Chapter Two. Forces of Nature on the Topographies of the Nation: Responses to the Calamitous Foreign Invasions, 1590s–1630s

Abstract

The approximate half-century of invasions, from 1592 to 1637, was arguably the most decisive experience in Korea’s national history, helping to solidify a historical consciousness of victimisation at the hands of hostile external forces that became vital to making meaning out of the modern era as well. It is thus not surprising that cinematic treatments of these invasions, from “The Admiral” (2015) to “War of the Arrows” (2011) and “The Fortress” (2017), have tended to layer multiple meanings onto stylish war epics. Here, the fates determining national survival are represented most decisively by nature, especially those natural forces associated with the homeland, and most pointedly natural phenomena that are conjured as defenders against external intruders. As for human agents, notwithstanding a frequent concern with King Gwanghae, a notable emphasis in these works is the broadened social background of the main characters, from low-level commanders and ragtag soldiers to commoners and even rebels and social outcasts, who strive to save the day in the place of customary leaders. The homeland, with its special topography, climate, and elements, can be protected by dynamic natural forces, but only if channelled by the proper representatives of the people.

FormalPara Playbill

“The Admiral--Roaring Currents” (Myeongnyang [“Battle of Myeongnyang”]); Kim Han-min, 2014

“Blades of Blood” (Gureu-meul beoseonan dal cheoreom [“Like the moon that sheds the clouds”]); Yi Jun-ik, 2010

“War of the Arrows” (Choejong byeonggi hwal [“Archery, the ultimate weapon”]); Kim Han-min, 2011

“Masquerade” (Gwanghae: wangi doen namja [“Gwanghae: the man who became king”]); Chu Chang-min, 2012

“The Swordsman” (Geumgaek); Choe Jae-hun, 2020

“Warriors of the Dawn” (Daerip-gun [“Proxy soldiers”]); Jeong Yun-cheol, 2017

“The Fortress” (Namhan sanseong [“Namhan Mountain Fortress”]); Hwang Dong-gyu, 2017

On the eve of the ultimate battle in “The Admiral--Roaring Currents”, the grand epic of Korea’s 1597 naval victory against Japanese invaders, the greatest of Korean military heroes rallies his dispirited sailors with his most widely attributed aphorism: “If we wish to live, we will die! If we wish to die, we will live!” A call to bravery and personal sacrifice, as well as the only remaining, desperate means to withstand the enormous Japanese armada, Admiral Yi Sun-sin seems also to allude to a mysterious mixture of fate and freedom, with equally vital roles for both individual agency—seeking life or death—and an expansively cosmic logic in determining not only one’s own destiny but more importantly that of the nation as well. Heaven alone could have consented to the horrific devastation of the Japanese invasions, and heaven alone could now receive the Koreans’ appeal and render it into action. But crucially, it took the admiral to channel this cosmic will.

The near half-century period of massive foreign invasions, from 1592 to 1637, was arguably the most decisive and signal moment in Korean history. This experience helped solidify everything from collective identity to the character of the country’s premodern era and even of the twentieth century, when the roaring currents of nationalism, shaped substantially by a consciousness of historical victimisation from external forces, framed the meaning of modern change. The 1597 Battle of Myeongnyang, depicted in “The Admiral”, led to the end of the Japanese invasions that had launched in 1592 and re-launched earlier in 1597. But soon thereafter, the Manchus to the north arose into a fierce military force that, through two invasions of the peninsula in 1627 and 1636/1637, respectively, further compelled a reconsideration of Koreans’ place in the East Asian order, especially after the Manchus later conquered even Ming dynasty China in 1644. As with a few other occasions in Korea’s past, but perhaps most acutely, the mounting blows of this period threatened the country’s very existence.

