her forgiveness depicting the scene’s bitterest irony, as well as the sickest joke. We, therefore, see how the expression of the man’s face mirrors that of Shin-ae characterized by the fixed, blank and smile of a Christian convert. Thus, the scene reflects the faulty, brittle logic of the forgiveness as well as the redemption doctrine as she experience this with the shifting landscape of Shin-ae’s face recording resentment, incredulity, and betrayal with a moot absolution. Thus, Shin-ae feels that God has beaten her as He took away her chance to gain a semblance of meaning, as well as control, while Shin’s life spins away from her. Thus, we see how Shin-ae has spent most of her life in the movie agonizing over the understandable and invisibility as the film reminds of what we see and know but advances to looking for explanations of meanings unknowns and invisible giving as a reason to go on by starting with the ground beneath the feet. Therefore, the film is full of analogies between cinematic experience and religious experience as Shin-ae lurches from an emotional extreme to another as the film fails to settle on any center of gravity. The analogies is thus established as the film persistently shifts registers as it assumes aspects of thriller, comedy, and the melodrama. Accordingly, Lee complicates the film’s perception of religion as Jong-chan joins the church to be close to Shin-ae and ultimately derives his own satisfaction from the practices of Christians. Work Cited Chŏng, Sŏng-il. Im Kwon-Taek. Seoul, Korea: Korean Film Council, 2006. Print. Jung, Sun. Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption: Yonsama, Rain, Oldboy, K-Pop Idols. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011. Print. Kim, Do-Goan. TV, culture, and audience in Korea: a reception study of Korean drama. Diss. Texas Tech University, 1999. Meyer, Stephenie. The Host: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2008. Internet resource. The Korean Wave: A New Pop Culture Phenomenon. Korea: Korean Culture and Information Service, 2011. Print. Read More