Classroom Activities | East Asian Studies Center

Pre-Screening Discussion

The conceptual questions outlined above are complex and intended to help instructors introduce the film and lead class discussion after students have watched the film. In simplified form, they can also serve as pre-screening discussion questions that prime students to watch the film analytically:

What kind of history can a film present by following the life of an ordinary man? What is an ordinary man—does such a category really exist? What films have students watched that concern historical events? From whose perspective are historical events narrated? How does this perspective change the way they interact with history?
What is “labor”? On the surface, “labor” means “work,” but using this term underscores work as a structural element of economics and politics, e.g., a “labor market” or a “labor union.” What does it mean to think about work as “labor,” meaning not only your day to day, but work as part of a system? Ode to My Father is both interested in labor as a historical force and in the individual work experience of one man, so there is a tension. What kinds of stories about work/labor have students encountered? How are they told?
The film explicitly posits the Vietnam War as a repeat of the Korean War. It also includes a scene in a non-war setting that evokes war trauma. Repetition is a formal feature of many narratives, especially those told in serial formats (like a crime procedural). Repetition always involves difference, meaning that the very fact something is repeated produced a change. It turns a singular event, for example, into a sequence. What does repetition “do” in a story? How does it focus our attention?
How do media like radio, television, and cinema create a sense of belonging? What about political/national rituals like the Pledge of Allegiance? When do students themselves feel they belong to a larger community? How does consuming media produce a sense of belonging? Watching the Super Bowl? Scrolling TikTok?

After a brief discussion, students will be ready to watch the film critically. Noticing details that pertain to the questions above as they watch will further equip them to analyze the film in a post-screening discussion and any related writing assignments. Some things to watch for:

Explicit reference to historical events (which are indicated by on-screen text)
- There are “brushes” with significant historical figures in the film, like the scene with the founder of Hyundai, but these will be difficult for students to notice and contextualize, so I don’t suggest lingering on them.
Poverty/well-being (how do we gauge Duk-soo’s economic situation)
Labor (when is the film primarily about work?)
International mobility, of characters, goods, ideas (e.g., Duk-soo’s store inventory, Dal-gu’s hairdos and clothing choices)
Repetitions, including sequences featuring the same/very similar shots
Narrative structure, how are the parts of this story joined together
characters consuming media (radio, film, TV, etc.)
Moments of solidarity, between workers, Asians, South Koreans, etc.
South Korea vs. others, American, West Germany, Vietnam, North Korea

Suggested Sequences for Analysis

Any of the sequences described in the “Conceptual Questions” will be fruitful for class discussion. I will model how to conduct an analysis of the first Vietnam War sequence that was introduced in the previous section under the subheading “Cold War Repetition.”

Analysis: In this scene, Duk-soo delivers supplies to an American Military Police outpost and receives what appears to be a generous payment for his services. The scene is shot with a yellow tint to reflect Vietnam’s tropical climate, but the warm tone also recalls the color palette of the film’s earlier sequences in wartime Busan. The color choice hints that there is a parity between the 1950s in South Korea and the 1970s in South Vietnam. By contrast, the West German scenes are tinted blue, evoking both the “cold” quality of the industrial and hospital workplaces and the emotional distance between the South Korean workers and their West German hosts. In the sequence, Duk-soo watches children crowd American soldiers in hopes of receiving candy, an experience he remembers from his own childhood. But the nostalgic moment is shattered when the outpost is bombed by saboteurs. The film seems to be drawing parallels between the Korean War and the Vietnam War, but it also registers tension and difference.

How can this paragraph be enriched and expanded with details and close analysis?

What types of people and institutions do we see in the scene?
- American military/military police HQ
- South Korean workers/Daehan, i.e., the company they work for
- South Vietnamese sex workers/brothel
- Destitute South Vietnamese children fighting for scraps
- Viet Cong saboteurs
What forms of war-related labor is visible?
What is Duk-soo and Dal-gu’s status vis a vis the others in the scene?
How do South Koreans interact with South Vietnamese people (notice what Dal-gu is doing while Duk-soo has a wholesome interaction with a child)?
How does sabotage shatter the scene? Literally, people are killed and injured, but the bombing is presented in a strange way, first the film cuts to black, then the explosion is played backwards. What does this all mean?

