Korean Job Discussion Forums

[shouvikdatta]

Hi all

Just thought I would make a few observations. I have watched a few Korean historical TV dramas and I obviously can't understand what's going on.

They sometimes show torture scenes. For example, they show people (peasants, or captured soldiers) being tied onto chairs and then their legs are pulled apart with sticks.

Perhaps this is an echo of South Korea's recent past. Before the change to democracy in c.1988, there was a regime with a fairly bad human rights record. From what I've read, torture was often used by the state in South Korea then.

All in all, I think the Koreans' attitude to violence is different from, for example the stylized violence of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill, Volume 2". I suppose they really know what it's really like to be on the receiving end of violent rule,

Shouvik Datta.

[swetepete]

I noticed that in their epic music video drama things they very often have big gang fights and shoot-outs and elaborate car-helicopter-horse crashes in which the hero/heroine inevitably dies tragically, leaving their significant other crying in the rain.
It always rains in those things.
Dunno if that has much to do with the recent collective memories of torture, but it sure is funny to watch with the sound off.