The first scene opens in present day Hungary with Kim Hyun Jun being given a mission to assassinate the president of North Korea. After successfully making his shot, he is confronted by the president's security team and is impacted by an explosion. As Kim Hyun Jun lies in pain, there is a flashback to his college and military training days, where he is captivated by the beauty and intellect of Choi Seung Hee, a fellow classmate. The episode ends with Kim Hyun Jun and his roommate Jin Sa Woo being kidnapped and tortured, surprisingly at the hands of Choi Seung Hee.
How Episode 1 Structuralizes Masculinity and Femininity
ReplyDeleteThe first episode of IRIS epitomizes the Korean image of masculinity as it conflates with endless scenes of military training. Military service is one of the duties of every Korean man that creates a gendered culture where if a man cannot complete it, his masculinity is questioned. Episode one reinforces this through the playful banter between Kim Hyun Joon and Jin Sa Woo where it is obvious that their friendship bloomed through their shared experiences in the military. And it will only continue to grow for as long as they will laugh as they run obstacles, drag tires, wrestle in the mud, and share the punishment together. Most importantly… Do. Not. Forget. The. Abs. These bulging pectorals are a now the form of male desirability (1).
On the other hand, we have Choi Seung Hee who contrasts the masculine imagery with her femininity. While her character is portrayed as a smart, pretty, and modest woman, Seung Hee’s character also goes against theses social conceptions of femininity as she surprisingly invites Hyun Joon to drinks and ends up having a stronger tolerance than him. Furthermore, (spoiler alert) it was later revealed that her appearance was intentional to bring the two best friends to a shady experimental facility.
(1) Read Stephen J. Epstein and Rachael M. Joo (2012), "Multiple Exposures: Korean Bodies and the Transnational Imagination," for more on this topic.
Episode 1: Look At That Beautiful School
ReplyDeleteIn the first episode of Iris, it starts off as a high intensity mission where the main character, Hyun-Jun, has the task of assassinating the president of a big organization. Following the mission, we learn more about the main character as the drama goes to the past when he is yet to be recruited by the NSS. Hyun-Jun is studying about war history at a school in Korea. There are certain video shots of the school with its luscious garden and vines on the buildings. As we discussed last Thursday in class about the articles by Park and Yoon, certain areas in a drama may cause people to visit the sites. This shot of scenery piqued my interest and it made me to do more research on the school. The school in which the drama was shot at is Yonsei University, a prestigious school that is part of Korea’s SKY universities. I thought that the vines on the buildings are very different, as most properties would get rid of these pesky plants. However, these vines add a sense of mystery and rural feeling to the location. The vines contrast with the well-gardened plants in the main square. The setting a very unique and it makes me want to visit this school in the future.
I think it was interesting how a lot of European history was mentioned within the first five minutes of episode one and that the writers paralleled the division of East and West Germany with North and South Korea. As Hungary played a role in unifying Germany, Kim Hyun Jun is expected to succeed in his mission and ultimately unite the communist and democratic sides of Korea. When Kim Hyun Jun enters his suite in Hungary, he opens the red curtains and the camera shot from behind shows him in-between the curtains, encompassed in light. This instantly reminded me of the term “iron curtain” and the Berlin Wall. Since Kim Hyun Jun dramatically separated the curtains, it made me wonder if it had symbolic meaning and provided a foreshadowing to him possibly breaking the barrier between North and South Korea.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting how the first episode of this drama emphasized the brotherhood between Kim Hyun Joon and Jin Sa Woo. The two’s relationship may be an effort to portray all the soldiers in the military as “brothers”, which in turn illustrates the military as a large brotherhood community instead of a disciplinary force with the authorization to use lethal weapons. The two’s close relationship is evident in their everyday conversations, in terms of how they talk to each other and how they refer to one another. After Jin Sa Woo is punished for being in a bar fight, Kim Hyun Joon admits to his superior that he too was in the bar fight, so that Jin Sa Woo would not have to carry out his punishment alone. This is a significant detail in the first episode, as it effectively shows the bond between the two men. I am curious about how their brotherhood will evolve in later episodes, as it is hinted that Kim Hyun Joon and Jin Sa Woo will enter the NSS together, and fall in love with the same woman (Choi Seung Hee).
ReplyDeleteThe first episode of Iris starts off in the present, with a mission of assassinating a North Korean politician in Hungary. After the mission, we skip backwards to when Hyun-Joon was studying war history at a school in Korea. This was where he meets Choi Seung-Hee, who is portrayed as a typical female goddess at first, and falls in love at first sight. She is smart, pretty, and modest, but was later revealed to be completely different from the typical female goddess. When they went to get drinks after, the stereotypical female side of her is gone, and she decrees Hyun-Joon's soju bombs as weak, and makes much stronger drinks. He ends up passing out, and waking up to an empty table and finds out that she has already paid and left. A few days later, Hyun Joon's best friend Jin Sa-Woo also meets Seung-Hee through a sunbae, and falls head over heels for her. Not knowing she's the same girl that Hyun Joon has been mooning over, he comes home boasting about his future wife. One night, both Sa-Woo and Hyun Joon are taken separately to a strange location, and were both strapped to medical apparatus and administered an injection. While they were getting drugged up, Seung-Hee was watching from the other side of the one way mirror. She transformed from a stereotypical female into an emotionless and strong leader. I like how this drama portrays woman differently, and goes against the social conceptions of woman being weak, uneducated, and always needing a man in their life.