It is thus not surprising that cinematic treatments of these two sets of invasions have tended to assign fateful historical significance to them and to layer multiple meanings into what are, on the surface, stylish war epics. That, at least, is the case for two of the main films examined in this chapter, both by the same director, Kim Han-min: “The Admiral”, set in 1597, and “War of the Arrows”, set in the 1630s. In signalling the centrality of immediate salvation, plentiful symbols of nationhood make appearances, essential qualities that bestow Korea’s existential worthiness from the standpoint of heaven’s will. And here, the fates summoned for national survival are exhibited most decisively by the natural phenomena of the homeland. As for the human realm, a notable commonality in these films, in contrast to those in Chap. 1 and especially Chap. 3, is the broader social representation of the main characters. Even with the heightened attention paid to an overthrown monarch, Gwanghae, who fell victim to the political tensions of the invasions era, the films conjure in him an embodiment of the people’s concerns and welfare amid unprecedented challenges. For the most part, with one notable exception—“The Fortress”, set in a literally besieged court—the primary heroes come from across the social spectrum, from military commanders and ragtag soldiers to commoners and even rebels and social outcasts who, in the place of political leaders, strive to save the day, especially with the help of the natural world. The homeland, with its particular geography, climate, and elements, can be defended by dynamic natural features and forces, but only if channelled by the proper representations of the people. Here, then, the internal social topography serves as an emblem and even cause of the external invasions.

Wind and Waves in Defending the Homeland: The Japanese Invasions of the 1590s

Considering the stupendous scale of the destruction and of its historical repercussions, the Japanese invasions actually have received less cinematic coverage than one might expect. As if the enormity of its significance or the multitude of its major details cannot be squeezed into a two-hour format, the treatments have been numerous in television series but relatively few in theatrical releases. The biggest of all blockbusters, “The Admiral” (Myeongnyang [“Battle of Myeongnyang”]; Kim Han-min, 2014), seems to compensate for this dearth on its own. That it remains the most popular film in South Korean history, with over 17 million attendances from its run in 2014, should come as little surprise: It focuses on Korea’s most familiar military hero in explosive, epic battles, and its moral positioning squarely and steadily taps into the hardest core of nationalist sentiment.¹⁸

That another film worthy of attention, “Blades of Blood” (Gureu-meul beoseonan dal cheoreom [“Like the moon that sheds the clouds”]; Yi Jun-ik, 2010), had none of these traits probably starts to explain why it was not a box office success, despite its stylish fighting sequences and direction from Yi Jun-ik, director of “The King and the Clown” (Chap. 1) and “The Throne” (Chap. 3). Though set in the beginning of the Japanese invasions, the primary evils are not the Japanese but rather the bumbling King Seonjo and his equally craven ministers, consumed as they are more by factional battles against each other than by the imminent war with Japan. But endangering this political arrangement is a rebellious utopian movement led by a former idealist turned politically ambitious and bloodthirsty swordsman, and the heroic figure who emerges to stop him, a courtesan’s illegitimate son (seoja)—trained by a hackneyed blind master—seeking vengeance for the swordsman’s killing of his father. The inevitable final fight pits the two Koreans against each other on the grounds of the main palace while the capital city, having been abandoned by the cowardly monarch, is ravaged by the musket-toting Japanese soldiers. The concubine’s son, the one with the lowly blood who has violently raged against his humiliating birth status his entire life, highlights the film’s questioning of the true threat when the answer is supposed to be clear-cut. To the rebel millenarian group, the real enemy is the decrepit political system that proved incapable of protecting the people, while to the illegitimate son it is the entire social and cultural apparatus of hereditary discrimination governing Korean society, down to his own family. The Japanese invasion is merely the backdrop, a coy stand-in for the most urgent problem in late sixteenth-century Korea, indeed a symptom more than the cause of ultimate problems. In representing the fateful forces of cumulative decay, then, the domineering centrality of privileged connections in the Korean moral order rots the government, society, and family and has placed such unseemly figures at the head of the national body. The will of individuals like the peasant soldiers and the concubine’s son thus must act as agents of destruction against the longstanding oppressive misappropriation of heaven, including its natural laws. “Like the Moon that Sheds the Clouds”, the Korean title of the film as well as the novel on which it is based, refers not just to the Japanese storm but to the struggle to escape the gloomy social reality based on selfish interests and bloodlines.

As a moral problem, such a tension in the relationship between human righteousness, on the one hand, and a natural order seemingly reflecting the will of heaven, on the other hand, has long stymied the search for explanations of epochal historical shifts. Indeed, Koreans have applied this conundrum to the entire series of frightening incursions they have suffered throughout their history. Such an understanding has been accentuated to great effect, for example, in marshalling national consciousness in the twentieth century, when Korea suffered a barrage of foreign intrusions and a four-decade-long period of Japanese domination. Back in the Goryeo era of the tenth to fourteenth centuries, attacks by the Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongols from the north engendered an outpouring of appeals for heavenly protection, and to demonstrate their faith, Korean Buddhists undertook a years-long project, twice no less, of carving the wooden printing blocks for the Buddhist canon, the Tripitika Koreana.

