From Novel to Film: White Badge

<jats:p>Over the last two decades, South Korean literature and cinema have begun interrogating key aspects of historical events long dormant within the national consciousness. During 1950-1953, the Korean peninsula suffered extreme physical and psychological devastation during a conflict the West later preferred to forget under the convenient axiom of "the forgotten war." However, while Chinese and North Korean literature and film celebrated the conflict while Hollywood cinema produced more half-hearted and pessimistic representations, South Korean attitudes remained ambivalent. After emerging from the war, the country went through a series of dictatorial governments. Until the assassination of President Park Chung Hee in 1979, a strict system of censorship dominated South Korea, making oppositional voices both in politics and the humanities extremely dangerous.</jats:p>