The Best of Enemies

In contrast, to the previous chapters’ focus on negative representations of Japan and the Japanese, this chapter considers more positive representations. Some, such as Tanaka, Spirits’ Homecoming sympathetic soldier are one-dimensional, while others are more nuanced. However, even overtly positive representations such as Anarchist From Colony ’s anarchist Kaneko Fumiko and The Handmaiden’s upper class lesbian lover, Lady Hideko are undermined or even erased by several factors including casting, ill-fated character arcs and clear distortion. These dilutions of positive Japanese-ness appear to occur to avoid jeopardising a film’s box office potential with Korean audiences and thus these ambivalent representations continue Kang’s postcolonial exorcism strategy, but in a less visually violent form.