Based on these historical lessons, the Japanese invasion of 1592 should have been better anticipated, especially given the warnings coming from across the waters. Some Korean officials even returned from an audience with the new Japanese unifier, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in 1590 with alarming reports, which nonetheless were nullified by opposing assurances from an envoy belonging to a rival political faction. Such dysfunction and uncertainty, as sketched in a cartoonish scene from “Blades of Blood”, might have led to harmful consequences, including the neglect or weakening of preparations for war. One person who saw more clearly the impending storm was Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who as commander of a provincial naval battalion rushed his ships to the southeastern corner of Joseon, the landing area of the Japanese in the spring of 1592, and soon took to destroying enemy ships off the coast in a famed series of naval battles. These victories prevented a quick turn towards the peninsula’s west coast by the Japanese fleet carrying supplies to its armies, but the tens of thousands of marauding invaders on land still ripped through the countryside on their way to the Korean capital of Hanyang (Seoul). The overwhelming fear in the Korean government quickly led the king to scurry to safety up north, abandoning the capital and its residents to fend for themselves. Urgent appeals to the Ming emperor brought forth a large relief army from China, which engaged the Japanese in Pyongyang and forced the retreat of the invaders to the southern coast, where they became ensconced as peace negotiations began in 1593. Over the next few years, this uneasy stalemate reigned while Koreans tried to recover from the devastation and reestablish a sense of normalcy. But Admiral Yi, despite his successful military outcomes against the Japanese, was caught in the factional infighting at court and even incarcerated for insubordination. After Korea’s defences again failed following the second, even more destructive Japanese invasion of 1597, the admiral was restored to duty, and he worked together with Chinese allies to fend off the enemy naval forces and limit the Japanese advance into the country’s interior. Such military outcomes and Hideyoshi’s death in 1598 brought the war to an end, but as the invaders were retreating in the final battle, Admiral Yi was fatally struck by a bullet.

That Admiral Yi Sun-sin seems to have died so nobly, as if destined to a glorious end, began immediately to shape the narrative of his personal responsibility for the proper outcome, crediting him for overcoming the damage from the enemy’s military and his superiors’ incompetence. Much of this framing, which would only grow in subsequent eras all the way to the most recent times, was set early in the recovery period by a book, Record of Reprimands (Jingbirok), penned by his patron Ryu Seong-nyong.¹⁹ Ryu was a high minister in the central government who, in looking back in apparent self-admonishment, instead assigned blame to just about everyone else except for himself and the admiral, whom Ryu endowed with heavenly virtue and skill, a force of nature himself. Despite the author’s recognition of the suffering of the people and even the contributions of the Chinese, whom he mostly castigates for their tactical errors and mistreatment of the Koreans, this near-mythical impression of the admiral became a pervasive narrative.

“The Admiral”, as the English title suggests, does not sway from this well-trod understanding. The basic storyline is straightforward and familiar to Korean audiences: Facing impossible odds against a massing Japanese armada of hundreds of ships seeking finally to turn the corner of the peninsula towards the west coast, Admiral Yi, with 12 remaining ships, finds a way to overcome the material odds as well as widespread fear among the soldiers and officers, and ultimately even his own. The second half of the film is dedicated to showing the pitched naval battle in the narrow channel between the mainland and Jindo Island, in which the Koreans’ superior use of ships and canons helps them overcome the huge odds. But perhaps the most unexpected factor in Admiral Yi’s triumph, according to the film’s account, was the powerfully whirling currents of the local waters. Indeed, both the film’s original Korean title (“Myeongnyang”, which alludes to the Myeongnyang Straits as well as the battle) and the official English subtitle (“Roaring Currents”) highlight the swirling, turning tides as both a physical and symbolic factor.

