Cold War Cosmopolitanism is a dedicated study of 1950s Korea through the figure of Han Hyung-mo (Han Hyŏngmo), an auteur at the center of South Korea’s “Golden Age” of cinema, who then was largely forgotten in the ensuing South Korean film history. Only a great commitment to the films at the heart of the book can produce such a focused and expansive work, and for this reason, the book will be a rewarding read and a useful open-access resource for courses on the period, world cinema, and gender.
The driving argument of Christina Klein’s monograph is that South Korea’s entrance into the newly emerging Cold War network of “Free World”—as opposed to the Communist “Second World”—in the 1950s after the Korean War produced a distinctive cinematic aesthetic all of its own, which Klein refers to as “Cold War Cosmopolitan Style.” This style, Klein argues, is best encapsulated in the innovative...
