From Global Ambition to Ethical Quandaries: Navigating Misogyny and Racism in Korea’s Cinematic Rise

Abstract: This article examines the entangled dynamics of nationalism, gender, and race in 21st-century South Korean commercial cinema, with a particular focus on the blockbuster The Roundup series. It argues that these films, while celebrated as icons of “Korean blockbuster” success, reproduce a problematic form of “K-nationalism”—a self-congratulatory vision of South Korea as an advanced nation that marginalizes others in the process. The analysis begins with the critique of a Hyundai Sonata advertisement, interpreting its imperial metaphor as symptomatic of a broader national amnesia regarding the exploitative legacies of so-called advanced nations. This nationalist self-satisfaction is also evident in recent films such as Escape from Mogadishu and The Point Men , which project Korean superiority onto the Global South, often casting Koreans as saviors in “barbaric” foreign settings. Centering on The Roundup , the article explores how the series’s protagonist, Ma Seok-do, embodies a hypermasculine “manosphere” in which physical dominance defines order, women are nearly absent, and racial hierarchies persist. Initially vilifying Joseonjok (Korean-Chinese) characters, the films later render them subservient to South Korean men, while Southeast Asian characters remain largely invisible—revealing a racialized structure within Korean national cinema. In its final section, the article turns to the post–#MeToo “feminism reboot” in South Korea and introduces as a feminist counter-narrative that challenges male-dominated and racially exclusive cinematic discourses. By analyzing these films through the lenses of gender and race, the article interrogates how South Korean national cinema constructs, enforces, and occasionally disrupts hegemonic visions of national identity in an era of shifting sociopolitical currents.