A scene from "The Flower in Hell." PHOTO: KOFIC/THE KOREA HERALD

SEOUL – When Sean Baker took home four statuettes at this year’s Oscars—a feat unmatched since Walt Disney in 1954 —it cemented the director’s reputation as cinema’s preeminent chronicler of the sex worker community.

His film “Anora,” about a Brooklyn stripper whose fairy-tale marriage to a Russian oligarch’s son unravels spectacularly, won five Oscars, with four going to Baker himself: best director, best original screenplay, best editing and best picture.

From “Tangerine” (2015), with its transgender sex workers on a Christmas Eve adventure, to “The Florida Project” (2017), featuring a struggling single mother who turns to sex work to make rent, Baker’s lens consistently finds humanity in those living on society’s margins. His films dip into classic Hollywood genres only to reimagine them for worlds where the promised reward of the American dream is always just out of reach.

Baker’s attention toward sex workers has an unlikely precursor halfway around the world. Long before Baker turned his camera toward American sex workers, Korean cinema had developed a notable preoccupation with prostitution that evolved into a genre unto itself. The evolving portrayals of sex workers in Korean films reflect the nation’s dramatic transformation across war, industrialization and political upheaval. Each era produced its own cinematic archetype of the sex worker, their representations speaking volumes about Korea’s social conditions and ideological currents.

Western princesses and hostesses

After the Korean War, a distinct category of sex workers emerged — the so-called “Western princesses” (“yanggongju”) who mainly served US servicemen. These women, often adopting Western nicknames and styles of dress, were viewed as embodying an interesting duality — socially stigmatized yet often financially better off than many others. Korean filmmakers, in turn, saw them as a symbolically potent vehicle for exploring their country’s complicated postwar relationship with the United States.

Shin Sang-ok’s 1958 classic “The Flower in Hell” examines this positionality through the character of Sonya, played by the director’s wife Choi Eun-hee. The film’s quasi-documentary opening sequences capture postwar Seoul with startling directness, focusing on the sexual transactions between US soldiers and Korean prostitutes. Sonya emerges as predatory, self-confident, capable and alluring — qualities that shocked viewers accustomed to seeing Choi, then a major star of Korean cinema, in more demure roles.

Shin’s integration of documentary footage and on-location shooting bears distinct traces of Italian Neorealism, while the film’s melodramatic spectacles create a heterogeneous style that effectively captures postwar chaos. Its unflinching portrayal set a precedent for Korean cinema to address uncomfortable social realities through the life of the prostitute.

By the 1970s, South Korea’s rapid industrialization under military strongman Park Chung-hee’s economic development initiatives had profoundly transformed the social fabric. More young women migrated from rural villages to urban centers and found work in factories or as domestic workers; financial difficulty and limited opportunities pushed many into sex work. This socioeconomic change formed the backdrop for the so-called “hostess films” — a cinematic phenomenon that would dominate Korean screens for the next decade.

The term “hostess” (hoseuteseu) emerged as a blanket euphemism for prostitutes and bar workers during this period. A veritable cultural industry sprang up around these women’s lives: tabloid newspapers and magazines fueled public fascination with the hostess underworld with sexually charged reports of their lifestyle and exploits.

Real-life sex workers published novels based on their experiences, which went on to become bestsellers and led to successful film adaptations. “I am a No. 77 Girl,” a major 1978 box office hit starring top star Jung Yoon-hee, was adapted from the firsthand account of Yoon Go-na, a former sex worker. “Ms. O’s Apartment” (1978) similarly originated from ex-hostess Oh Mi-young’s tell-all writings.

As fetishized narratives of sex work circulated across media, the distinction between fictional portrayals and documented realities of hostess women began to dissolve in the public imagination.

Canonical hostess films

Two films in this era served as the template for the hostess film genre: Lee Jang-ho’s “Heavenly Homecoming to Stars” (1974) and Kim Ho-seon’s “Young-ja’s Heydays” (1975). Both were phenomenal commercial successes that dominated the box office.

“Heavenly Homecoming to Stars,” based on a novel by Choi In-ho, follows Kyoung-ah, a young woman who moves to the city and falls into prostitution after failed relationships with four men. Lee’s directorial debut was an instant landmark in Korean cinema. Its blending of traditional melodrama centered on the tragic downfall of a virtuous woman sacrificing herself for unworthy men, with stylistic innovations including dreamlike slow-motion sequences and popular folk music soundtracks, proved a smash hit especially among younger male viewers.

The film’s success spawned two sequels and opened a new cinematic movement led by young directors. It is widely considered the touchstone of 1970s youth culture, with its candid take on sexuality and urban disillusionment resonating with a generation chafing under authoritarian rule.

A scene from “Young-ja’s Heydays.” PHOTO: KOFIC/THE KOREA HERALD

“Young-ja’s Heydays,” much like “Heavenly Homecoming,” follows a rural woman’s journey to Seoul that spirals into a cascade of misfortunes. After being sexually assaulted by her employer’s son, Young-ja is dismissed from her position and later loses an arm in an accident while working as a bus conductor (In the film’s most surreal sequence, her severed limb rockets skyward without shedding a drop of blood — a moment so divorced from reality that it momentarily transforms the social drama into some kind of abstract expressionism).