How to Write about Film

The first step to writing (or talking) analytically about a film is watching the film attentively. The questions in the previous section are intended to focus students’ attention on “big ideas” that the film engages with, but it’s also important for students to notice details that pertain to these larger problematics. Rather than approaching a film with preconceived notions of what it will mean, students should watch (and later, write) critically, aware of their assumptions and attentive to moments that deviate from what they might expect.

David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephens’ Writing Analytically is an excellent textbook resource for writing about film and informs the approaches and exercises in this section. Though the authors don’t focus on film, the book works through multiple examples of visual analysis and provides clear, helpful advice for writing. My own craft improves every time I teach with it. The approach and exercises presented here are inspired by years of teaching with this book. One of the book’s most helpful distillations of what is means to think analytically is the simple framing: “Although X appears to account for Z, Y accounts for it better” (154). This approach adds tension to the argumentation, allowing students to develop a nuanced argument that can account for contradictions and anomalies in the film.

For example, if a student is most interested in Cold War military history, they might expect that Ode to My Father presents the Vietnam War as a repetition of the Korean War. The film certainly does explicitly explore Cold War repetition, but as explained above, these repetitions are complex and reveal differences. Upon learning this, a student might choose to point to all the differences between the Vietnam and Korean wars as portrayed in the film. Neither one of these essays will be very interesting and neither one will tell us very much about “how” the film means. Rather than thinking about the film in terms of “either/or,” it’s most productive to consider such contradictory meanings in tension with each other. Tweaking the approach form Writing Analytically, we might say, “Although Ode to My Father stages the Vietnam War as a repetition of the Korean War, the differences between the two conflicts unsettle the film’s original characterization of the Korean War.” Let’s see how we might analyze key scenes from the film in detail to make the case that the film is as interested in repetition as it is in the critical function of difference.

The most effective way to get to a more complex argument is to shift from “what” (content) questions to “how” (form) questions. Writing about film works most effectively when visual analysis supports an original argument about film form. Writing about film form demands attentive, analytical viewing and facility with film terminology. First, let’s deal with attentive, analytical viewing. Close attention to specific moments in the film allows students to tease out tensions and complexities rather than regurgitate generalizations. It’s very unlikely that a film congeals exactly as expected and careful viewing will reward us with curious anomalies ripe for analysis. The goal is to observe details and figure how they work together in the film to make meaning. Writing Analytically calls the practice of organizing evidence into patterns and contrasts “The Method.” Collecting “data points” and thinking about how they relate to each other (as patterns or contrasts), allows students to “induce” what the film means. Inductive reasoning relies on details to develop a general argument (deductive reasoning begins with a general argument). Shifting from deductive to inductive reasoning when writing about a film will help students avoid producing argumentation that is repetitive and predictable. If students begin with an obvious claim, “Ode to My Father shows the Vietnam War as a repetition of the Korean War,” they can come up with a relatively straightforward and boring essay that proves this claim multiple times. In this situation, we can push students to think about how the film uses repetition to infuse critical meanings in its otherwise nostalgic and relatively apolitical representation. The film stages uncannily similar moments in both conflicts. Why might this be the case? What “problem” is resolved by multiple returns to the same moment?

In the following section, we will work through the steps of formulating an argument about Ode to My Father’s use of repetition. First, we will consider several exercises that can help students organize their observations about the film and begin developing arguments. Each exercise can be performed in class as a group activity or assigned as homework. In either case, I have found it helpful for students to maintain an online or paper document in which they keep a record of notes pertaining to each exercise. As the student’s thinking about the film evolves, this “journal” maintains a record of their work and helps them scaffold more complex arguments, and ultimately, essays. While throughout this module, I will refer to the final product of film analysis as an “essay,” it’s important to note that the exercises and analytical approaches presented here are foundational to multiple modes of intellectual expression. Producing engaging podcast episodes, videos, presentations, posters, etc. about a film relies also on watching critically and thinking analytically.

