As I watched “Heaven’s Soldiers” I was reminded of some of the material we read earlier this semester. In “The Past Within Us”, the author mentions “in Southeast Asia, the start of the twenty-first century has seen a boom in the popularity of movies depicting formative moments in national history,” while Thai historian Charnwit Kasetsiri states that there is “mass public enthusiasm for these popular representations of historical consciousness”. While Lee Soon Shin is not a formative moment in Korean history, he is a famous historical figure and thus “Heaven’s Soldiers” plays into this new wave of Korean films. As Jim Collins puts it in the introduction to High-Pop, it is “making culture into popular entertainment”.
As Malika mentioned, there is also the idea of national identity and national pride, and I think “Heaven’s Soldiers” has plenty of that as well. Lee Soon Shin is a national hero and by bringing him to a popular film and therefore a younger generation, his story continues to be passed on, but in a way that teenagers would probably find more interesting than a textbook reading in school. It is made additionally entertaining by the spin on the movie, where the viewers are seeing Lee Soon Shin before he is famous and when there is a possibility that he may never be, based on the interactions between him and the time-travelers from the future. However, the director does not take for granted that all viewers of the film would already know the story of Lee Soon Shin, as you can tell from some of the script (such as when the character says his name, that he did not pass the military test, etc. and the modern-day characters dramatically gasp and exclaim, “Lee Soon Shin has that family name and did not pass his military test either!” for the viewers who don’t know that already and might be so slow that they haven’t guessed it yet.) Or perhaps they are just putting lots of emphasis on the historical details so it is really drilled into the heads of the audience.
That being said, I think it would be interesting to look at the gender roles in this film. From my point of view the only woman in the movie was a comical character based on her actions and expressions and was kind of whiney, although she was also the smart one who figures out when the comet will return. I feel like the men, on the other hand, have a sort of male honor and bravery thing going on where in the end they all return to fight with Lee Soon Shin and die in a spectacular battle against evil. Any thoughts?
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It's tricky for me because I was watching the film with Korean subtitles which probably caused me to **lose** a bit, but I was struck by the extent to which it was the female character who was shown to be capable and smart. To be fair, she is clearly attractive, very petite, and gets captured/rescued at the end, but I thought the notion of her as a scientist, gave the film an interesting dimension.
While I was glad that the woman in this film was an obviously intelligent person instead of a ditz, I also noted that she was the *only* one who went back to her own time. All the men protected her and kind of gave off the implication that she was physically weak and could not defend herself.
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