• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.43
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• pp.405-428
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper is to examine the narrative-building method and the post-historical descriptive aspects of the movie Paradise in Service, which deals with the modern history of Taiwan. Although Paradise in Service tells the history of a certain time period, it focuses on the anguish and agony felt by people who lived during that age rather than on the meaning of historical events or interpretation of the past in terms of official historical discourse. That is, as it avoids looking at the present by composing a narrative in the descriptive historical context and from bearing weight from the viewpoint of realism, it gains the possibility of establishing a new field of discourse through a post-historical discussion using descriptive historical texts. However, the movie tries to create fantasy through a special type of licensed prostitution as a means of post-historical description. In other words, when this movie tries to reproduce the microscopic history of common people in trouble because of a historical tragedy, it considers only men and excludes "weak" women. Thus, although Paradise in Service has meaning in that it gives an example of how movies can disrupt official historical discourse and group memory and rewrite history by focusing on individuals, it is limited by its male-centrism.