In contemplating his strategy and predicament on the eve of the naval battle, Admiral Yi perches atop a cliff overlooking the restless movement of the water beneath, with a wide-angle shot of the ocean juxtaposing the individual with the expansive natural realm, of the Korean with Korean territory (Image 1). More than the land, then, it is the sea that represents the homeland, a principle that Admiral Yi had alluded to (“Don’t think that the land will be any safer!”) in the scene in which he uttered his rallying cry about surviving only by seeking to die (at sea). The imposing array of Japanese ships, shown both down from the air and up from beneath the water’s surface, underscores the impression that the storming of Korea was an invasion facilitated first and foremost by the waters. But it is also the sea, in scenes in both day and night, that stirs ominously in anticipation of being unleashed and channelled, through human guidance, in defence of Korea. In the extended final battle sequence, the overhead shots of ships jostling with each other and against the currents further accentuate the furiousness of this punitive nature, which swallows up enemy ships and combatants as if condemning them to the depths for their moral transgressions (Image 2). Among his individual heroics, then, Admiral Yi’s most important role is as an usherer of fateful nature, the shamanic figure who activates the cosmic instruments of justice.

Image 1

Admiral Yi Sun-sin before the decisive battle in “The Admiral”

Image 2

The Koreans’ command ship surrounded by Japanese ships in “The Admiral”

At the same time, the film also portrays Yi as undergoing an awakening to the components of human agency required to make such an appeal, elements that he might lead but not necessarily constitute. To be sure, the admiral’s personal virtue and humanity are highlighted throughout. The film begins with a gruesome scene of his torture while incarcerated, having been victimised by the factionalism and monarchical fickleness at court. But as the commander tells his son later, the politicians and even the king are of secondary significance, not even worth the resentment. Rather, it is the (common) people who are the basis of the nation, he says, and as he tells his son at the close of the film in a denouement dialogue, the efforts of the people saved both him and the country, including through their unstinting efforts in the Battle of Myeongnyang: The people themselves determined their collective fate. As the final naval sequence showed, they sacrificed their lives to enable victory, exceeded their reservoirs of stamina and strength in manning the Korean ships, and cheered unstinting encouragement from the shore. Among those showing such support was a mute woman who summoned the capacity to shout warnings, thus representing the hitherto voiceless masses finally being given a chance to roar their faithfulness to the collective. This determination to share the credit, as expressed by the admiral himself no less, feels a bit forced—as he clearly is the nearly super-human character at the centre of the film—but it testifies to the pull of modern populist sentiment as well as of the traditionally transmitted narratives.

One deciding historical factor that, perhaps not surprisingly, was left out of the film, even in passing mention, is the massive aid army sent by the Ming dynasty, which admittedly did not participate in the Battle of Myeongnyang. However, the Chinese did play a key role, maybe a decisive one, in the outcome of the war, something that the film’s viewers without knowledge would not suspect. But this might have been just as well, for the Japanese invaders, though realistically portrayed as beset by infighting and competing interests, are mostly caricatured, with garish makeup and garb magnifying their depicted savagery. Furthermore, and quite unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to use well-known Korean actors to play the enemy commanders—including the rogue “pirate” captain, Kurushima, driven by personal vengeance against Admiral Yi—which results in stilted Japanese dialogue and likely a distracting suspension of belief for the Korean audience.²⁰ That Japanese actors were not procured for such roles, though this has not been an insurmountable challenge in other Korean films, probably also reflects the delicate historical sensitivities, still in place after more than four centuries, surrounding these epochally devastating events.

Righteousness and Ritual in the Manchu Invasions

Not quite as destructive, at least materially, but just as stunning were the Manchu invasions of the 1620s and 1630s. The second incursion, from late 1636 to early 1637, capped two decades of internal dispute in the Joseon government over how to deal with the Manchus north of the border, who had grown into a formidable fighting force while Joseon and Ming were recovering from the Japan war. As with other “barbarians” to the north throughout the region’s history, the emergent Manchus, led by Nurhaci and then his son Hong Taiji, looked to subdue the Koreans before going fully after the big prize of China, which in this case would occur through the Manchu defeat of the Ming dynasty less than a decade later, in 1644. The first Manchu invasion of Korea in 1627 in fact was spurred by the Manchus’ growing conflict with Ming, and after the Korean court moved to Ganghwa Island on the west coast to escape the carnage, it was eventually forced to pledge not to intervene on the Chinese side. When the Manchus became convinced later that the Korean court was not abiding by this agreement, they launched another attack in 1636. This second Manchu invasion concluded with the most humiliating episode in Korean historical lore, the ritualised surrender of the Korean monarch, Injo, to the Manchu emperor, Hong Taiji, at a fortress southeast of Seoul to which the court had fled. This searing moment, and in general the wide-ranging repercussions of the Manchu invasions as a whole, has understandably received plentiful attention in dramatisations, especially in television series, but also in novels and films (see below). In addition to the intricacies of the politics of the time, two major historical issues tend to become accentuated by such recreations: the sharpening of Korean national identity following this episode after the fall of China to the barbarians; and the ongoing restoration in historical judgement of the second Joseon dynasty monarch (after Yeonsan—see Chap. 1) ever to be violently deposed, Gwanghae. This latter current in South Korean scholarship and popular imagination actually connects to the first issue, a reconsideration of the historical relationship to China.