When she encounters her former lover Chang-su, who has returned from serving in Vietnam, she chooses to marry a disabled man rather than burden Chang-su with her “tainted” status.

Both films stand as exceptionally crafted melodramas by 1970s standards — working within a genre deeply embedded in Korean cinema that derives its pathos from a profound sympathy for the victim-heroes. Their formal approach marks a real breakthrough though, not least in juxtaposing gritty documentary-style footage of urban squalor against the dreamlike, often hypersexualized images of their protagonists. Yeom Bok-soon shines in her leading role in “Young-ja,” her performance balancing quiet resilience against devastating vulnerability without a hint of artifice.

Censorship and sacrifice

A curious aspect of these films’ success was their ability to flourish under the military dictatorship’s strict censorship laws.

The Park Chung-hee regime’s film censorship targeted works that were, among others, deemed “socially critical” or “overly realistic” in their depiction of poverty or political dissent. Park revised the Motion Picture Law four times during his rule. The most draconian revision was the “Yushin Film Law” of 1973, which gave officials broad powers to halt productions at any stage based solely on their whim.

How did hostess films, with their explicit portrayals of prostitution and urban poverty, manage to slip past the censor’s scissors? Film scholars point to their embrace of patriarchal narratives about female sexuality and sacrifice — themes that served the authoritarian regime’s playbook. While these works didn’t shy away from the gritty underbelly of Korea’s rapid industrialization, they simultaneously packaged female sexuality as something nobly surrendered for the family and the nation, a message that dovetailed neatly with Park’s rhetoric about national service and sacrifice laid out in state-led development campaigns.

The heroines of these films were typically framed as virtuous country girls who chose prostitution for selfless motives like sending money home or supporting the men in their lives. Yet, these stories invariably ended with some poetic punishment — through death, illness or disappearance. This coda satisfied the censors while still delivering the titillation audiences craved.

The 1980s: New freedoms, new films

The 1980s brought another military strongman to power. After seizing control in 1980 and brutally crushing the Gwangju Democratic Uprising, President Chun Doo-hwan implemented his “3S” policy — a shorthand for Sex, Sports and Screen — a strategic campaign of mass entertainment including professional baseball leagues, late-night theater hours and relaxed censorship on sexual content aimed at distracting the public.

These loosened restrictions came with a crucial caveat. Political dissent remained off-limits. Works with just a whiff of government criticism were swiftly banned even as those featuring nudity got free passes. The message was clear: show all the skin you want, just don’t mention the student demonstrations or labor organizing.

The result was an unprecedented explosion of erotic films. Japanese-inspired “soft-core” films tested sexual boundaries. Historical dramas moved bedroom scenes to Korea’s dynastic past. The “Madame” series, kicked off by “Madame Aema” (1982), followed middle-class housewives on their sexual adventures. Many directors saw these films as necessary compromises, while others found creative space within these constraints.

The hostess genre evolved through this period, maintaining a presence as directors pushed well beyond their predecessors’ limits with more explicit content and pulpy storytelling.

Amid this trend, director Im Kwon-taek’s “Ticket” (1986) offered something more substantial. Considered one of Korea’s most revered auteurs, Im took the genre in a new direction by exploring the contradictions facing women in the sex industry with hard realism and daring narrative ambitions.

“Ticket” follows five women working at a “dabang” — a now-rare type of Korean coffee house that often doubled as a brothel. Veteran actress Kim Ji-mee plays the madam who maintains strict control over her business but grapples with her own troubled past.

Im’s directorial approach rejects both didactic moralism and manipulative spectacle. He employs an austere aesthetic that captures social reality with unflinching clarity. The film builds toward a climactic transgression that at once deconstructs the system it portrays and acknowledges the structural impossibility of resolving its contradictions through individual action. This self-reflexive quality squarely places “Ticket” as both a culmination and critique of the hostess film tradition.

A scene from “Prostitution.” PHOTO: KOFIC/THE KOREA HERALD

Meanwhile, the 1988 film “Prostitution” directed by Yu Jin-sun took a different approach, embracing sensationalism with an impressive commercial outcome. With 432,600 tickets sold, it was the year’s second-highest-grossing film and continued with five sequels through the early 1990s. The film’s formulaic plot primarily functions as a setup for its audacious denouement: Protagonist Na-young arranges for her fellow sex worker’s funeral hearse to arrive at the wedding of her former lover, forcing him to kneel before the coffin as guests watch in shock. This cathartic act of revenge offers a more radical imagination of justice than the passive suffering depicted in earlier hostess films.

While they maintained many conventions of the hostess melodrama, these later works of the 1980s increasingly allowed their protagonists to express agency, anger and resistance rather than merely suffering virtuously for others’ benefit.

Films discussed in the article — “Flower in Hell,” “Heavenly Homecoming to Stars,” “Young-ja’s Heydays” and “Ticket” — can be viewed on the Korean Film Archive’s YouTube channel with English subtitles. THE KOREA HERALD/ANN