ABSTRACT

The primary purpose of this essay is to survey the recent zombie craze in Northeast Asian films from Japan and South Korea. While the concept of the zombie may have originated in colonial Haiti, with its ghoulish images and supernatural lore, zombies were later imported to North America and reformulated as popular cultural entertainment by Hollywood. They are now flourishing in an East Asian cinematic context preserved in a globalized form. The films under investigation – I Am a Hero and Train to Busan – share similar cultural subtexts despite their incommensurable experiences of global capitalism in Asia and its latest ideological phase, neoliberalism. Both films critique the current neoliberal order and were nurtured by historical traumas experienced by both countries as well as the pandemic spread of viruses, both real and imaginary, that have ravaged the region. Nevertheless, the most prominent issue explored by Japanese and Korean zombie films is the continuity of society and its reproduction: as cultural artifacts of the neoliberal world, these films offer dystopian visions in which exploitation accelerates to such an extent that states cannot protect themselves against the viral and capitalist onslaught.

摘要

本文的主要目的是调查日本和韩国最近在东北亚电影中出现的僵尸热潮。僵尸的概念可能起源于殖民地海地，其残酷的形象和超自然的传说，后来又将僵尸引入北美，并被好莱坞重新定义为流行的文化娱乐。它们现在在以全球化形式保存的东亚电影环境中蓬勃发展。正在调查的电影–我是英雄，前往釜山的火车–分享相似的文化底蕴，尽管他们在亚洲的全球资本主义及其最新的意识形态阶段即新自由主义方面无与伦比。这两部电影都批评了当前的新自由主义秩序，并受到了两国历史上的历史创伤以及肆虐该地区的真实和虚构病毒的大范围传播的熏陶。然而，日韩僵尸电影所探索的最突出问题是社会的连续性及其再现：作为新自由主义世界的文化产物，这些电影提供了反乌托邦的视野，在这种视野中，剥削加速到某种程度，国家无法保护自己不受侵害。病毒式的和资本主义的猛烈攻击。