Indeed, in most ways “War of the Arrows” (Choejong byeonggi hwal [“Archery, the ultimate weapon”]; 2012), also directed by Kim Han-min but preceding “The Admiral” in release date, is a classic tale of patriotic defenders fighting against both the odds and a fearsome invading enemy. The film’s special qualities include the stylish dedication to the bow and arrow, instead of the sword or musket, as the glorified weapon of choice in the heart-pounding chase sequences that drive the movie; the curiously ambiguous indications of Koreans’ relationship with the Manchus, whose portrayal is, despite the ferocity, multi-dimensional; and the interesting overlaps between Korea and foreign territory that reflect an intriguing, perhaps more updated notion of the homeland. As in “The Admiral”, the natural elements—featured in “War of the Arrows” as the soil, wind, and wildlife that infuse the wilderness, the trees of which also supply the material for the bows and arrows—still play a major role in shaping the Korean people’s efforts to repulse the foreigners, but the demarcation is less clear-cut.

Taking place at the start of the second Manchu invasion in 1636, the main backdrop of the story is the devastation visited upon the common people killed or taken into slavery by the conquering northmen. But the film opens with a prelude dating to 1623, at the moment of Korean officials’ overthrow of Gwanghae, the monarch condemned for pursuing neutrality between the Ming dynasty and the rising Manchu Qing. An official loyal to Gwanghae is hunted down by the coup forces and, before succumbing, entrusts his teenage son with care over his young sister. The two children successfully flee to survive in hiding, and by the time the film shifts to the main storyline of 1636 in the Gaeseong area just north of Seoul, we find that the older brother, Nam-i, now a young man in his late 20s, working on developing his archery skills but otherwise adrift, while his younger sister, Ja-in, is set to marry a local military official’s son. Precisely at this moment the Manchu warriors come rampaging into their town and stampede through her wedding ceremony, killing or capturing the locals, including the newly betrothed couple. But Nam-i evades the carnage and hence begins his search for Ja-in, who, along with scores of others, is dragged over to Manchuria. Meanwhile Ja-in’s groom, among another group of Korean captives, leads a small rebellion against their captors and then helps Nam-i locate the Manchu camp across the border, where they launch an attack to free Ja-in. But this outcome also draws a handful of elite Manchu warriors to hunt for Nam-i through the wilds of Manchuria as he races back towards Korea. The spectacular chase sequences that follow, which take up the latter half of the film, show Nam-i picking off the Manchus one-by-one until a final showdown with the Manchu commander.

This is when the protective natural forces converge a final time, as the wind guides the arrows that pierce the air. It also takes the viewer back to the opening sequence of Nam-i as an adult, hunting in the mountains near his village and calibrating the wind, trees, and even the beasts in learning how to get the arrow to reach its precise destination. Of course, the bow and arrow are themselves a product of that nature, as specific to the homeland as the soil, and the allegory of making adjustments to get an arrow to hit its mark is entwined in this framework. This connection between the people and the land, Koreans and their territory, and more broadly fate and nature—whether featured as the wilderness, the mountains, the rivers, or the creatures—appears most ferociously when, seemingly summoned by a screaming Nam-i as he is surrounded by his pursuers, a tiger intervenes to enact heavenly judgement on the Manchus.