Key film terms will be marked in bold—a glossary linked here offers definitions of these terms with screenshots and clips from that illustrate them. The glossary is not exhaustive, but should be adequate for an introductory class. David Bordwell’s Film Art is a classic textbook that defines terms and provides excellent examples of visual analysis. Older editions are very cheap and contain all the information necessary to begin analyzing film.

The analytical process begins before we watch the film!

The module includes a list of questions to consider with students before they watch the film. Instead of attending to each question exhaustively, I suggest that teachers choose questions based on their syllabus. Which questions resonate with themes you’ve already covered? Does the film present a complimentary or opposing (or both) viewpoint to materials that you’ve already covered? It’s likely that your class does not concern East Asian history, but there are many themes in Ode to My Father that intersect with issues pertinent to life in contemporary America.

Have you screened historical films or discussed the politics of historical representation? Have you considered how history is articulated through everyday figures vs. significant historical actors? Have you dealt with stories that focus on the politics of work? Have you discussed the role of the media in creating national publics?

Such an in-class discussion will allow students to approach the film with some personal/intellectual investment in its main issues. Upon watching, they can discover continuities between the material you’ve already covered and a new, initially unfamiliar, film.

The analytical process continues as we watch the film!

For our purposes, watching a film consists of two things: the film itself and the experience of viewing the film. Watching the film itself analytically means students should pay attention to film form, or how the film is put together. The how includes both visual elements and narrative structure. When students think a detail is significant, they should note it down. For example, if we are interested repetition, we want to take note of scenes that thematically, visually, or explicitly feature repetition. What details do we notice? How do these scenes fit into the film? How do they read against each other?

Ask students to take note of four or five scenes that catch their attention. What stands out as significant? What doesn’t make sense? An anomaly can be very productive for analysis, because it invites us to think more deeply about what is going on in the film. Students should make note of the scene’s context and jot down some details that they notice.

The environment in which we watch the film is also important, especially since all three films considered in our modules are box office hits that are now accessible in the US mainly as streaming titles. It’s not always possible to watch a film together in a cinematic screening. Nevertheless, I encourage in-class film screenings because they offer a unique, communal experience of a film. The audience in a cinema is rarely entirely silent. We emote, sometimes verbally, as we watch a film. A film screening is not only a great way to focus attention on the film, but also a way of “sensing” the audience response to the film and feeling oneself as part of that audience. Ode to My Father is a moving melodrama film that many, many people watched in the cinema. What kind of knowledge can students glean by paying attention to the “vibe” in the room? By contrast, if students watch alone, how do they experience the film? Where can they turn to validate/express their emotions and reactions to the film? When does their attention drift? Considering these questions might not always explicitly contribute to writing an essay, but it should get students thinking about how the circumstances of watching a film might alter their relationship to the piece of media they are consuming.

After watching, students should return to their notes and begin “unpacking” the moments in the film they consider to be intriguing.

It’s ok if it’s not initially entirely clear why a given moment is striking. Conversely, it’s important not to write off a moment because it’s “obviously” significant. To figure out precisely what is happening in a given sequence, we need to return to it and watch it again, carefully. What makes this moment significant? How does it relate to the rest of the film? Does it stand out because it clashes with what we have seen, is it an amplification of something that occurred in an earlier moment?

To begin, students can choose two to three moments in the film from their notes. To watch these scenes again, they will need access to the film, ideally, the entire film. If that is not possible, you can provide students with a selection of clips from the film that they can choose from.

Writing Analytically suggests a “10 on 1” approach (103-108) that asks students to choose one example from the “whole” (in this case, a single scene from the film) that is representative of the argument they are beginning to formulate. As the authors note, “10” is an arbitrary figure that simply denotes multiple observations about a single example (103).

