We Shall Overcome Someday (?) La rappresentazione dei zainichi coreani in Gaki teikoku e Pacchigi!

Until the 1980s, films featuring zainichi Koreans often defined these characters in opposition to those of Japanese ethnicity, presenting their identity as a form of otherness. Izutsu Kazuyuki’s Gaki teikoku (1981) is one of the earliest films to depict zainichi without emphasizing their ethnicity through victimizing stereotypes or reducing them to the 'Other.' While retaining elements of his earlier work, in the national hit Pacchigi! (2005), Izutsu offers a more conventional representation of zainichi characters as ethnically opposed to the Japanese through an interethnic love story. By means of a comparative analysis of the two films, I argue that Gaki teikoku is less concerned with constructing a zainichi identity and more focused on depicting a violent, multiethnic society, whereas Pacchigi! presents a more conciliatory view, turning the zainichi into a 'spectacle' for the Japanese gaze.