These outsiders, however, are not foreign to the territory, either in historical terms or in the storyline, and the extensive pursuit through the wilderness actually takes place north of the Yalu River, just beyond Joseon Korea’s official boundary. Though politically divided over the last four centuries into Korea and Manchuria by two main rivers originating on Mount Baekdu, the topography and climate on both sides are largely identical—a cold, mountainous wooded area teeming with the same wildlife, including the Siberian/Manchurian/Korean tiger, a single species. The human history, too, is jumbled in terms of ethnic divisions, despite the sharpening of Koreans’ sense of otherness in relation to various groups of “barbarians” whom they have tried for millennia to make different. This included the period when the Jurchen were organising into the Qing dynasty that threatened and then subdued the Koreans and Chinese in the early to mid-seventeenth century. Such ambiguities come to the fore in little hints in the film as well: as the viewer learns later, the siblings’ father, the man killed at the start of the film, had worked in the northern areas of the country as a Manchu interpreter and had taught his children the Manchu language. And the Manchus, for all their cruelty in dragging captured Koreans off to slavery and even toying with their lives in awful games (a scene at their camp shows Manchu archers using live Koreans for target practice) also include an elite military unit—Nam-i’s pursuers—bound by a code of honour and bravery. They in turn are contrasted with the haughty Manchu prince, who, at the camp where the captive Koreans are being held, is stunned but impressed by Ja-in’s facility in his language, which might have something to do also with her courage and fight in resisting his advances. The recognition of commonality comes also in a scene in which a Manchu lieutenant, in acknowledging the archery expertise of the Korean bandit (Nam-i) whom they need to hunt down, remarks that “their bow is from the same root as ours”. The larger region surrounding the border, in this sense, is common ground for both groups. This could be interpreted as legitimation for the Qing’s attempt at forced amalgamation—an effort later repeated by the Japanese in the early twentieth century—as well as for a vision pushed by Korean irredentists who make historical claims on Manchuria based on mythical ancient polities.

This tension between the notion of Korea and Manchuria as distinctive territories and as familiar terrain to both ethnic identities also reflects the ambivalences and even contradictions of other historical themes broached by “War of the Arrows”. The longing for the homeland of Joseon, for example, reaches a crescendo at the end of the film as Ja-in and her groom encounter the Yalu River on their arduous return, but this emphasis also is juxtaposed with the reminders of unjust hierarchy, exploitation, and discrimination within Korean society. For example, the debilitating bias in Joseon elite circles against the military, the northern areas, and those associating with the barbarians, such as interpreters like the siblings’ father, is marked in the dialogue and storyline in the early part of the film. The two siblings also have had to grow up in hiding because they were officially the tainted offspring of a traitor, but this man had also sacrificed his life to remain loyal to a king, Gwanghae, who tried to break away from the Korean court’s blind devotion to China. In modern times such a stance has been the main basis of a rehabilitation effort for this monarch in historical scholarship and popular culture.

Since the film’s messaging stresses the heroic actions of regular people representing the nation, the Korean court and monarch make no appearance in “War of the Arrows”, but portrayals that further lift the historical reputation of the deposed monarch Gwanghae have appeared in other films. Into theatres just a year later, for example, came the movie “Masquerade” (Gwanghae—wang-i doen namja; Chu Chang-min, 2012), an unhelpful English title compared to the original, “Gwanghae: the Man Who Became King”, which refers to the central plot device: that someone actually impersonated this king for a critical stretch of time while the latter was gravely ill from poisoning and thus hidden away in convalescence. Based on a highly imaginative reading of an intriguingly vague passage from 1616 in the dynastic annals, which appears in overlaid text in the film’s opening, “Masquerade” features an entertainer snatched into official duty by the king’s most trusted advisor, the historical figure Heo Gyun.²¹ The imposter gradually becomes acculturated into the role, of course, though with the opposite demeanour of the ailing king, and indeed both he and even those around him not in the know awaken gradually to the possibilities of a genuinely good, caring monarch. Whereas the original Gwanghae is shown as ruthless and temperamental, the substitute is naturally the reverse, including in handling the urgent foreign relations matter facing the court, the rise of the Manchu threat. Amid Joseon’s predicament between the Chinese and Manchus, the high officials are shown stubbornly clinging to their ritualised support for the Chinese Ming dynasty, a position that the fake Gwanghae finds both shameful and dangerous.