In a film class, students would be asked to conduct a shot by shot “sequence analysis” of the significant scene. Such an assignment, the bedrock of film analysis, calls for students to identify each shot, describing its length, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound, and what happens in the shot. This can be a time-consuming exercise, because the average shot length in a contemporary film is only a few seconds. The benefit of recording this information about each shot, however, is that students will notice many details. The sheer amount of time necessary to complete a sequence analysis (potentially hours of work for minutes of film) is a testament to the amount of information that is jam packed into a film. Watching closely focuses attention on the way the film is put together.

For a more approachable exercise for beginners, let’s combine some aspects of sequence analysis and the “10 on 1” approach to analyze the sequence in which Duk-soo relives his childhood memories of living in wartime Busan while working in Vietnam.

Watch clip from 1:21:57 -1:24:44 (embedded clip pending)

The scene shot by shot:

Establishing shot—a very long shot of a plaza with a fountain, pans left and settles on Duk-soo unloading a truck, yellow tint
Medium long shot of Duk-soo unloading heavy boxes labeled DAEHAN and signing paperwork
A medium close-up of Duk-soo and Dal-gu counting money they’ve just been paid
Cut to a point-of-view shot that follows Duk-soo’s gaze as he notices a Military Police jeep
Cut back to medium close-up of the men, Duk-soo asks Dal-gu if the jeep jogs his memories, but Dal-gu would rather not think about that, suggesting they get a drink
Cut to an over-the-shoulder shot of the two men that shows they are sitting in front of the “US Star Bar,” a venue where sex workers entertain soldiers
Medium shot of the two men, Dal-gu gets up to approach the bar
Medium long shot in which Dal-gu approaches sex workers in front of the bar, a jeep passes in front of them
Long shot that shows the same jeep arriving at military building, which is right next to the bar/brothel
Medium long shot of American soldiers getting out of the jeep, then pan right as they approach the building
Medium close up of an American soldier tossing a Hershey’s chocolate bar to a crowd of children, the bar is in the background, clearly visible, the camera pans/tilts right/down, following the arc of the falling chocolate as children fight to grab it
Medium close-up of Duk-soo looking at the fight
Long shot of a crying child who has been beaten up and had his chocolate stolen
Medium long shot of Duk-soo approaching the child
Medium close-up of Duk-soo talking with the boy
Medium close-up of Duk-soo and the boy over Duk-soo’s shoulder, Duk-soo is still holding the envelope with his pay as he rummages in his bag to find another Hershey’s bar
Medium close-up of the two as the boy asks if Duk-soo is Korean
Close-up of Duk-soo as he confirms that he is Korean
Medium close-up of the two (over Duk-soo’s shoulder) as the boy thanks Duk-soo and takes the chocolate
Cut to a medium close-up over the boy’s shoulder, which turns into a pan as Duk-soo walks away to reclaim his initial position by the military police building
The boy appears in the background of the shot, looking over his shoulder, while Duk-soo is framed in a medium close-up and walks towards the camera
Medium shot of Duk-soo sitting in front of the military building, two MPs flank the door and military personnel walk in and out
Medium long shot of Dal-gu with sex workers in front of bar
Medium close-up of Duk-soo as he looks to the plaza
Duk-soo sees the boy, crouched behind a rickshaw, in a long shot
Medium close-up of Duk-soo as he asks “What?”
Medium shot of the boy who gestures for Duk-soo to come
Medium close-up of Duk-soo, who has misunderstood the gesture and waves to the boy in response
Medium long-shot of Duk-soo that pans right to show that two young Vietnamese people are entering the military building
Medium close-up of the boy, who points to the building
Medium close-up of Duk-soo, confused
Long shot of the door, with Duk-soo on the left, and the young people, wearing backpacks, on the right, speaking to an MP by the door, Duk-soo turns to look
Close-up of Duk-soo, realizing that something is amiss
Medium close-up of the boy, who again gestures for Duk-soo to come
Close-up of Duk-soo
Close-up of the boy, who starts to move forward, toward Duk-soo
The camera tracks into a close-up of Duk-soo, the young Vietnamese people enter the building behind him, suspenseful music begins to play
Long-shot of the boy running to Duk-soo, in slow motion, which continues for the rest of the scene
Close-up of Duk-soo, who glances back at the building
Medium shot of Duk-soo through the closing doors of the building
Close-up of Duk-soo turning his head
Long shot of the boy running to Duk-soo
Close-up of Duk-soo turning his head and yelling to Dal-gu
Medium close-up of Dal-gu with the sex workers
Close-up of Duk-soo’s face as he begins running
In the next shot, Duk-soo’s body fills the right side of the frame, and the running boy is visible on the left
Medium close-up of Duk-soo who is screaming “No!” and running towards the boy
The film cuts to a black screen

