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The colonial experience of the early twentieth century shaped
Korea’s culture and identity, leaving a troubling past that
was subtly reconstructed in South Korean postcolonial
cinema. Relating postcolonial discourses to a reading of
Manchurian action films,
kisaeng and gangster
films, and revenge horror films,
Parameters of Disavowal
shows how filmmakers reworked, recontextualized, and erased ideas
and symbols of colonial power. In particular, Jinsoo An examines
how South Korean films privileged certain sites, such as
the
kisaeng house and the Manchurian frontier,
generating unique meanings that challenged the domination of the
colonial power, and how horror films indirectly explored both the
continuing trauma of colonial violence and lingering emotional ties
to the colonial order. Espousing the ideology of nationalism while
responding to a new Cold War order that positioned Japan and South
Korea as political and economic allies, postcolonial cinema
formulated distinctive ways of seeing and imagining the colonial
past.