Cine-Mobility: Twentieth-Century Transformations in Korea's Film and Transportation by Han Sang Kim (review)

Han Sang Kim's book, Cine-Mobility: Twentieth-Century Transformations in Korea's Film and Transportation, significantly contributes to East Asian film studies, emphasizing Kim's unique approach in using films and media to scrutinize Korean society. While some sociologists may pay attention to the portrayal of Korean modernity and political changes in Kim's book, I focus on his approach to films and media and how he employs them to examine modern history of Korea. This book navigates modern Korean history, entwining it with the evolution of "world-as-gesture" of transportation and media. And Kim finally solves a puzzle of the East Asian media history with a piece of modernity and mobility in Korean cinema.

The book commences with the common trope of initiating film historiography with a train, symbolizing grandeur and mobility, specifically under the Japanese colonial empire. In the first part, titled "Train-Cinema Interface," Kim establishes his overarching concept of "world-as-gesture," inspired by Heidegger's "world-as-picture" which means "the world grasped as picture" (p. 2). The railroad system during the Japanese colonial era becomes a mechanism for population management, where discipline is internalized under visual dominance. The train signifying centralizing movement symbolizes imperial authority and hierarchy between the Korean Empire and the Japanese Empire, as well as the militarization during World War II. Kim calls modernity under the "type of biopower locomotive modernity." As he mentions that locomotive modernity involves with (1) collectivity in motion and vision, (2) centralizing movement, and (3) scheduling and stability, it is interesting to read the nuanced comparison of the female protagonist in Sweat Dream: Lullaby of Death with the male protagonist in Volunteer in terms of hopping on the loop of the locomotive modernity. Chapter 2, "Cinematic Railway Tourism in the 'New Order in East Asia'," shifts the focus to how cultural films, propaganda, and newsreels use the tourism code to reinforce the Imperialistic imagination of the Japanese Empire. Analyzing the promotional documentary film Tokyo-Peking (1939), Kim reveals its transformation of various localities into tourist spectacles, integrating them into the multicultural façade of the Japanese Empire. The film aimed to create an imagined community (Anderson 1983) where viewers interpret diverse locations as part of a shared local culture. Part I provides a nuanced exploration of the intricate relationship between cinema, transportation, and the sociopolitical landscape of the time.

In part II, "Automobile-Screen Interface," Kim explores the activities of the Department of Public Information in the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) and the automobile representation by Park Chung Hee's regime from the 1950s to 1970s. Kim analyzes the impact of U.S. newsreel films on Korean audiences, emphasizing the role of the mobile unit organized by the Department of Public Information. This unit used trains, military jeeps, and trucks to screen U.S. propaganda films showcasing the American lifestyle and political system to Koreans. Trains transported films and screening units between cities, while jeeps and trucks carried them from train stations to remote areas. Kim underscores the portrayal of cars as a medium for everyday American lives of which visual representation may have sparked a yearning among Korean viewers for the American way of life and its democratic ideals, symbolized through car ownership. In Chapter 4, Kim examines how Park's power was constructed in relation to the rise of automobile manufacturing and nationwide building projects in South Korea.

The book intriguingly explores the concept of "the colonial," offering vivid insights into visual representations and infrastructure projects shaping historical narratives. While limited source materials constrain the analysis of "the colonized," the portrayal of "the colonial" is remarkably concrete. Examples like the imperial figure on a train during the emperor's visit or Park Chung-hee in a United States Information Service (USIS) film's jeep vividly depict this dynamic. These portrayals not only present moving spectacles but also...