General observations about the scene:

American soldiers in uniform and South Vietnamese civilians are visible in the background of the shots, this is a bustling city scene
The sex workers wear colorful dresses
Dal-gu and Duk-soo are also wearing uniforms, but Dal-gu, as usual, is also sporting a stylish look, complete with an Afro
A store selling canned goods, and Pepsi, is visible in multiple shots, recalling the mise-en-scène of Gukje Market, where South Koreans sell foreign goods in similar stalls
The scene has a yellow tint, evoking a “hot” atmosphere, and recalling the color scheme of Busan in the 1950s

Having noted down all the shots and made observations, students should notice patterns and contrasts that appear in the scene. This relatively short sequence features 48 shots and presents viewers with a lot of information. For example:

People giving/receiving money/treats
Dal-gu and Duk-soo choose to focus on different things
People in uniforms
The bar is adjacent to the military installation, because, as Duk-soo points out, the bar is “for” American soldiers
While people mingle relatively freely in the plaza, the military installation is not accessible to everyone, there is only one shot of its interior, and barely at that
Lots of shots/reverse shots between Duk-soo and the boy, establishing a close relationship and emotional investment
Youth: young boy, young saboteurs, and young sex workers (vs. middle aged South Korean men)

The plaza in the film is a tightly structured space inhabited by three groups of people. In the scene, the film reveals who has access to which part of the plaza, and so sketches out the hierarchies and political tensions that exist between the American military, South Korean workers, and Vietnamese people. Multiple shots call our attention to acts of looking: the two South Korean characters take in the space and decide how to interact with it. Since the South Koreans are merely support personnel, they deliver goods but do not enter the American military installation. Staying at the periphery of the building underscores that they do not fully belong with the American forces, and Duk-soo is even reluctant to go to the bar. It is not “for” them, but rather, “for American soldiers.” Dal-gu transgresses this boundary and starts chatting up sex workers who service the American troops. Duk-soo focuses on American soldiers who toss candy to Vietnamese children, establishing rapport with a little boy who reminds him of his own childhood. Having established what we might call “Asian solidarity,” the boy warns Duk-soo that two young Vietnamese people entering the military building behind them are saboteurs. A bomb that shatters the tightly structured space is about to go off. Duk-soo starts running, but it is not clear what happens, as the screen cuts to black.

The next exercise calls for students to pick several of the most significant observations they have made and keep pushing deeper. For example, let’s consider how the spatial hierarchies in Vietnam are visually constructed and how they echo the film’s presentation of life in wartime Busan.

