Korean Film ~ A Spectrum of Emotion

In The Art of Watching Films ~ Sixth Edition by Boggs and Petrie, we are introduced to the theory that “This manipulation [of emotions] myst be honest and appropriate to the story. Usually we reject as sentimental films that overuse emotional material. Such films might even make us lugh when we’re supposed to cry. So a filmmaker must exercise restraint,” (49). So if a movie has either more or less emotional restraint than prescribed by the authors, the movie will either become silly or bland, and the audience will not take it seriously. Although this statement can be true for many movies that have failed by doing just that, we are led to question whether this theory is really true for all cases. Though The Art of Watching Films is tells us that it is impossible to expand the horizons of emotion, this is not at all an impossible task, as some ingenious directors working in South Korea have demonstrated. These directors stretch the boundaries of emotion and emotional restraint in their films, but despite that, are able to make captivating and memorable movies that keep the audiences coming back for more.

The quantity of emotion used in some Korean films is so copious that it would obviously make the audience receive it as ridiculous. But in actuality, it only serves to make the film stronger. This is an element of the film Jibeuro ~ The Way Home by director Lee JeongHyang, which is about a young spoiled grandson SangWoo, played by Kim EulBoon, learning love and respect for his aged, mute grandmother, played by Yu SeungHo. At one point in the film, SangWoo throws a hysteric fit about not getting the precise kind of chicken that he wanted for dinner. This would appear to be an overuse of emotion, because the viewer is prone to laughing at the scene, but it isn’t, because the scene conveys the ridiculousness of the situation by overdramatizing the events and adding some humour to the otherwise tense and hopeless point in the story. In contrast, at the end of the film, when the grandson realises that he’s been mean and insensitive, he starts being nice to his grandmother and cries when he has to leave her. Though this is rather melodramatic, it is very effective in emphasizing the transformation that SangWoo went through. By exaggerating the emotions of this scene, the director tries to convey to the audience that if they tried to go through a similar transformation, they will have a similar feeling of emotional release and happiness.

Another outstanding example of the use of generous emotion is Tae Geuk Gi ~ The Brotherhood of War, by director Kang JeGyu, in which two brothers are forced to fight in a war, which does all it can to tear their brotherly bond to shreds. Even though it manages to do so physically—by killing one of the brothers—the emotional bond between them never even wavers. While watching this movie, there was more than one place where I burst into tears because it was so emotionally charged, like the scene where the older brother JinTae is with the enemy army killing South Koreans, and refuses to believe that he is trying to kill his brother JinSeok, no matter how hard JinSeok pleads with him. It is a really tense and despair-filled scene and it brings out the deepest emotions. But it never felt as though the film is deliberately trying to milk tears out of the viewer like some Hollywood movies do. On the contrary, the beauty and truth of the movie created an atmosphere where one just can’t help but become emotional. These two directors have successfully been able to open new grounds in the area that Boggs and Petrie would have called a “lack of emotional restraint,” proving that it is not necessarily an undesireable concept.

On the other hand, some Korean directors choose to put a surprisingly small amount of emotion in places that would seem to have to burst with it. One such inconsistency is found in Chi-Hwa-Seon ~ Painted Fire by director Im KwonTaek, about a prodigious artist whose incredible skill brought him world-fame. He could never be happy, however, because the girl that he loved was in a different class than he, and in the end she married another, causing OhWon, the artist, to become a drunk, homeless wanderer. However, when this marriage happens, it is not a huge dramatic scene with tears and great sadness. On the contrary—we see OhWon go through an angry fit and then leave and start his wanderings. Instead of the audience being shocked and emotional, the movie has the audience accept this as just an event that happens and move on to the rest of the plot. And even though there could have been an emotional scene that could have worked well, this style works well for the film as well, because it reflects the artist’s wandering lifestyle and introversion, making you question whether OhWon himself really thought about what had happened, or whether he just acted on impulse. Therefore, KwonTaek effectively uses the lack of emotion itself as symbolic. A similar example is in the movie Untold Scandal by director Lee JeYong, which is about ChoWon, the cousin of Madam Cho, going too far in his attempts to prove the love of the widowed Lady Jung, a 27-year-old virgin, to Madam Cho. To accomplish this, he calls Lady Jung to see him, but when she arrives, excited and impatient to see her love again, he greets her sitting behind a windowsill with a young pretty girl, who giggles and runs away. ChoWon simply gives Lady Jung a cold heartless look, and after understanding what has happened, the lady passes out. The coldness and heartlessness of ChoWon’s actions towards Lady Jung is emphasised by the lack of emotion attached to this scene. It is almost as though the audience takes on ChoWon’s emotional perspective during this action, feeling no remorse for the actions and only focusing on winning the bet with Madam Cho. Similarly to Painted Fire, the director overuses emotional restraint as a symbol, to emphasise a point. But in contrast to the same movie, the audience is still feeling high emotional tension and a need for release during this emotionless scene, making it even more powerful. Clearly, in both of these films, the directors showed that overuse of emotional restraint can be a powerful element of a film, capable of conveying more meaning than the emotional style prescribed by Boggs and Petrie in their textbook.

It is obvious that, albeit an understandable perspective gained from collected research, Boggs and Petrie are wrong to assume that all movies must follow similar emotional formulae in order to be successful. These four masterful directors, among others, have unquestionably demonstrated that there can be great effect and meaning conveyed by using more or even less than the expected amount of emotion in a scene of a film. We are now left to question the extent to which Boggs and Petrie have erred. Is it only Korean directors that have this impressive ability to extend the horizons of emotion in films, or do other cultures have the same capacity? Is it coincidence that these four outstanding examples are all Korean-made, or is the opposite true, that the amount of such successful deviations from Boggs and Petrie’s theory found in just Korean films reflects that there are just as many examples in other cultures, resulting in a great conglomeration of counterexamples to this theory? Further research may reveal the answer to this important question, and whether this theory should be altogether refuted, or whether it can be applied with great caution.