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Krammling, Felicia (2019): Zainichi-Identität aus japanischer Sicht. Eine Filmanalyse: Yukisada Isaos „Go“ versus Kaneshiro Kazukis „Go!“. München [PDF, 645kB]

Abstract

This paper analyses the different descriptions of the zainichi-Koreans as the zainichi-Korean author Kaneshiro Kazuki depicted them in his novel Go! (2000) compared to the respective movie adaptation Go (2001) made by the Japanese director Yukisada Isao. Zainichi-Koreans are one of the biggest ethnic minorities in Japan and part of Japan’s often denied postcolonial present. Ignored, marginalized and openly discriminated for decades by the Japanese population the portrayal of zainichi-Koreans in Japanese media took a more positive turn in the early 2000s. Yet, as this analysis shows, even with benevolent intentions in mind, the view of a country’s majority to an ethnic minority can still turn out problematic. This paper starts with an overview of the different ways zainichi-Koreans have been depicted in Japanese movies and TV-shows over the last decades. In the second half it focuses on how the movie Go plays down issues of discrimination and national identity and how it trivializes contexts such as the cineastic representation of the protagonist Sugihara's character in comparison to the literary source.

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