ReplyDeleteDrinking culture reveals much about social structure, lifestyle and traditions, now the idea of drinking is to promote good relationship, and open one’s heart to talk. In the first episode of IRIS, after class which Seung-hee calls Hyun-joon “exceedingly simplistic and ignorant”, he asks her out for some drinks, so he could have a chance to talk and defend his dignity. Drinking is a common social activity even while eating as displayed in the scene at the restaurant where Seung-hee and Hyun-joon eat. The beverage they order in the episode was a simply made cocktails called “poktanju”, which is a mixed alcoholic beverage similar to the boilermaker or “jager bomb” in the states, is one of the most popular ways of drinking in Korea lately. And Hyun joon, to impress her, he chugged it all, in which it also symbolizes his manliness and masculinity.
ReplyDeleteIn the first episode, I found that the show was really pushing the army life of something that is desirable. Especially since there are certain cases where Korean people don't want to get enlisted to the army so they end up changing their nationality. There are many parts where it seems a little unrealistic how they are allowed to joke around and have as much free time for example, when they are doing the target practice as well as when they snuck out to the club. I also found it strange that a woman was involved with the men in some of their drills like when they were wrestling in the mud. However, something that shocked me the most is how they showed the "test" that NSS had on the two characters which basically looked like torture. It was an impactful scene to show the strong mentality of the two characters but I found it strange that they would show their own country's government doing something against human rights.
ReplyDeleteKorea's cultural geography is reinforced through dramatic representation in media. A flashback in the middle of episode 1 brings the viewers back to Kim Hyun Joon's past as a college student. A number of scenes show a sweeping view of a prestigious university known to many domestic viewers as Yonsei University. While in the drama, the name of the University is edited for copyright/legal reasons, the obvious geographic panes show iconic features of Yonsei. This raises a question as to why the director chose this specific setting for the development of his characters. A possible reason is that Yonsei is accepted in Korean Culture as one of the top three Universities commonly known as SKY (Seoul National University, Korea University, Yonsei University). As Dr.Saeji mentioned in class, korean dramas explicitly stage their scenes with intent to reinforce the character's status, class, and educational background. This is exemplified in the 2nd half of episode 1 when both Kim Hyun Joon and Choi Seung Hee are found to be students of the university, let alone the two notably intelligent students of their lectures. While their intellects were represented in two different ways, one excelling in photographic memory, and the other's ability to think critically, the underlined message of these highly gifted individuals attending this specific school reveals the cultural significance of this geographical setting of Yonsei University. Inversely, does the dramatic representation of these characters attending this university reinforce a false connotation of Yonsei and SKY are attended only by highly intelligent students? This two-way relationship of how cultural geography affects its viewers in understanding their environment and how viewer’s own culturally reinforced belief affects geography can lead to an interesting discussion.
ReplyDeleteHoly moly I am so proud of this group. This is exactly the type of discussion I was hoping to see, and it bodes well for the rest of the term. You have all focused and identified specific interesting aspects of what we're shown in ep 1 instead of getting sidetracked into some sort of play by play. After all, there are many more episodes to come, you can develop other ideas at other times.
ReplyDeleteDonny and Jiyong, I am pleased to see you are admiring my alma mater (my MA is from Yonsei), yes, it's a beautiful campus. Karen and Rachel brought of gender and the stereotypes that exist throughout this drama (sadly). I love Melissa's point about Iron Curtain and the curtains in the episode. Looking for that sort of symbolic messaging is a great way to get more out of this drama- esp. if you've already watched it which I suspect several of you have. Karisa and Byeonghan address the army/physical training aspect of the first episode, which is def. establishing a certain image of what type of men are desirable/winners and what sort of men these two main characters are (tough, even in adversity). I was also very disturbed by their "let's torture our own men to see how they take it" approach, this violates every type of human right law imaginable. Shengjie focused in on how drinking plays a role in Korean culture and in this episode-- great.
All of you have clearly picked up on important elements of how these characters are introduced to us: abs, military, sort of carefree but still the top in their units, smart enough to attend an elite university (yet the female lead is a better drinker and has a more analytical mind), plus the interesting way that from the very start we're being prompted to know more about European or world history and events-- not normal for a Korean drama where domestic concerns triumph and international visits are for romantic dates, not politics.
Yep, very very happy with you all right now.^^