ABSTRACT
The biopic or biographical film dramatizes, whether in part or whole, the life of historical personalities on screen. What Robert Burgoyne calls “perhaps the most familiar form of cinematic historiography and … by far the largest subgenre of historical filmmaking” in Hollywood, 1 the biopic has a substantial presence in Korean cinema. By presenting small layers of national history through the life of recognizable figures from the past, the genre first rose to prominence in the Golden Age of Korean cinema of the 1960s. In the 1970s, the public’s interest in biographical stories fell dramatically when heroic biopics subservient to the dominant ideology flooded local screens. Since the beginning of the 2000s, biopics have started to make a comeback, as the phenomenal growth of the national film industry made space for nearly forgotten and dismissed film cycles to reemerge. This time, shedding its propagandistic mantle and appealing to popular taste, the genre has been riding the tides of the rising “culture content industry” that promotes ancillary products and synergy effects.
