The Intimate Other: Screening North Korean Defectors in Multicultural South Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers two South Korean films, Wedding Campaign (Hwang, 2005) and Secret Reunion (Jang, 2010), to better understand the evolution of cinematic representations of North Koreans within the context of the multicultural South’s approaches to North Korean arrivals. I focus on how the two films construct North Korean defectors in relation to other ethnic groups. After considering governmental approaches to North Korean defectors and other foreign migrants, I examine how the films are distinguished from both Cold War tropes that present North Koreans as the dangerous Other and the narratives of the Sunshine era that embrace North Koreans based on shared ethnicity. I argue that these films’ depiction of North Koreans in relation to multiculturalism manifests neoliberal nationalism within a highly transnational, multiethnic South Korea, as well as the paradoxical nature of South Korean multiculturalism, which emphasises assimilation rather than cultural difference. Ultimately, these films demonstrate changing narratives of South Korea as a multicultural and globalising nation with an increasing emphasis on the latter.