Paper short abstract:

This study clarifies another postwar Japanese film history that had been alienated from the dominant narratives. It focuses on the roles of Korean residents in Japan and Japanese filmmakers who worked closely related to Koreans during the postwar independent production movement.

Paper long abstract:

Picturing another postwar Japanese film history that had been alienated from the dominant narratives, this study focuses on the roles of Korean residents in Japan and Japanese filmmakers who worked closely related to Koreans in Mingei Productions and others during the postwar independent production movement.

　After the WWII, Japan experienced a wave of red purges against the backdrop of the advent of the Cold War and the Korean War. After leaving major film companies, the filmmakers set up several independent productions to bring out masterpieces depicting society and people, and produced not only films but also TV shows, which greatly influenced Japanese society at that time. Mingei Productions is a production company independent of the film department of Theatrical Troupe Mingei, which took over the prewar proletarian theater movement. Uno Jukichi, Lee Byung-woo (Inoue Kan), a Korean director of photography living in Japan, and others were affiliated to this Productions, and produced many films related to Korea. Lee Byung-woo worked for the Geijutsu Film Company before the War and was involved with the Film Society of Koreans in Japan for the film movement that they led after the War with Kim Soon-myeong who ran Tokyo Kino Productions. After the Korean Liberation from the Japanese colonialization in 1945, Kim Soon-myeong moved to Japan to actively campaign for left-wing films by Koreans in Japan and went to North Korea for the project to return to North Korea.

　This study depicts the dynamism of the left-wing film movement in East Asia under the turbulent political situations between Japan, South Korea, and North Korea after the WWII by tracing the activities of Korean residents in Japan who were active in independent productions.

Paper short abstract:

This article explores the relationship between globalization and Japanese and South Korean nation-state policies, charting their interplay and providing implications for global trends in film industries.

Paper long abstract:

International film co-production in Japan and Korea, which is the central object of engagement of East Asian film history in the wake of globalization since the 2000s, is policy-driven and at the same time it is intertwined with media globalization in the competitive circumambience. Cultural policy theory and discourse cannot be understood without recourse to the discourse around the industry situation. Therefore, to probe into international film co-production and its related cultural policy in East Asia, this article is composed of two major analyses; 1) on the news articles contain the term international film co-production in Japan and South Korea; 2) how much the agenda of the cultural policy has influenced filmmakers in Japan and Korea to practice international film co-production. Contrary to other welfare policies, the agents of cultural policy have been diversified (Bazin & Malet, 2005) and should include both the governments and the industrial agents who produce cultural products. This article explores the relationship between globalization and Japanese and South Korean nation-state policies, charting their interplay and providing implications for global trends in film industries. In particular, it probes into the practices of agents who has implemented the policy of international film co-production in the region. As a methodology of this study, I survey the agents of cultural industries in Japan and Korea and find out how the agenda of cultural policies has influenced on their practice of international film co-production.

Paper short abstract:

Kim Si-Jong(金時鐘1929-)is a Zainichi poet who was born in Korean Peninsula, and settled down in Japan in 1949. The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning of living as a Zainichi, which is the most important ideology for Kim Si-Jong, through the analysis of the word "horizon" in his poems.

Paper long abstract:

Kim Si-Jong(金時鐘1929-)is a Zainichi poet who was born in Busan and spent his childhood in Jeju. In 1948, his involvement in the Jeju 4.3 led him to settle down in Japan in 1949. And he found out the way of living as a Zainichi and writing his poem in Japanese.

The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning of living as a Zainichi, which is the most important ideology for Kim Si-Jong, through the analysis of the word "horizon" in his poems. The word of "horizon" in his poem represents his ideological position and physical position.

In his first poetry "Horizon(地平線)" (1955), he wrote "There is no horizon where you cannot go. / That place where you stand is the horizon" in "Preface". This is the repulsion against the Association of Zainichi which had the propaganda about writing in Korean language. The word of "horizon" shows his will of writing in Japanese language as a Zainichi.

In 2010, Kim Si-Jong published his 7th poetry "Lost season(失くした季節)". "Trip" In this poetry, he wrote about "horizon" again. "Horizon" in this poet is described more ideally and it represents the position of his abstract notion. For example, he wrote "In The horizon of my mind/ The distance is like murmur/ The years is like leaves in the wind/ The space-time is just on the dial", which is his position to see Korean peninsula included in his experience of colonization, Jeju 4.3 and his hope about the unity of Korean Peninsula.

In 2011, the 3.11 earthquake occurred in Japan. It had a big effect on Kim Si-Jong, so he published his 8th book of poems, “The map of back(背中の地図)” (2018) whose main subject about the 3.11. In this poetry, he wrote about “border” and mentioned “inside” and “outside”.

From the above, he expressed the will of live as a Zainichi through the "horizon" and later he defined and wrote again about "horizon". In this study try to illustrate the process of building Kim Si-Jong's thought as a Zainichi with confirming the meaning of "horizon".

Paper short abstract:

This presentation points out that the film Parasite(Bong Joon-ho,2019), which depicts social problems such as the gap between the haves and the have-nots and the gap in education in Korean society, is translated and adapted into a play(by Zainichi) in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

In addition, it is also significant that Lee Bong-woo, a Korean-Japanese who has imported and distributed many Korean films to Japan, and Jeong Eui-shin, a theater director, are involved in the translation from the film to the play. In translating the film Parasite into a play, Jeong changes the backdrop of Seoul to the Kansai area in Japan in the 1990s and the space of the semi-basement to a poor house with the tin roofs.

I pay attention to the adaptation and translation of the film into a play in the following elements; first, how the symbol of poverty in the semi-basement is translated into the play. The new subheading of Parasite was created in Japan as Parasite: Family in Semi-basement. The semi-basement is Korea’s unique housing structure that symbolizes the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and what can poverty be symbolized in the play with the backdrop of Kansai in Japan?

Second, many Korean residents in Japan, including Lee Bong-woo and Jung Eui-shin, are involved in the development and directing of the play and the script. In the film, the family living in the semi-basement is translated in the play into the Kanedas living under an embankment that does not have sunlight, and the Kanedas are Korean residents in Japan. It is also noteworthy what is different from the original with the appearance of the Korean Japanese and how the gap between the haves and the have-nots is pictured.

Third, as the film was translated into a play, the background of the times changed to the 1990s. In the 1990s, Japan experienced the prosperity of the bubble economy, the subsequent frustrations, and the lost decade. This article also probes into how Korean residents in Japan are involved in the gap between the haves and the have-nots during this period and how the subject material of Korean residents in Japan, which is not in the original film, can explain Japanese society in the 1990s.