Forever Girls: Necro-Cinematics and South Korean Girlhood

Humor & Entertainment

Choi, Jinhee

Movies

Oxford University Press

Forever Girls explores girlhood manifest in contemporary South Korean cinema within the conflicting socio-political forces that shaped the nation: coloniality, postcolonial and postwar traumas, modernity, and democracy. Author Jinhee Choi reorients the direction of current scholarship on contemporary South Korean cinema from patriarchy, masculinity and violence, to instead consider girls as a social imaginary. Drawing on the depiction of girlhood from the 1970s as a reference image, including that of low-wage working-class girls, Choi explores the extent to which the form of girlhood represented in the millennial South Korean cinema still resonates with such an image. From the popular teen pictures and male auteurs' work of the 1970s; to a contemporary film cycle on military sexual slavery ("wianbu"); to Bong Joon-ho's girl trilogy; and to South Korean independent cinema of 2010s directed by women, Choi focuses on girls' sexuality, labor, and leisure, and demonstrates how girls in contemporary South Korean cinema are increasingly represented to have agency (albeit still limited); they are subjects who remember the past, experience the present, and envision the future, and whose interiority lies beyond their status as victims of sexual violence and national trauma. Choi further critically engages with the girlhood associated with unproductivity and dismissed as mere irreality. In contrast, she foregrounds how cinema could adequately mourn girls' deaths and grant them shelter and idleness as part of what is desperately needed: the very girlhood that has long been denied.

For the past decade, the Korean film industry has enjoyed a renaissance. With innovative storytelling and visceral effects, Korean films not only have been commercially viable in the domestic and regional markets but also have appealed to cinephiles everywhere on the international festival circuit. This book provides both an industrial and an aesthetic account of how the Korean film industry managed to turn an economic crisis--triggered in part by globalizing processes in the world film industry--into a fiscal and cultural boom. Jinhee Choi examines the ways in which Korean film production companies, backed by affluent corporations and venture capitalists, concocted a variety of winning production trends. Through close analyses of key films, Choi demonstrates how contemporary Korean cinema portrays issues immediate to its own Korean audiences while incorporating the transnational aesthetics of Hollywood and other national cinemas such as Hong Kong and Japan. Appendices include data on box office rankings, numbers of films produced and released, market shares, and film festival showings.

The South Korean Film Renaissance: Local Hitmakers, Global Provocateurs (Wesleyan Film)

Wesleyan University Press

For the past decade, the Korean film industry has enjoyed a renaissance. With innovative storytelling and visceral effects, Korean films not only have been commercially viable in the domestic and regional markets but also have appealed to cinephiles everywhere on the international festival circuit. This book provides both an industrial and an aesthetic account of how the Korean film industry managed to turn an economic crisis―triggered in part by globalizing processes in the world film industry―into a fiscal and cultural boom. Jinhee Choi examines the ways in which Korean film production companies, backed by affluent corporations and venture capitalists, concocted a variety of winning production trends. Through close analyses of key films, Choi demonstrates how contemporary Korean cinema portrays issues immediate to its own Korean audiences while incorporating the transnational aesthetics of Hollywood and other national cinemas such as Hong Kong and Japan. Appendices include data on box office rankings, numbers of films produced and released, market shares, and film festival showings.

Candida Höfer: Libraries: The Return

Heynen, Julian

Weichelt, Rainer

Verlag Kettler

This book compares production and consumption of Asian horror cinemas in different national contexts and their multidirectional dialogues with Hollywood and neighboring Asian cultures. Individual essays highlight common themes including technology, digital media, adolescent audience sensibilities, transnational co-productions, pan-Asian marketing techniques, and variations on the good versus evil concept that is evident in many Asian horror films.

Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema (TransAsia: Screen Cultures)

Hong Kong University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Choi, Jinhee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Choi, Jinhee

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Choi, Jinhee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Forever Girls: Necro-Cinematics and South Korean Girlhood

Forever Girls: Necro-Cinematics and South Korean Girlhood

The South Korean Film Renaissance: Local Hitmakers, Global Provocateurs (Wesleyan Film)

The South Korean Film Renaissance: Local Hitmakers, Global Provocateurs (Wesleyan Film)

Candida Höfer: Libraries: The Return

Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema (TransAsia: Screen Cultures)