Labor, or who works for whom
- Saigon:
  - American soldiers working for the US state are actively working, receiving goods and guarding the military installation, they appear in the background of the scene
  - The main characters are working for Daehan, a South Korean contractor that provides logistics services for the US military, they are wearing uniforms, the scene focuses on them, i.e., they visually anchor most shots
  - South Vietnamese sex workers, also in “uniform,” i.e. sexy dresses, work directly next to the American base, Dal-gu decides to spend his money at the bar
- Busan:
  - American soldiers drive through the city, but they don’t seem as tensely occupied with their military labor and one American soldier has a speaking part
  - South Korean contractors, i.e., the founder of Hyundai, also drive through the city
  - The main characters, children, work on the side of the road, shining shoes
  - Despite the fact that sex work was prevalent during and after the Korean War, no sex workers appear in the streets of Busan
Cars/trucks, or who gets a lift
- Saigon
  - The main characters arrive in a truck, and unload it
  - When an American jeep appears at the plaza, Duk-soo remembers his childhood, and indeed, American soldiers in this scene also toss candy to children on the street who fight over chocolate bars
- Busan:
  - A South Korean contractor jumps onto a truck, riding away from the two boys, who have no access to cars
  - American soldiers drive through the city, South Korean chase them, Dal-gu, initially disgusted, also puts on a grotesque show to get a chocolate from a soldier passing in a car
Interaction with children
- Saigon:
  - American soldiers toss candy down and never interact with the children, while Duk-soo approaches the boy and talks with him at his level, crouched down
- Busan:
  - The South Korean businessman also talks to the boys at their level, but he is crouched beside them because Duk-soo has been polishing his shoes, he then jumps up onto a truck and rides away
  - An American soldier talks with the two boys, gives them candy after Dal-gu sings and dances for him, and then warns them a bully is nearby before driving off
Anti-communism
- Saigon:
  - The little boy is not exactly a “communist,” but he is aware that two Viet Cong operatives are about to blow up the building and only warns Duk-soo
  - Two young Vietnamese people, presumably working for the Viet Cong, blow up the military installation, causing carnage to everyone in the street
- Busan:
  - The scene in which Duk-soo polishes shoes and receives chocolates comes right after the two boys meet in school and Dal-gu accuses Duk-soo of being a communist. Duk-soo vehemently denies the charge. Despite his North Korean background, he is not at all involved with communist resistance groups.

This is still a lot of information. How can we narrow it down and focus in on an argument? At this point, drafting an analytical description of the scene is a good exercise. When students use the details that they have observed and organized to write a description of what happens in the scene, they are already writing analytically.

Analytical Description

Duk-soo relives his boyhood experience of the Korean War while working for a South Korean contractor during the Vietnam War. In a crucial scene, the men arrive at a military installation in Saigon to deliver goods and receive payment. The yellow tint of the camera lens recalls earlier sequences in the film that took place in wartime Busan, though the Vietnam color palette is more saturated, as if to underscore the oppressive tropical heat in which the men work. An establishing shot introduces the space in which the scene unfolds: a busy plaza in Saigon where ordinary Vietnamese people go about their lives.

The men pull up to a military police building and unload their goods, then they receive payment. Sitting to rest after carrying heavy boxes, they survey the plaza. Duk-soo notices something, and a point-of-view shot reveals he is watching an American military jeep drive across the plaza. While he begins reminiscing about wartime Busan, when such jeeps drove through the South Korean city, Dal-gu turns their attention elsewhere. A medium long shot reveals that the two men are facing the “US Star Bar,” an establishment with sex workers who cater to American servicemembers. Despite Duk-soo’s warning that the bar is not intended for South Korean workers, Dal-gu goes off to join the sex workers in front of the bar. While the film cuts to shots of Dal-gu several times, they are never framed very closely and there is no audible dialogue between Dal-gu and the women. A shot shows the jeep drive past the bar, and a subsequent shot reveals that the bar is in fact right next to the military building. These two locales are thus visually linked. Because these shots maintain distance between the camera and two buildings, they suggest that both the bar and the military installation is not quite accessible.

Visually, the scene is anchored by Duk-soo, who sits in the plaza and looks on as children surround the jeep imploring soldiers for a handout. A medium close-up shows a soldier toss a Hershey’s bar down onto the street. This gesture unfolds against the background of the bar, whose sign is visible just above the jeep. As the candy falls to the ground, and the children fight for, the visual hierarchy between the US military and the locals is established. The American military has its “needs” met by the women in the bar and occasionally deigns to toss candy down to children whose lives have been debased by the war.

Duk-soo experienced a similar relationship with American soldiers as a child—during the Korean War, too, children chased after military jeeps in hopes of obtaining a candy bar. Here, however, a faceless American tosses a chocolate bar to the street. When Duk-soo and Dal-gu received candy, a soldier stopped to talk to them one on one. Even then, however, the exchange was marked by indignity. To obtain a chocolate, Dal-gu put on a grotesque performance for the American soldier’s amusement. Upon seeing a boy beaten by others who steal the candy he’s managed to grasp, Duk-soo approaches the child with an empathetic attitude. The camera too, underscores the interaction as an emotionally engaged exchange. The South Korean man approaches the child, crouches down, and offers him a replacement. While one shot is framed with a slightly high angle, for the most part, the interaction is filmed with a level camera, suggesting parity between the two interlocutors. When the boy asks if Duk-soo is Korean, and Duk-soo confirms that he is, the solidarity between the two Asian countries is further underscored. Duk-soo’s gesture sets him apart from the American military, for which he works, and gains the boy’s trust.

