Jokbo

In the 1970s, when canonical director Im Kwon-taek’s work was struggling to connect with audiences and critics, he still managed to direct some masterpieces that showed his deepening interest in Korean culture and landscape, such as JOKBO (which is translated both as “The Family Pedigree” and “The Genealogy”). To force Koreans and other nations in their expansionist colonial empire to assimilate, Japanese colonial rulers pressured families to adopt Japanese style names. As a schoolkid, Im experienced the 1940 ‘Name Change Order’ first hand. The film is based on a short story by Japanese novelist Toshiyuki Kajiyama, who was himself born in Seoul and repatriated at the end of World War II. In a Kafkaesque clash with modernity, the kind and cultured patriarch Sol stubbornly resists giving up his Korean name. The main character, however, is Tani, a rare example of a sympathetic Japanese official in a Korean film, who is appreciative of the beauty of the Korean landscape and art as well as that of Sol’s dutiful daughter, yet is still under orders to convince Koreans to change their names. Tani is played by none other than Hah Myung-joong, the director of TAE. (Gerwin Tamsma)

Im Kwon-taek: FAREWELL DUMAN RIVER (1962), FEMME FATALE, JANG HEE-BIN (1968), THE HIDDEN HERO (1980), MANDALA (1981), GILSODDEUM (1985), THE GENERAL’S SON (1990), SEOPYEONJE (1993), CHUNHYANG (2000), PAINTED FIRE (2002), BEYOND THE YEARS (2007)