Argues that although the last two decades of Korean history were a period of progress in political democratization, the country refused to part from a "masculine point of view" which is also mirrored in Korean cinema.

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Hunting for the Whale 1
1: GENRES OF POST-TRAUMA
>
At the Edge of Metropolis in A Fine, Windy Day and Green Fish 31
2 Nowhere to Run: Disenfranchised Men on the Road in The Man with Three Coffins, Sopyonje, and Out to the World 52
3 “Is This How the War Is Remembered?”: Violent Sex and the Korean War in Silver Stallion, Spring in My Hometown, and The Taebaek Mountains 77
4 Post-Trauma and Historical Remembrance in A Single Spark and A Petal 107
2: NEW KOREAN CINEMA AUTEURS
5 Male Crisis in the Early Films of Park Kwang-su 136
6 Jang Sun-woo’s Three “F” Words: Familism, Fetishism, and Fascism 162
7 Too Early/Too Late: Temporality and Repetition in Hong Sang-su’s Films 203
3: FIN-DE-SIECLE ANXIETIES
>
8 Lethal Work: Domestic Space and Gender Troubles in Happy End and The Housemaid 233
9 “Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves”: Transgressive Agents, National Security, and Blockbuster Aesthetics in Shiri and Joint Security Area 259
Notes 277
Select Filmography of Major Directors of the New Korean Cinema 313
Index 321

Kyung Hyun Kim is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Irvine.