This study investigates the controversial motion pictures written and
directed by the independent filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, one of the most
acclaimed Korean auteurs in the English-speaking world. Propelled by
underdog protagonists who can only communicate through shared corporeal
pain and extreme violence, Kim's graphic films have been classified by
Western audiences as belonging to sensationalist East Asian "extreme"
cinema, and Kim has been labeled a "psychopath" and "misogynist" in
South Korea. Drawing upon both Korean-language and English-language
sources, Hye Seung Chung challenges these misunderstandings,
recuperating Kim's oeuvre as a therapeutic, yet brutal cinema of
Nietzschean ressentiment (political anger and resentment deriving from
subordination and oppression). Chung argues that the power of Kim's
cinema lies precisely in its ability to capture, channel, and convey the
raw emotions of protagonists who live on the bottom rungs of Korean
society. She provides historical and postcolonial readings of
victimization and violence in Kim's cinema, which tackles such socially
relevant topics as national division in Wild Animals and The Coast
Guard and U.S. military occupation in Address Unknown. She also
explores the religious and spiritual themes in Kim's most recent works,
which suggest possibilities of reconciliation and transcendence.