ABSTRACT:

The Quasi-Patriarch: Kim Seung-ho and the South Korean Postwar Movies
Kelly Yoojeong Jeong (UC Riverside)

In recent years the late actor Kim Seung-ho (1918-1968) has enjoyed a comeback of sorts as many of his films were introduced to the wider, younger, and even international, audiences through film festival retrospectives, new DVD releases and as new additions to the National Film Archives. One of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Korean Cinema (1955-1970), his was already a household name for older generations of Korean audiences. In many of his films, Kim portrayed the poor, hard-working, good-hearted "Everyman," who did his best to provide for his family and to keep his dignity and humanity even under dire circumstances. His most memorable roles in films such as "Coachman" and "Mr. Park" feature him as a patriarch who struggles mightily against the forces, both internal and external, that threaten his family, his values, and beliefs. Indeed, Kim became synonymous with the typical and/or ideal Korean father through his films from the postwar era, received several acting awards, and became a universally beloved quasi-father figure.

Kim Seung-ho's most prolific years as a film star coincide with the last years of the Rhee Syng Man administration and the beginning years of the Park Chung Hee administration. The film industry had to contend with severe censorship and other government directives and policies that often undermined the integrity and autonomy of the art form and practice. Nevertheless, as the most popular form of mass entertainment during this period, the films of the Golden Age reflect the tremendous social chaos and sea-change of culture in the years following the Korean War, a complex narrative of South Korea's rise from the postwar devastation and the top-down project of nation re-building, industrialization, modernization, and militarism. This article addresses several questions about Kim's depictions of (often troubled or hapless) patriarchs as cultural texts that compose a meaningful cultural facet of the postwar era, and through this suggests a reading of the South Korean popular cultural landscape. First, the article examines how Kim achieves his on-screen persona, and investigates the textual and meta-textual characteristics and significance of this star image. It will also provide an analysis of his on-screen star persona as a face of artificial reality that provided a more satisfying, idealized version of reality to the postwar Korean audiences, which paradoxically desired to both erase the harsh reality and yet wanted a close semblance of the quotidian. His portrayals of the father provides such pleasure, through the slippage between the depictions of the 'typical' and the 'ideal.' Secondly, the article examines representations of class in Kim's films and connection between class, morality and 'traditional' values. Finally, the article addresses the issues surrounding the question of masculinity and masculine ideal in postwar South Korea, to further engage with the kinds of masculine ideal that Kim's depictions presented on screen, and how such popular ideals have changed, progressed or distorted in the recent decades in Korean films.

Kelly Yoojeong Jeong received her degree in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Her areas of teaching and research specialization include Korean film, modern and contemporary Korean literature, literary criticism and cultural studies. She is an assistant professor of Korean Studies and Comparative Literature at UC Riverside.