The Aimless Father

The Aimless Bullet is a Korean national film that depicts the “hopeless life of a desperate family” (Cho, 100) in postwar South Korea. The “efficacious mode of realism” (Abelmann et al., 4) of South Korean cinema enables the audience to get a sense of the harsh lives of majority of Koreans (especially war refugees from North Korea) were going through during that period.

From the past, Korea is a patriarchal society in which men have dominance over women. (The powers of the male figures in a household were much greater than they are today.) Since the society as a whole gives greater role and responsibility to men, damage in men’s authority will greatly influence all members of the society (Anderson in Cho, 101). In fact, this was the case for the Song family.

Although Chor-ho was able to get a job after he came down to the South, it was not enough to support his family. Regardless of how diligent and hard-working he seemed, his family was stuck in poverty. Chor-ho’s inability to provide for his family, and to accept the money that Myoung-suk earned by becoming a military prostitute made him seem even more daunted (not fit for a “father” figure).

Nevertheless, Chor-ho’s effort to carry out his role as the head of the household was shown throughout the film. To me, it seemed as if his aching teeth represented his malfunctioning family and the burden that was put on Chor-ho as being the head of household. His role of having to be a good husband, brother, son and a father was too much for Chor-ho to handle all by his own. No matter how bad the toothache was, he did not pull them out just as he did not leave his “dysfunctional” family (Cho, 100). Even if Chor-ho is not portrayed as the “typical father” figure, he tries his best, in his position. All his life, he has been working so that his family at least had a place to stay and food to eat. He did not even spend a penny for himself, even when he had a terrible toothache; this showed how caring Chor-ho was to his family. However, when his wife died and Yong-ho was caught by the police, he was lost. Until then he tried so hard to take care of his family, and all of a sudden they are gone. There was no reason for him to work hard anymore. Even though the aching teeth (his pregnant wife, and troubled brother) were gone, he now had lost his path.

Works Cited:

Eunsun Cho, “The Stray Bullet and the Crisis of Korean Masculinity” in South Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema, Eds. Nancy Abelmann and Kathleen McHugh. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.

Nancy Abelmann and Kathleen McHugh: “Introduction” in South Korean Golden Age Melodrama