By Gaia Luani
Mentorship Ilaria Bionda
Between political divisions, social tensions and conflicting identities, South Korean cinema has built a hybrid and radical language. Eclectic in its genres and profound in its themes, it tells stories of collective fears, hierarchies, competition and gender roles, becoming a key to understanding Korea today.
South Korean cinema is born along lines: those that divide North and South, rich and poor, victims and perpetrators, dream and reality. It is along these lines that Korean directors build stories that do not seek reconciliation, but truth.
Guiding the audience through this complex universe was film critic Fiaba Di Martino, who, as part of the 74th edition of the Trento Film Festival (24 April to 3 May 2026), through the event “Special K: Once Upon a Time in South Korea” offered a clear and passionate reading of the dynamics running through South Korean cinema, showing how it is much more than entertainment: a true tool for social and historical analysis.
Fiaba Di Martino, film critic and speaker during the event “Special K: Once Upon a Time in South Korea” at the 2026 Trento Film Festival.
A cinema that tells the fractures of time
To understand South Korean cinema, it is necessary to start from the historical context in which it developed. Korea is an ancient civilization, but the events that have most shaped its contemporary identity are concentrated in the 20th century: invasions, dictatorial regimes, widespread corruption among the highest levels of the State.
All of this not only marked society, but also left a deep imprint on film production. During Japanese colonial rule, patriotic cinema developed, while with the division of the two Koreas, the so called “38th parallel fracture”, the industry entered a long period of decline, crushed by guerrilla warfare and a climate of constant insecurity. With the signing of the armistice and the establishment of a provisional peace, cinema was reclaimed by the government as a tool of political propaganda: production resumed, but films had to explicitly adhere to the dominant ideology.
It was only from the 1990s, and even more so with the arrival of the new millennium, that South Korea returned to prominence on the international scene. This took place within a broader phenomenon, Hallyu, the “Korean Wave”: a cultural and industrial strategy that brought local music, TV series, fashion, video games and cinema to global audiences. It is not merely a pop trend, but a genuine soft power project that transformed South Korea into one of the most influential cultural hubs in the world. In its wake, the West also began paying close attention to Korean cinema, discovering a complex, hybrid imaginary deeply connected to the country’s history.
If there is one trait that the great South Korean directors have in common, it is their ability to transform the country’s history into a personal, often radical cinematic language. Each of them approaches Korea’s fractures, social, political and identity related, from a different angle, creating a complex mosaic that ranges from social satire to revenge, from redemption to dreams, all the way to everyday minimalism.
Five perspectives for understanding a country
Cover of the film “Memories of Murder” by Bong Joon Ho
Bong Joon Ho is perhaps the director who most clearly stages the idea of division: between classes, spaces and institutions. High and low coexist in his films, but what is separated by clear lines never finds reconciliation. In “Memories of Murder” (2003), the failure of institutions to deal with evil emerges, echoing the years of dictatorship and martial law. “Parasite” (2019) is built around windows, doors, stairs and pavements: geometries that reveal the irreconcilability of social relationships, while in “Mickey 17” (2025), the worker’s body becomes a commodity, a symbol of a capitalism that consumes identities and individuals.
If Bong works on lines, Park Chan Wook works on masks. His figures are stylized, almost cartoon like, immersed in a turbo capitalist perspective in which the individual is expendable. In the Vengeance Trilogy (2002, 2003, 2005), the characters are pawns that survive because revenge is relentless, mechanical.
Kim Ki duk takes the discussion even deeper, transforming the body into an altar of redemption. In his films, redemption is an unreachable place, and the only way out is to become a ghost. Also following the thread of the imaginary and the evanescent is Lee Chang dong, who addresses the theme of the invisible. His characters seek spaces that exist only in dreams, the only possible place of peace.
At the opposite extreme, Hong Sang soo works on the minimal, on the everyday, on the relationships built between men and women through simple sketches of life that can often lead to reflections on the greatest systems: dialogue becomes a search between inside and outside, between what is said and what remains suspended.
The themes that define an eclectic cinema
South Korean cinema cannot be described with a single word, but one adjective that certainly characterizes it and distinguishes it from the filmography of other countries is eclecticism. Drama, comedy, thriller, horror and melodrama can merge within the same story: this stylistic key to innovation lies in the ability to appropriate Hollywood’s tools in order to subvert and transcend them, generating a true narrative hybrid.
One of the most recognizable traits of contemporary South Korean cinema is its ability to transform collective fears, social tensions and cultural contradictions into powerful images. Among the most recurring themes is the figure of the monster, understood not only as a physical creature but above all as a metaphor for external threats, anxieties related to contamination and the intrusion of the stranger into the community.
Another central thread is social criticism through genre, particularly through apocalyptic imagery: South Korean cinema reflects on social hierarchies, the responsibility of major economic institutions and the anxiety of a society perceived as increasingly controlled.
Social criticism, however, is not limited to political institutions, but also extends to social and institutional ones such as schools, often portrayed as a microcosm of society, where phenomena such as bullying, ambition and exacerbated competition manifest themselves with particular intensity. School dynamics become a lens through which to observe the race for success, the search for recognition and the weight of social expectations placed on younger generations.
Cover of the film “Midnight” by Kwon Oh Seung
Within this panorama there is also the representation of the female figure, often marked by the legacy of a traditionally patriarchal society. Women are portrayed as pillars of the family, but also as individuals who must confront rigid social roles, expectations related to appearance and persistent inequalities.
In some more recent works, however, a female figure that overturns these patterns emerges: strong, complex and combative, but also marked by vulnerabilities and desires.
This evolution also reflects the gender struggle developing in Korea in the wake of Western movements, which is gradually challenging the masks imposed by male power and denouncing forms of abuse that are often too deeply rooted.
From criticism of hierarchies to uprooting, South Korea’s “Once Upon a Time” turns out to be surprisingly close to the Western reality as well, and perhaps this is precisely where its strength lies: telling distant stories that also speak about us. South Korean cinema invites us to look beyond the screen because that is where it becomes a bridge between history, geography and shared memories.
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