• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.221-254
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• 2020

This paper finds a solution in the social context which cannot be explained thoroughly by well-timed release date, revival of comedy films, and the attraction of Lee Byeong-heon's comedy etc. while it throws question of how the film, Extreme Job captivated 16 million audience. The incredible hits of Extreme Job cannot be explained by analyzing the text alone. After this essay investigates a function and a role of comedy as a public sphere, it examines people's desires and wishes in the comedy and other genres since 2008 when the conservative government has seized power. Since 2008 a series of dark tone's action thriller, social problem film, and disaster film have emerged, these genres showed absence of public security, crisis of democracy and criticism against rulling class. On the other hand, hit comedy films have showed escapism such as weepie, nostalgia, and fantasy at the same time, generally. Although Veteran (2015) is not full-blown comedy, after this film's big success, "comic mode" has gradually revived. A light tone's films which are truer to genre rules has started representing the wishes of people toward social reforms and changes. Meanwhile, "Candlelight Protest" served as a momentum to recover the democracy which has been in crisis, but it could not lead changes in economic and daily lives. Exreme Job can be read as a question how we will survive since "Candlight Protest." The lives of detectives as self-employed workers who has taken over a fried chicken restaurant for going undercover are appearances of ordinary persons who must survive in the edless conpetition. Furthermore, this film shows a dream of a "great success myth" which becomes well-known as a famous restaurant and a self-management such as brand-naming and an exapansion of franchise business. We can read ganster's chicken franchises as a huge distribution industry which disturbs market system by delivering drugs secretly. While applauses that we give to the police having identities of self-employed workers which sweeps the ganster are giving support to oridinary neighborhood like us, they are also wishes of people who long for the restoration of publicness of police in the market which is becoming increasingly privatized today. A significance of this essay is to examine Extreme Job in terms of the geography of film genres and the revival of comic mode sicne 2008 at the macro level, and is to read the film in the perspective of the problems of economic and daily lives which has been still unsolved since "Candlelight Protest" at the micro level.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.9-40
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• 2019

This study presents an investigation into South Korean films in the 1990s in the aspects of genre change and emotional reorganization. The 1990s witnessed a change of genres and a paradigm shift in the history of Korean films according to the revolutionary changes of the film industry structure and media environment. Believing that these changes had something to do with emotional changes driven by global capitalization symbolized by democratization in 1987 and the foreign currency crisis in 1998, the investigator analyzed the phenomena in film texts and examined the opportunities and context behind them. Unlike previous researches, this study made an approach to the history of Korean films in the 1990s with three points: first, this study focused on why the romantic comedy genre emerged in the 1990s and what stages its formation underwent since there had been no profound discussions about them; secondly, this study analyzed the biggest hits during the transitional period from 1987~1999 to figure out the mainstream genres and emotions during that period since these hits would provide texts to show the genre domain and public taste in a symbolic way; and finally, this study grew out of the separate investigation approach between melodramas and romantic comedies and looked into an emotional structure to encompass both genres to make a more broad and dynamic approach to South Korean films in the 1990s. History flows continuously without severance from previous times. When there is attention paid to inflection points and opportunities in the continuum, it can show the dynamics and structures of changes. This research led to the following conclusions: the mainstream genre of South Korean films had been melodramas until the 1980s. The old convention had been kept to offset or suture contradictions and excessive elements deviant from the structural consistency. Here, the structural consistency refers to no compliance to rational regulations or trade. The process of genre reorganization in the 1990s happened while securing some distance from the convention of making the structural consistency a sacrifice. The direction was to reinforce control through reasonable rationalism and logic of capital. It developed into romance, which would start with comedy to keep distance from the objects through laughter, heighten the level of remarks, and expand criticality, symbolize emotions with taste items, and build through the logic of mutual consensus and practical trade. In the 1990s, the South Korean films thus developed in a direction of moving away from the narrative of urgent pathos based on unconditional familism. It was on the same track as the entry of the South Korean society into the upgraded orbits of democracy and capitalism as the twins of modern rationalism since the latter part of the 1980s.