His scepticism about Koreans’ unstinting devotion to China, however, is what survives in the dynastic records, the narrative of which also—in legitimating his overthrow—marks Gwanghae as a tyrant.²² The film thus tackles this Gwanghae dilemma in historical judgement by suggesting that the terrible king of official history could not have espoused the sagacious policy (in hindsight) of neutrality in the brewing confrontation between the Qing and Ming. Rather, the proper foreign policy stance could only have come from someone showing consistency in character and judgement through his innate compassion—as reflected also in tax policy—and, crucially, his background as an unadulterated common person. As with the films set in the early Joseon era (Chap. 1), the injustices of ascriptive social hierarchy serve as a stand-in for questions of fate and freedom; indeed, “Masquerade” takes its cue in this regard from “The King and the Clown” (Chap. 1) in highlighting the dangers, for people of low social status such as entertainers, of venturing too close to the enticing realms of power. And like the Hollywood comedy “Dave”, about a presidential lookalike in the White House, “Masquerade” explores political legitimacy and the tyranny of the palace, as it were, through the character of an imposter, becoming the more ideal, and hence real, ruler.²³

No such tact is employed to explain Gwanghae in “The Swordsman” (Geumgaek; Choe Jae-hun, 2020), a polished contribution to the lone sword-fighter hostage/revenge sub-genre, set in the period immediately following the Manchu Qing dynasty’s conquest of Joseon in 1637. And to cap the cliches, the hero is (going) blind, which of course only heightens his capacity to slice and dice through squads of gun-toting Qing soldiers like a Jedi knight chopping up hapless droids. The historical substance comes rather from a secondary plot line involving King Gwanghae, whom the main character had served previously as a young bodyguard and thereafter fallen into criminal status following the 1623 overthrow. In short flashbacks, Gwanghae appears as a genuinely sage ruler—no imposter needed here—guided in his foreign policy by his overriding concern for the people’s welfare. The swordsman character therefore stands as a reminder, 15 years after his master’s overthrow, of Gwanghae’s original wisdom, as the capital now swarms with Manchu soldiers led by a preening, brutal, but clever Qing prince, as well as with nefarious Korean elites. The latter includes a powerful official who offers to adopt the weakening swordsman’s teenage daughter as a means of helping her escape the roundup of Korean females taken to Manchuria as slaves. The girl, having grown up in isolation and poverty due to her father’s troubled past, is drawn to this arrangement mostly by promises, in return, of medicine for her father’s failing eyes. Korean viewers would immediately recognise the resemblance to the Sim Cheong fable, but more disturbing is the unmistakable allusion to the twentieth-century circumstances in Korea, again under foreign military occupation, when girls were taken as “comfort women” for the Japanese war effort. In encapsulating, however, the film hero’s rejection of such social or political structures and of the distillation of his identity down to core loyalties, the swordsman declares that, to him, his child is his country. In short flashbacks, the character of Gwanghae likewise espouses the sentiment that the (common) people are his children.

In another film with an unhelpful English title, “Warriors of the Dawn” (Daerip-gun [“Proxy soldiers”]; Jeong Yun-cheol, 2017), a much younger Prince Gwanghae expresses, or learns to embrace, a similar perspective. Set three decades before his 1623 overthrow as monarch, the story takes place mostly in the northern reaches of the peninsula and is ostensibly about a pitiable band of domestic mercenaries forced to undertake military duties for others in exchange for payment. Victims of terrible misfortune grounded in ascriptive social inequality, about which they speak often, they now find themselves having to protect the crown prince, Gwanghae. This comes after he is sent by his feeble father, King Seonjo, who flees the Japanese invasion of 1592 to the northwestern border area with China, as a hedge to ensure the monarchy’s survival. But the film eventually turns into more of a character study of Gwanghae’s transformation from a meek, studious teenager discarded by his father to a wise young man who discovers his inner strength and ethical responsibilities as a ruler. In a series of scenes, he comes to recognise the horrible conditions, especially in social exploitation, that have befallen his country and perhaps facilitated the foreigners’ incursions, and he seeks to atone and start anew. Most eye-catching is a scene in which Gwanghae sheds monarchical mannerisms to gently dance in front of a crowd of frightened refugees as a way of comforting them, which has the unexpected effect of strengthening their allegiance and affection for him. Gwanghae’s awakening even leads to his taking up weapons and engaging the invaders directly. This strains credulity, but the point is to join the ongoing wave of elevating Gwanghae’s historical reputation, in this case by dramatising the emergence of his admirable character from earlier times, before he became the reigning monarch who would then fall victim to the ongoing turmoil in Joseon politics.

