Cold War Cosmopolitanism Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema

Reviews

"With this meticulous study, Christina Klein has created a unique product that systematically and in great detail deals with changes in film culture, so I warmly recommend the book."—New Review of Film and Television Studies

"Overall, Cold War Cosmopolitanism is an exciting and welcome addition to interdisciplinary and transnational Korean studies. It is well documented, convincingly argued, and a pleasure to read."

—Acta Koreana

"A clearly written and forcefully argued study of the interplay between the transnational forces of the Cold War and the local cultural formation of South Korean cinema. Through astute analysis of film director Han Hyung-mo’s postwar works with concepts drawn from art history, material culture studies, and cultural studies, Klein brings to light the overlooked importance of the 1950s in Korea’s encounter with the Korean War and modernization and their complex linkage to the cultural developments of Free Asia. This book belongs on the bookshelf of everyone interested in the Cold War culture of Asia."—Poshek Fu, author of Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas

"Klein shines a brilliant klieg light on the still largely unknown South Korean classic films of the 1950s by placing them in a global context of Cold War culture and politics. This is an original and engaging study with broad scholarly and popular appeal."—Carter J. Eckert, author of Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea