From Hoodlums to Businessmen: The Development of South Korean Gangster Cinema (1958 to Present)

Culley, Brian (2025) From Hoodlums to Businessmen: The Development of South Korean Gangster Cinema (1958 to Present). Doctoral thesis, Dundalk Institute of Technology.

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Abstract

Dressed in suits, based in high-rise offices, and overseeing vast criminal empires, contemporary Korean gangsters resemble businessmen. Yet, the Korean gangster has not always been depicted this way – the genre’s first gangsters were little more than hoodlums. Since its emergence in the postwar period, the Korean gangster genre has undergone a remarkable development, with almost every element of the genre changing with several shifts. Whereas the first iteration of Korean gangster cinema was more akin to a sub-genre of melodrama than a full-fledged genre, the most recent iteration is a multifaceted genre that incorporates elements of the thriller and noir. Despite its remarkable development, the Korean gangster genre is significantly under-researched in English-language scholarship. Many scholars who otherwise comprehensively examine Korean cinema overlook the genre, and the little scholarship that exists is limited in scope. The thesis addresses the lack of extant research by examining the development of Korean gangster cinema across three distinct periods: the ‘Pre-Revival Era’ (1958 - 1989), during which censorship and melodrama hindered the genre’s development, the ‘Revival Era’ (1990 - 2006), during which a new generation of filmmakers revived the genre to significant success, and the ‘Post-Revival Era’ (2007 - Present), during which genre-bending and notable socio-cultural phenomena – namely social inequality and corruption –reshaped many of the genre’s characteristics. In doing so, the thesis explores how various determinants – including internal genre changes, socio-cultural events such as the IMF Crisis, and industrial factors such as censorship – shaped the genre’s core elements, including its portrayal of social inequality and its representation of violence. The thesis specifically explores the transformation of the gangster protagonist, or ‘gangster-hero’, detailing how changes made to the gangster-hero’s portrayal, whether in terms of class, rank or morality, are the principal reasons for the differences between each of the genre’s periods.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	Arts and Humanities > Film and Media Studies
Research Centres:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Ingrid Lewis
Date Deposited:	05 Dec 2025 11:53
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2025 11:53
License:	Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0
URI:	https://eprints.dkit.ie/id/eprint/969

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