Anti-Japanese Sentiment in Korea - Appearance in South Korean Popular Culture

Appearance in South Korean Popular Culture

• The General's Son (장군의 아들; Janggun eui Adeul) - 1990 movie set in Korea under Japanese rule, in which Kim Du-han (then a gangster) attacks Japanese yakuza. Two sequels were released in 1991 and 1992.
• Virus Imjin War (바이러스 임진왜란; Baireoseu Imjin Waeran) - 1990 novel by Lee Sun-Soo (이성수). Japan tries to invade Korea using biological warfare named Hideyoshi Virus only to fail.
• The Mugunghwa Has Bloomed (무궁화 꽃이 피었습니다; Mugunghwa ggoti pieotseubnida) - A popular novelist Gim Jinmyeong (김진명) wrote this novel in 1993. (Mugunghwa, known as Hibiscus syriacus, is the national flower of South Korea.) In this novel, North and South Korea together develop a nuclear weapon, which is dropped off the coast of Japan as a symbolic warning. This novel was criticized for a blatantly inaccurate depiction of Korean-American particle physicist Benjamin W. Lee (Lee Whiso 이휘소) as a nationalistic nuclear physicist; in this novel, Lee cuts his own leg flesh in order to hide the blueprint of a nuclear weapon, which is secretly transferred to the South Korean government. Lee's family sued Kim for defamation. The novel became a major bestseller, and was made into a film in 1995.
• Phantom: The Submarine - A movie in which a secret South Korean nuclear submarine falls under the mercy of a charismatic half-mad captain, who attempts to carpet Japanese cities with nuclear weapons. This movie won six "Academy Awards" in South Korea in 1999.
• There Is No Japan (일본은 없다; Ilboneun Eopta) - Travelogue written by Grand National Party spokeswoman Jeon Yeook (전여옥) in 1994, based upon her experiences in Japan as a KBS correspondent. She compares South Korea with Japan, praises South Korean excellence, and describes the Japanese as an incapable people.
• Hyeomillyu (혐일류; The Hate Japan Wave) - Korean cartoonist Yang Byeong-seol's (양병설) response to the book Manga Kenkanryu (The Hating Korea Wave).
• Hanbando (한반도) - The South Korea government exposes the misinterpretation of the history of Japanese Government, and Japanese Government does the apology and compensation to a South Korea.
• Nambul: War Stories (남벌) - Nambul is a manhwa series of the military drama genre written by Lee Hyun-se which started in 1994. The story relates from various levels (political to personal) an imaginary conflict between Korea and Japan at an unspecified time in the near future.