Korean Books, Hollywood Films Tackle Vietnam War
Published on | Source
By Choi Ji-hyang
Hankook Ilbo
It is difficult for a film that deals with the Vietnam War to avoid becoming a defense of a personal stance. The reason is that the crueler the memory, the harder it is to look at it objectively.
As in Kim Chu-ja's song "Master Sergeant Kim Who Returns From Vietnam" (1969), we might wish to avoid looking at the sergeant's pain instead complimenting him for buying TVs and radios and bringing them home.
The horror film 'R-Point' showed the futility of war through the experiences of Korean soldiers in Vietnam.
Novels about the Vietnam War began appearing in the nation in the mid-1970s. Park Yong-han's "Distant Tsong Ba Gang" 머나먼 쏭바강 (1977) introduced the war into Korea's literary world, and Hwang Sok-young wrote the short stories "Pagoda", "Camel Nukkal", "The Bird of Molgaewol" and the novel "The Shadow of Weapons" (1987).
Ahn Jong-hyun wrote of a soldier's pain in the aftermath of war in "White War" (1983). However, despite the literary results, these works did not go beyond an indictment of war's wretchedness and descriptions of self-loathing.
In the 1990s, when there was more awareness of the problems, Lee Tae-hwan coldly wrote of realities that one would wish to turn away from in "Sad Bullet" (1996). "Father, father, I killed a tree, I killed Viet Congs. But why did I?" The wails are of pain in the aftermath of suffering from Agent Orange during the war, but it is also an expression of the shadow of a war we would rather ignore.
Oh Hyon-mi's novel "Red Aosai" (1995) looked at the problem of children born between Korean soldiers and Vietnamese women.
No domestic films about the Vietnam War have been made due to the high cost of product for war films, as well as people finding it difficult to pass judgment upon the Vietnam War as a historical event. The representative work would be "White War" (1992), directed by Chong Ji-young. A recent addition was Kong Soo-chang's "R-Point" (2004), a horror film that showed the futility of war through the experiences of Korean soldiers in Vietnam and took a relatively fresh approach to the subject.
In the late 1960s in the United States, popular music carried messages of anti-war and the return to humanity. Folk singers Bob Dylan, with his song "Blowing in the Wind", and Joan Baez led this movement.
Hollywood leaned toward heroic and patriotic messages and filmmakers who took on the Vietnam War as the subject matter did not have much freedom. "Green Beret", starring John Wayne, was made during the war and is representative of this situation.
Even after the war, as if it were compensation for the painful memories, there were many "Rambo"-like films in which one soldier would kill 100 Vietnamese soldiers.
Going opposite of the trend of these "light" films were Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" (1978), which focused on the hurt and tragedy of young adults because of the war; and Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" (1979), which symbolically showed the madness and destructiveness of humanity created by war through a "Revelation of Hell".
Later, Oliver Stone's "Platoon" (1986) was another step forward for cinema's relationship with the Vietnam War. The film showed scenes of war without exaggerations and portrayed soldiers realistically.
Stone also made "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), which attempted to correct the political perspective on the war by severely indicting America's hypocrisy in the aftermath of Vietnam.
Hankook Ilbo
It is difficult for a film that deals with the Vietnam War to avoid becoming a defense of a personal stance. The reason is that the crueler the memory, the harder it is to look at it objectively.
As in Kim Chu-ja's song "Master Sergeant Kim Who Returns From Vietnam" (1969), we might wish to avoid looking at the sergeant's pain instead complimenting him for buying TVs and radios and bringing them home.
The horror film 'R-Point' showed the futility of war through the experiences of Korean soldiers in Vietnam.
Novels about the Vietnam War began appearing in the nation in the mid-1970s. Park Yong-han's "Distant Tsong Ba Gang" 머나먼 쏭바강 (1977) introduced the war into Korea's literary world, and Hwang Sok-young wrote the short stories "Pagoda", "Camel Nukkal", "The Bird of Molgaewol" and the novel "The Shadow of Weapons" (1987).
Ahn Jong-hyun wrote of a soldier's pain in the aftermath of war in "White War" (1983). However, despite the literary results, these works did not go beyond an indictment of war's wretchedness and descriptions of self-loathing.
In the 1990s, when there was more awareness of the problems, Lee Tae-hwan coldly wrote of realities that one would wish to turn away from in "Sad Bullet" (1996). "Father, father, I killed a tree, I killed Viet Congs. But why did I?" The wails are of pain in the aftermath of suffering from Agent Orange during the war, but it is also an expression of the shadow of a war we would rather ignore.
Oh Hyon-mi's novel "Red Aosai" (1995) looked at the problem of children born between Korean soldiers and Vietnamese women.
No domestic films about the Vietnam War have been made due to the high cost of product for war films, as well as people finding it difficult to pass judgment upon the Vietnam War as a historical event. The representative work would be "White War" (1992), directed by Chong Ji-young. A recent addition was Kong Soo-chang's "R-Point" (2004), a horror film that showed the futility of war through the experiences of Korean soldiers in Vietnam and took a relatively fresh approach to the subject.
In the late 1960s in the United States, popular music carried messages of anti-war and the return to humanity. Folk singers Bob Dylan, with his song "Blowing in the Wind", and Joan Baez led this movement.
Hollywood leaned toward heroic and patriotic messages and filmmakers who took on the Vietnam War as the subject matter did not have much freedom. "Green Beret", starring John Wayne, was made during the war and is representative of this situation.
Even after the war, as if it were compensation for the painful memories, there were many "Rambo"-like films in which one soldier would kill 100 Vietnamese soldiers.
Going opposite of the trend of these "light" films were Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" (1978), which focused on the hurt and tragedy of young adults because of the war; and Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" (1979), which symbolically showed the madness and destructiveness of humanity created by war through a "Revelation of Hell".
Later, Oliver Stone's "Platoon" (1986) was another step forward for cinema's relationship with the Vietnam War. The film showed scenes of war without exaggerations and portrayed soldiers realistically.
Stone also made "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), which attempted to correct the political perspective on the war by severely indicting America's hypocrisy in the aftermath of Vietnam.
Advertisement