Paper short abstract:

This paper examines a film's functions within the context of Korean and Japanese historical understandings, focusing particularly on the representation of 1920s Japanese anarchist Kaneko Fumiko in the Korean film Anarchist from Colony (2017) and its reception.

Paper long abstract:

Kaneko Fumiko is a Japanese female anarchist who was tried just after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 on charges of plotting the assassination of members of the imperial family. Kaneko was despised and abused in Japanese society because she was an unregistered person(mukoseki-sha). When she was nine, she went to Korea and stayed there for about seven years. Even in the period of Japanese imperialism, her experience in colonial Korea was different from those of other Japanese colonists.

Her background as an unregistered person and her experience in the colony led her to sympathize with the Koreans who suffered from discrimination. In this context, she established a strong comradeship with Korean activist Park Yeol after coming back to Japan, with their relation turning into a partnership.

This paper examines a new interpretation of Kaneko's story both in Korean and Japanese society through the reception of the film "Anarchist from Colony" (2017) in the two countries. Because of Kaneko's anti-Emperor system ideology, it has been difficult to endorse her in Japan. Meanwhile, this film, which enjoyed tremendous success in Korea and was released in Japan in 2019, gained unusual popularity among the Japanese audience despite the theme of Japan's "dark" history.

In Korea, the character of Kaneko whom the film portrays as a dignified woman, attracted more attention than Park. Yet, her role was still mainly perceived as that of wife to the Korean independence activist. On the other hand, the Japanese audience received the film as a love story between Kaneko and Park rather than a story about opposition to the Japanese Empire. Nonetheless the work presented the Japanese public with a new image of this female historical figure. By employing a feminist perspective, the paper will thus analyze the representation and the interpretation of Kaneko's story in "Anarchist from Colony" in order to show how the film has popularized her character in Korea and Japan and how it thereby has also influenced the understanding of the two countries' modern history.