Week 8: Mr. Sunshine: Korean Independence and the Colonial Period
Late Joseon and the onset of Japanese colonial rule, and what a historical drama is for
12 April 2027
Mr. Sunshine (미스터 선샤인) is set at the end of the Joseon dynasty as Japanese colonial expansion takes hold, following characters drawn into the early independence movement. It’s a big-budget, openly patriotic historical drama, and this week treats that as exactly the thing to examine: historical dramas don’t just depict the past, they construct a version of national memory that audiences carry forward as if it were simply what happened.
Questions#
- How is the late Joseon period and Japanese colonial expansion represented in the drama?
- What forms did Korean resistance actually take, and which of those does the drama show?
- What does the drama remember, simplify, or romanticise about this period?
- How does historical drama, as a genre, construct national memory — and what responsibility does that carry?
What to take from this week#
- the late Korean Empire and the conditions that preceded annexation
- Japanese colonialism and its scope, beyond what a single drama can depict
- independence movements, in their actual variety — armed, diplomatic, cultural
- resistance as organised, sustained political action, not a single hero’s arc
- national identity as something this period is still cited to explain
- historical memory, and the gap between a national story and the historical record
Approaching this week#
Be historically responsible here. Treat the drama’s characters and events as fiction inspired by the period, not as documentary evidence — a compelling scene is not a source, and a claim about the colonial period needs a historical source behind it, not just a citation of the show.
Teaching team
- May Rhee — convenor