Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium

At a time when many media scholars are blithely espousing the idea that cinema is dead, here comes a book that openly and unapologetically celebrates the latest national cinema that has found international success. Steve Choe's Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium is perhaps the only recent book published on Korean cinema that analyzes Korean films from the millennial decade without the context of hallyu or Korean Wave. While most recent books on contemporary Korean cinema rely on the popularity of the Korean Wave in order to tell the story of Korean cinema's globalization,¹Sovereign Violence is largely unconcerned with extra-filmic texts or cultural phenomenon. Even its cover, which is graced by not a recognizable hallyu star but a screen capture of an anonymous actress in an awkward close-up shot (it is apparently from Lee Chang-dong's Poetry) that cannot be easily identified even...