I've been trying to get my hands on this article for a while... Three Periods of Korean Queer Cinema by Pil Ho Kim and C. Colin Singer is a great outline and starting point for understanding queer movies in Korea. Published in Acta Koreana in 2011, only the first page is available online. Here is the abstract:
The LGBT movement in Korea may have a relatively short history dating back to the mid-1990s, yet Korean queer cinema has had a unique role in breaking ground in the LGBT realm well before the onset of social activism. We break down the history of Korean queer cinema into three distinct chronological periods, according to the manner in which queer content is displayed and the reception of the films by both the government authorities and the public: the Invisible Age (1976–1998), the Camouflage Age (1998–2005), the Blockbuster Age (2005–present). The Invisible Age could reach as far back as the earliest days of Korean cinema, but two landmark films deserve attention: Ascetic and Broken Branches. The former in particular characterizes the period when its lesbianism was too invisible in the eyes of the public to create much of an impact. Even with the relaxed ‘ethical standards’ since 1998, homosexuality was still deemed too explosive. In the Age of Camouflage, therefore, such popular films as Memento Mori and Bungee Jumping of Their Own masked their homosexual content with horror and romance fantasies. The mega-success of The King and the Clown has proven that LGBT-themed films can compete in the box office, opening the Blockbuster Age of queer cinema. While the ‘flower boy’ formula of beautiful gay character in The King and the Clown has been widely adopted by the mainstream film and entertainment industries, No Regret exemplifies a genre-bending strategy to express queer sexualities in Korean independent cinema.
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| Ascetic: Woman and Woman One of the films in Korea's 'Invisible Age of Cinema' |
The article fleshes out the eras, the historical developments in the LGBT movement that correspond with each time period, and the reaction toward the films by both the public and LGBTQ activists. This article really is a great outline for understanding queer films in Korea. Unfortunately, I have not found the article available online... If you have trouble finding it through your local library, send me a message.