“Kim contributes new scholarship to both Asian cinema and gender studies. . . . [T]his book is worth reading for the sheer number of Korean films explored alone.” — Kathleen Ellis, Intersections
“What Kim does best is to whet the reader’s appetite to find and view these Korean films, to get a new perspective, and to generate discussion. For cinema-philes, this book is seriously good reading on modern Korean film industry.” — Bill Drucker , Korean Quarterly
"[E]xcellent ground work which raises the level of understanding of Korean cinema and invites others to invest more on Korean cinema. . . . [Kim's] lengthy and intelligent close readings of fascinating recent Korean films will, without a doubt, be better appreciated when the readers have already watched the film." — Hyunjun Min, The Journal of Asian Studies
[T]his book allows readers less familiar with Korean films to easily understand the current Korean cinematic phenomena, while also acting as a wonderful invitation and guide to its recent history.” — Chongdae Park , The Communication Review
“Kyung Hyun Kim’s book is a roller coaster ride through modern South Korean masculinity in the cinema. At once unflinching and sympathetic, Kim’s groundbreaking study traces Korean permutations on the gendered imagery of castration and rape and the impossible condition of postcolonial masculinity, caught between incommensurable values and demands.” — Chris Berry, coeditor of Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia
“This is an important book. There is a long tradition of scholarship investigating the representation of women in Asian cinema. This has included some consideration of Korean film, which more often than not finds the representations of Korean women wanting in one way or another. It took Kyung Hyun Kim’s writing to turn my attention to the rich complexity of the men. His focus on masculinity—coinciding with the turn to the issue by major feminist film theorists—simply makes perfect sense. His is a particularly compelling contribution to the study of Asian cinema, but is simultaneously in dialogue with all manner of gender studies.” — Abé Mark Nornes, University of Michigan