Lee Yoon-jong: The Secret Charm of Erotic Films

The first volume commemorating the Korean Film Council's 50th anniversary. To mark its 50th anniversary, the Korean Film Council published a four-volume series. From its first Film Theory Series book, Growth as a Cinematic Art (1979; Arthur Knight, author; Choi Chang-seop and Kim Mu-hyeon, translators; Korea Motion Picture Promotion Corporation), through Korean Cinema: From the Opening of the Ports to the Flowering of Film (2006; Kim Mi-hyeon et al.; Communication Books), it had published 36 titles. The four new books were selected through an open call for authors to commemorate the Council's 50th anniversary in 2023, provide film professionals with varied knowledge, and help train the next generation of film and video workers. The Secret Appeal of Erotic Korean Films explores erotic films, a mainstream production genre and trend in 1980s Korean cinema. It examines how these films had a counter-developmentalist character, with politically progressive intentions that criticized the regime indirectly rather than simply conforming to it. It also reveals their tensions: when those intentions joined with populism, then the most progressive ideology of the time, some aspects look regressive from a 21st-century perspective, particularly through the lens of gender politics. Progress and development, and cinematic eroticism in an age beyond eroticism. This book examines the 1980s, when Korean cinema began to receive serious recognition beyond Asia and on Western stages. Although Korean film studies did change, few new perspectives on 1980s Korean films have appeared in recent decades.

Korean title: 에로방화의 은밀한 매력

Korean author: 이윤종

Korean publisher: 두두

ISBN-13: 9788980212521