《許三觀賣血記》와 《許三觀》의 文化飜譯

Abstract

The movie “Heo sam-gwan,” directed by Ha Jung-woo, has been spotlighted by public opinion, since the novel “Chronicle of a Blood Merchant” by Yu Hua who is one of Chinese representative writers has been filmed, while the public culture between Korea and China is interchanging more actively than ever. While Mr. Ha, the movie director, modified and scripted the historical backgrounds and episodes of the novel into the scenes of the 1950-1960s of Korea, the backgrounds and aspects presented in the movie has been reconstructed dramatically with the distinct aura from its original story. The main text of this paper will discuss the active role of movie as the translator of the certain historical and cultural backgrounds through agreeing on the postmodern view of the “Cultural Translation,” suggesting that movie is a self-writing, auto-ethnographic, and postcolonial translator of cultural differences. In the process of ‘the cultural contacts and negotiations,’ this movie transforms the image of the main character, Heo sam-gwan, by removing the trend of the times represented by ‘the Great Advance Movement’ and ‘the Cultural Revolution’ containing the message of the failure of policy and the natural disaster. Furthermore, this movie highlights ‘the patriarchy ideology’ which is the current cultural trend as well as the main ideology of Korea supported by the political authority. From the view of arguing movie as being a self-writing and auto-ethnographic translator of cultural differences, the process of a filmic adaptation of novel requires the phase of defining a new self or ego by adopting new values and ideas when making the film version of the original novel. However, the movie, “Heo sam-gwan” seems not to reach the goal of becoming the active cultural translator, since it is hard to find its enthusiastic attempts to face the process of becoming neighbors to other cultures, requiring a traumatic dispossession of one’s own narcissistic ego.