The Wild Boar Never Strikes Without Cause: Monstrous Hybrids, National Identity, and Gender in the Horror Movie Chawu

The wild boar has found its own unique space in the genre animal horror. The story of the monstrous wild boar describes conflicts between nature and culture, animal and human, and the criticism of civilization is a prominent theme. The place that produced the monstrous boar is important in the genre and it describes monstrous places where something has gone horribly wrong. The landscapes where the wild boar causes destruction are horrid liminal spaces between past and present. This chapter explores themes connected to South Korea’s dark history of colonial oppression and civil wars in the wild boar horror film Chawu (2009). In particular, it addresses issues regarding the construction of national identity, gender, and the hybridization of masculinities in contemporary South Korea.