{"title":"Youngmin Choe","description":"\u003cp\u003eYoungmin Choe’s works offer a captivating exploration of \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e, blending vivid storytelling with insightful reflections on human experience. His writing delves into complex characters and settings, bringing to life themes of identity, tradition, and transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can expect narratives rich in emotional depth and cultural nuance, as seen in titles like \u003cstrong\u003eHanyo (The Housemaid)\u003c\/strong\u003e. Choe’s prose invites contemplation, making his books a thoughtful addition to any literary collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"hanyo-the-housemaid-by-youngmin-choe-9781839025860","title":"Hanyo (The Housemaid)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe upwardly mobile Kim family employs a young woman to help manage their new house. Mr. Kim begins an affair with the nameless housemaid, who soon drags the entire family into a terrible tragedy. The director Kim Ki-young played a formative part in South Korean cinema’s \"Golden Age\" of the 1960s and 1970s; his 1960 masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eHanyo\u003c\/i\u003e (The Housemaid), rescued and restored after almost being lost, is today widely regarded as one of the greatest South Korean films of all time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDirectors such as Park Chan-wook, Im Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Ryu Seung-wan, and Kim Jee-woon have all praised the film, and Bong Joon-ho has referred to \u003ci\u003eHanyo\u003c\/i\u003e as “the Citizen Kane of Korean cinema,” citing it as an inspiration for his film, \u003ci\u003eParasite\u003c\/i\u003e (2019).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this book, Youngmin Choe argues that \u003ci\u003eHanyo\u003c\/i\u003e encapsulates the mood of social change in postwar South Korea during the period of tremendous upheaval and rapid transformation that followed the devastating war, which divided families across the newly formed Cold War boundaries. The housemaid – a figure that Kim Ki-young would explore repeatedly throughout his career – was a young woman driven by greed and envy, a femme-fatale set loose on the middle-class home. A monstrous embodiment of the destructive desires of capitalism, which recklessly eroded the foundations of tradition, this housemaid served as the conscience of a period that otherwise leaned heavily into economic transformation, pointing to the anxiety that undergirded what might be otherwise regarded as a time of ‘progress’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGoing beyond the traditionalist approaches that resist feminist readings of \u003ci\u003eHanyo\u003c\/i\u003e, Youngmin Choe insists that the enduring legacy of \u003ci\u003eHanyo\u003c\/i\u003e is both due to its uncanny aesthetics and - though it certainly was not intended to be an explicitly feminist film - in the questions it raises about class mobility, gender oppression and women’s work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PTY Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47424220135660,"sku":"9781839025860","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781839025860.jpg?v=1774768828"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/youngmin-choe.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}