By contrast, Dal-gu spends the rest of the scene by the bar, mingling with sex workers and inhabiting a space reserved for American soldiers. Both men are in the same plaza, but their relationship to the space and people aligns them with opposing sides of the Vietnam conflict. Both Duk-soo and Dal-gu, however, invert or overcome their childhood wartime experience. Dal-gu inhabits the role of an American soldier by soliciting the services of local women. Ode to My Father did not show American soldiers with sex workers in Korea, but the scene in Vietnam retroactively reminds viewers that the same dynamic was prevalent in the previous war. Duk-soo’s interaction with the local community is more wholesome, but similarly repositions him as a savior. In Busan, he was the unfortunate child desperate for chocolate. Now, he is not only the provider, but presented as a moral figure whose interaction with the Vietnamese boy is more caring than that of American soldiers. His kindness is rewarded when the boy, apparently complicit in a Viet Cong scheme, chooses to alert Duk-soo to an imminent attack against the US forces, thus saving his life.

The scene simultaneously resolves the trauma of the Korean War and illustrates a deep ambivalence about the two anti-communist campaigns. The South Korean men assert their power in this new conflict, but their position in the political and economic hierarchy is only marginally improved. They might ride in a jeep like the founder of Hyundai in Busan, but they work for a contractor and reap minimal benefits from a war that greatly enriched South Korean corporations. Yet Duk-soo also stands in for South Korea writ large. He works for a company called Daehan, a fictional firm whose name literally means “South Korea,” and is spared death because the Vietnamese boy sees him as a “Korean” and not American. The scene’s presentation of the Vietnam War is complex and contradictory: the South Koreans are at once exploited and exploiters, innocent and complicit, redeemed in their own war experience, and reminded of the unresolved tensions in Cold War politics that define their own lives.

Larger questions about the meaning of the film emerge at the end of this description. To keep pushing at their implications, keep asking questions.

What happens right after this scene? How does Duk-soo’s letter to his wife contextualize what he has just experienced vis-à-vis the hardships he has already endured? If such violence already happened to him, why is it happening again?
During the Korean War, American soldiers were friendly, and no of the characters were communists. Here, American soldiers are at best anonymous, and the one “friend” Duk-soo makes turns out to be embroiled in an anti-communist plot. Why is this one and only explicit brush with communism important?
Who are the “good guys”? How do the South Koreans fit into this war? How does this war fit into Korean history?
How does the savior dynamic change in the next scene, in which Duk-soo and Dal-gu navigate rural areas and encounter South Korean marines and the Viet Cong?
And, as Writing Analytically so aptly puts it, “so what?” Why is this significant?

Once an argument begins emerging from these details, students can get to the work of producing a compelling and original “evolving” argument (per Writing Analytically).

An argument about the function of repetition in the film is already emerging from the paragraphs of analytical description above, but this is one “data point.” Here, I have been making the case that while the film explicitly compares the Korean War to the Vietnamese War, this comparison is ambivalent and underscores tensions that were already present in earlier scenes. I am implying that by repeating events from the Korean War, the Vietnam sequences inflects what has already happened in the film with new meanings. But this tentative thesis stops short—there are more sequences in the film where Duk-soo relives his past, often violently.

Having thoroughly analyzed one scene, students should perform the same exercises in relation to a second (and third) significant scene. The dynamics of the Busan scenes that are only hinted at in this analytical description, for example, should be fleshed out on their own terms. Other sequences offer complicating evidence that needs to be accounted for in a rigorous essay. Such complicating evidence is not a hindrance to developing a strong film analysis, in fact, it adds tension and momentum to the argument. Consider how the power dynamics in this Saigon scene change in a later scene in rural Vietnam.

