Aema

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHUNGMURO

Madame Aema (1982) is a landmark in South Korean cinema. Released during Chun Doo-hwan’s authoritarian “3S Policy” era (Sports, Screen, Sex), it boldly tested the limits of censorship while becoming a commercial hit.

Set in South Korea during the early 1980s, Aema follows the high-stakes world of Korea’s first erotic film, charting the journey of a seasoned star and an ambitious newcomer as they navigate a male-dominated industry rife with censorship.

Lee Hanee shines as Jung Hee-ran, a celebrated actress desperate to escape her sex symbol image, clashing with the manipulative producer Ku Jung-ho and director Kwak In-woo. Bang Hyo-rin’s Shin Ju-ae brings fire as a determined newcomer, whose ambition eventually leads her to forge an unexpected alliance with Hee-ran against systemic exploitation.

Visually, the series bursts with kaleidoscopic colors and audacious fashion, a stark contrast to the era’s typically somber portrayals. It foregrounds women’s solidarity while exposing the hidden suffering forced under patriarchal norms. Yet its message is paradoxically conservative: sexual desire is largely vilified, and only one character’s transactional sex is punished. The show favors energetic vignettes over historical accuracy, leading to caricatured characters and uneven tones, but it remains stylish and entertaining.

In essence, Aema is visually dazzling, thematically bold, and enjoyable, though its message and narrative clarity are somewhat muddled.

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Springtime in Seoul; the comedy of soft porn and the dictatorship

A soap-bubble of a story about the beginnings of the erotic film industry in Seoul. 2025, kdrama, 6eps x 50mins ea = 5 hrs watchtime.

A young director/scriptwriter (Jo Hyun Chul under a mop of hair) struggles to create a viable commercial script for an erotic movie in a country where erotica was suddenly possible. In 1981 a 20-yr dictatorship (by then) decided to lift a 37yr old curfew, midnight to 4 am, so showing adult-only movies became possible. Chun Doo Hwan, the surviving henchman of Park Chung Hee (assassinated in 1979) was promoting a bread-and-circuses program of sports, sex and the screen.

The process and consequences of producing and shooting the very real 1982 blockbuster movie Madame Aema are the scaffolding of the series. The actual film is refracted in this series rather than fully represented. The director channeling Emmanuelle (french novel and various films) originally lards the script with semi-solitary sex acts. The star actress Jung Hee-ran, played by Honey Lee, comically remarks that the lack of motivation for those acts presents an obstacle to an actress' interpretation. In Su, the director, after their conversation, eventually decides to go with a Japanese surrealism-concept instead (thus getting around the motivation problem) and to use simpler relationships.

Hee-ran's contractual feud with the producer has led to her being cast in only a supporting role. The story of the ingenue actress Shin Ju Ae (played by Bang Hyo Rin, who gets the part of Aema) is the backbone of the series. The central relationship is between these two women. Not director - actress, not producer - actress, but actress to actress. Hee-ran tries to warn off Ju-Ae from the profession, berating and belittling her. But when Ju Ae is nearly pimped out to the dictator, Here-ran has a revelatory moment. She sides with Ju Ae not out of kindness or feminine loyalty or friendship, but because she suddenly realizes how much of herself she has given away -- too much. The two eventually are creative and courageous.

Somehow I was reminded of Springtime for Hitler (Mel Brooks' The Producers) when puzzling over the tone of presenting the Chun Doo Hwan administration comically -- after all the Gwanjiu uprising was in May of 1980, only16 mos. before the successful Olympic bid for the 88 Olympics was announced on Sept 30, 1981, which is where the series' action begins. The regime's persecution didnt feel as funny for me as it should have, but that may be me. I read somewhere that under an oppressive regime cinema can only portray private life so politics becomes metaphor. There were/are plenty of metaphors available in this show. It is my feeling that it will merit a rewatch.

ps. in the comments some seemed not to understand that the regime arrested tortured and killed people at will during most of the 80's. Too young to know, I suppose. Well, sometimes things are so bad it is better to laugh than cry, and that doesn't require age to understand.

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