Reopening Wounds: Processing Korean Cultural Trauma in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Abstract

In 1988, South Korean president Roh Tae-woo implemented democratic reforms in order to host the Olympic Games. These reforms opened the floodgates for Korean New Wave films. The reforms repealed censorship regulations and gave Korean filmmakers the autonomy to actualize their creative visions for the first time since they were colonized by Japan in 1910. The results of this newfound artistic freedom were films that grappled with the trauma of eighty years of colonialism, war, and authoritarian dictatorship through biting political commentary. This study explores Park Chan-wook’s representation of 한 (han) Korean cultural trauma in his New Wave films Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Using literature on trauma, film, and Korean history combined with original film analysis, this study works to explain the criticisms embedded in Chan-wook’s films. The films critique revenge fantasies and both conscious and unconscious ignorance of traumatic events by demonstrating they are ineffective methods of processing한. His films show that the only way to heal 한 is to acknowledge and accept all wrongdoing, even one's own, and mourn the consequences of the atrocities. While 한 is specific to Koreans, cultural trauma is not. The ubiquity of cultural trauma makes the lessons in Chan- wook’s works of paramount importance and global relevance. While resolution of trauma is never final, Chan-wook’s films serve both as a guideline for and a performance of cultural healing in the face of moral atrocities.