In Saigon, South Koreans are workers for the American military (via a contractor). Later in the film, these laborers bump into another group of South Korean men involved in the Vietnam War, the marines. How does this scene read when paired with the Saigon scene? If Duk-soo was left powerless in the Saigon scene, clutching the body of a boy who sacrificed himself to save a stranger, how is this powerlessness redeemed? South Korean troops assist the main characters so that they can (finally) become heroes who redeem themselves by saving other victims.

What other moments in the film redemption? How is redemption possible? Why must redemption happen repeatedly? Put another way, what conflict is consistently not resolved? A thorough essay does not have to answer every question presented in the materials above. In fact, it should not digress into every possible interpretation of a scene. Instead, each successive step in the writing process should help the writer narrow in on a precise argument. We started with the general claim that: “Ode to My Father presents the Vietnam War as a repetition of the Korean War.” Now, we can move to make a more specific claim: “By explicitly presenting the Vietnam War as repetition of the Korean War, Ode to My Father demonstrates that the two wars are linked by politics and economics. The two main characters, Duk-soo and Dal-gu, are repeatedly subjected to physical exploitation and violence that is conditioned by South Korea’s participation in Cold War labor markets. Each repetition grants them a measure of agency and redemption, metaphorically showing how South Korea gradually overcame its difficult past. In this reading, the film is a politically conservative ‘bootstrap’ story. By framing its narrative through traumatic repetition, however, the film exposes the structural violence that underlies South Korea’s economic ‘miracle.’ Though Ode doesn’t explicitly articulate a critical political stance, its constant return to conditions of exploitation exposes the complexity and ambivalence at the heart of South Korea’s developmental history.”

General Tips

Ask students to start by choosing a detail in the film that is significant to them, ideally a moment that they don’t quite know what to make of. The process of writing a film analysis is more (personally) rewarding when a student both generates a question and answers it with evidence that they have identified in the film.
Ask students to provide screenshots of the scenes they are writing about. While streaming services sometimes prevent taking screenshots, it is legal to capture a still image from an online video. Tubi, the site on which this film is currently streaming, does not block screenshots.
Film analysis demands careful attention and precise use of film terminology, but it’s a fulfilling and fun activity. Students should choose moments that excite them and learn how to explain what it is that fascinates them about a given sequence.

Ode to My Father in Comparative Perspective

The Indian film Bharat is a remake of Ode to My Father which focuses the traumas of Indian history through the life of an ordinary man. The historical context of the two films is unique, but both deal with partitioned postcolonial nations in the mid twentieth century. South Asia also makes an appearance directly in Ode to My Father, which presents South Korea as a destination for South Asian immigrants. Bharat is available to stream on Netflix as of February 2025.
The Korean Classic Film channel on YouTube features many historical films. Those from the 1950s give a sense of South Korea’s socioeconomic backdrop during the immediate postwar. Though films from later decades show a wealthier nation, their focus on socioeconomic conflict and inequity hints at the tensions in South Korean development.
There are many significant films about South Korean labor history. A Single Spark (dir. Park Kwang-su, 1995) marks a watershed in political filmmaking. The film, made in the 1990s when South Korea was coming to terms with decades of repressive political rule, tells the story of journalist who investigates a famous labor activist and martyr.
R-Point (dir. Kong Su-chang, 2004) and Sunny (dir. Lee Joon-ik, 2008) are both South Korean films about the Vietnam War. R-Point is a war horror about soldiers who are haunted by murderous ghosts. This set up gestures towards atrocities committed by South Korean troops in Vietnam. Sunny concerns a woman who follows her husband to the front by working as a singer, thus exploring a gendered dimension of military labor that is largely absent from other South Korean portrayals of the Vietnam War.
The Chicago Public Library has compiled a list of films about workers and the labor movement that can be productively paired with Ode to My Father.

This film guide was developed by Julia Keblinska, The Ohio State University and is available online for classroom use worldwide. The film guides can be accessed at EASC's Film Guide page.