The monarch who would replace Gwanghae through the 1623 coup, his nephew Injo, occupies the centre in “The Fortress” (Namhan sanseong [“Namhan Mountain Fortress”]; Hwang Dong-gyu, 2017). An adaptation of Kim Hun’s famed novel of the same name, the story takes place in the winter of 1636–1637, when the Manchus laid a frigid siege on the Korean court holed up in a military base southeast of Seoul. But Gwanghae’s spirit is never far from the scene, embodied in the character of Choe Myeong-gil, a high official verbally duelling in impassioned tones with the entire officialdom, but especially with Kim Sang-hyeon, a minister who pleads with King Injo to keep resisting the barbarians. The triangular dialogue between these historical figures, delving into the deepest questions of political responsibility and collective identity, drives the story and shifts in accordance with every new sign of a lost cause. There are also fictionalised characters drawn from among the freezing, decimated, and increasingly cynical common soldiers, as well as a blacksmith signifying resilience, and even a lost little girl, also very symbolic, wandering into the compound while searching for her grandfather. With plentiful reminders of social injustices playing out in the dynamics among the Koreans collectively under siege—as well as even an interpreter working for the Manchus who had been born a Korean slave—the fortress stands as an enclosed microcosm of Korea as a whole, ultimately succumbing to a force from without that exposes the problems within. As remarked by the “Khan” character, Hong Taiji (son of Nurhaci), who appears somewhat wiser than his Korean counterpart, he did not travel all the way from Manchuria in order to “attack such a small fortress”. Rather, the Manchu emperor wants to compel the Koreans, beholden to bigoted delusions and internal fragmentation, to come to their senses and capitulate on their own, which in the end is what happens in both history and the story, but not before some heavy bombardment and slaughter.

The blood red from the butchering of both men and beasts, along with the glow from fires, adds striking dashes of colour to the desolate grey landscape of bleak, ubiquitous malaise. Unlike the other films set in this era, nature, as a representation of fate or heavenly judgement, fails to protect the country, even if it does not necessarily endorse the invasions. The protagonists of “War of the Arrows” and “The Admiral” call natural forces into action, but in “The Fortress”, this appeal seems futile. Tellingly, the cowering, clueless minister in charge of defences boasts that he has been consulting with a shaman, as if to mock any such effort to use local knowledge and resources. Instead, nature marks the passage of time and the onset of agony and humiliation, with the bright moon appearing as a signal of Manchu ultimatums and impending doom. The Korean winter, it turns out, cannot help defend the homeland against invaders who also come from the cold. Even the whipping wind works against the Koreans—who now hold the muskets, in contrast to the configuration in “The Swordsman”—as they cannot reload their gunpowder amid the gusts. Most notable is the symbolism of the little girl named “Naru”—meaning “river crossing”—orphaned by her grandfather who had worked as a ferryman but was killed by the pro-resistance official Kim Sang-hyeon. She represents the transit to a future mindset and era that Koreans must undertake, as even Kim himself acknowledges at the end. The dilapidated boats stuck in the ice at the start of the film show Korea frozen in time, just as the ferry boat bobbing in the flowing waters of spring at the film’s close, with Naru playing in the lush fields, now stands ready to make the crossing. Perhaps nature was offering another chance.

Given the subsequent history of the country, however, the viewer is left to wonder whether anything fundamentally changed following the harrowing experiences of foreign invasion in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. King Injo, after all—the one put on the throne through the “Righteous Restoration” of 1623 to replace the insufficiently pro-Chinese Gwanghae—in the end did the same thing as his overthrown predecessor, which was to concede to the realities of Manchu power, but only after much more bloodshed and humiliation. And in the realm of Korean society at large, the rigidly hereditary differentiation of privilege and resources, whether measured in political, cultural, or social terms, actually might have tightened in the latter half of the Joseon dynasty, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Historians have also found, however, that these experiences probably sharpened national identity and consciousness, especially among the elites but also among the masses.²⁴ Interestingly, though, none of the films examined in this chapter highlights such a development. Rather, the cinematic depictions focus on social injustice as the predominant internal challenge that mirrors the severity of the threat from abroad. And here, as if the guardian fates were providing a reprieve to allow Koreans to self-correct, the inviolability of the homeland is expressed most compellingly in natural form, with worthy heroes calling on natural forces to help protect the nation and repel the marauding outsiders. The connection to justice is thus cosmic, but so is the urgency of internal reform, an idea meant to resonate with Korean viewers facing similar questions of national character based on their own, more recent experience of foreign-induced trauma.