Segregated cinemas, intertwined histories: the ethnically segregated film cultures in 1920s Korea under Japanese colonial rule

Abstract

The article examines the ethnically segregated film cultures in Korea under Japanese colonial rule, focusing specifically on the film production, exhibition and film-viewing practices in segregated urban areas in Seoul of the 1920s. Due to the massive migration across the Japanese Empire, Japanese migrants accounted for one-fourth of Seoul's entire population beginning in the mid-1910s onwards, which generated rich Japanese urban and film cultures within the colonized city. Hence Japanese film culture did not simply impact upon colonial film cultures externally, but instead it was tightly interwoven within colonial film cultures, exercising its influences on them from within. Through the examination of the separated but at times intertwined film cultures of Koreans and Japanese migrants, this essay looks at where links were made or severed between the imperial film culture and that of the colonized. By doing so, the article ultimately attempts to explore the blurry boundaries between early Japanese and Korean cinemas and a shared film history between the two national cinemas.