Bloomsbury Handbook of North Korean Cinema

The Bloomsbury Handbook of North Korean Cinema provides a solid and diverse foundation for the expanding scholarship on North Korean cinema. It is also a road map for connecting this field to broader issues in film and media studies: film history, affect and ideology, genre, and transnational cinema cultures. Since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) has played diverse roles: a Cold War communist threat to the US, the other half of a divided nation to South Korea, an ally to the Soviet Union and China, one model for anti-colonialism to national liberation movements, an exotic political and cultural anomaly in the era of globalization. From Cold War-era films to contemporary sensationalist media coverage, external images have been powerful in representing North Korea in these various roles. On the other hand, North Korean film itself is often assumed to be “unwatchable,” in terms of both quality and accessibility. This first handbook on North Korean cinema contests this assumption, refusing to reduce North Korean cinema to political propaganda and focusing on its aesthetic forms and cultural meanings. This book explores the history of North Korean film, as well as how North Korean history is portrayed in film; the role of affect in North Korean films; various genres of film, including animation, spy films, and documentary; and, it looks at transnational connections. By connecting the worlds of North Korean cinema to broader questions in global cinema studies, this book explores the complexity of a national cinema too often reduced to a single image.