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1981
Volume 6, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2051-7084
  • E-ISSN: 2051-7092

Abstract

Gangster films are largely an urban genre set in the mean streets of metropolitan ganglands. A significant proportion of South Korean gangster films depart from this spatial convention, however, setting their central family or romance plots in the domestic space of the apartment. This article addresses the question of why we find gangsters in domestic space in South Korean cinema and examines what the domestic setting ‘does’ to the gangster film. (2008) is discussed in detail to exemplify the ways that questions of masculinity, gendered family role performance and class anxieties are crystallized around domestic space. What emerges in this spatial shift is a new sub-genre, the ‘family drama gangster film’. This form combines elements of the traditional gangster narrative with family melodrama, producing tension between the conflicting obligations of the gangster towards gang and family. The article concludes that the family drama gangster film emerged as a response to a conjunction of socio-economic and film industry factors and became a vehicle through which conflict between competing ideologies of Korean familism is negotiated, mostly resolving in favour of affective familism.

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2020-08-01
2026-04-22

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/content/journals/10.1386/eapc_00030_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Asian genre film; domestic space; family in film; family melodrama; gangster film; genre theory; Korean film; Korean melodrama

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