Korean Masculinity in Global ‘Hollywood’: Hallyu Megastar Jang Dong Gun and The Warrior’s Way

Abstract

This article examines the emergence of Hallyu stars in global Hollywood since 2008/2009. Specific attention is given protagonized articulations of Korean masculinity, which, on the backdrop of Hollywood Orientalism, is a strikingly peculiar phenomenon. It certainly calls to question how Hallyu megastars are ideologized as they make way in the Anglophone realm of global cinema. Examining ideological inflections of Koreanness, I employ the term worlding as a “making of worlds.” The empirical point of gravity is the cinematic part of the Jang Dong Gun-oeuvre that arguably always holds an ethnic edge, which makes it great to think worlding with. The first part of the article introduces the emergence of Korean masculinity on the global stage and Hallyu megastars in Anglophone cinema. The second part focuses on a reading of the Korean-authored and Christian “Hollywood” film The Warrior’s Way (2010). In the film Korean masculinity arguably assumes a pastoral humanitarian role as protector of the planet and its minorities, which reads as a form of transnational minjung ideology. With this I hope to contribute to an increased understanding of the on-going reformation of ethnoracial and cultural boundaries pertaining to Koreanness as it emerges in the global mediascape.