• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.87-122
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• 2020

This study explores the method of representation of traumatic history in 2D horror game Detention developed by Taiwan game production company Red Candle through an analysis of its method of storytelling. Unlike conventional public media, video/digital games are based on interactivity, in which game players engage in the narratives. Thus, the relationship between players and the history in the game world may also change. This research investigates how the players build their way of remembering and recognizing the past in a different relationship. Detention, which was well received, not only in Taiwan but also around the world upon its launch in 2017, is set in a middle school during the martial law era in Taiwan in the 1960s. In the game, the main character encounters her lost memories in the process of following clues and game rules, and finally realizes she is implicated in the 1960s' event. Detention was cinematized after the success of the game. The film achieved enormous popularity both in terms of box office success and criticism. In this paper, the strategy of the game's storytelling is introduced in comparison to the film's approach in the representation of historical events. In particular, the paper explores elements such as the interactivity of the game medium, narrative fragmentation, quests, hints and cues, and the horror genre, that asks users to understand history beyond the game world differently from the point of view of other media. Though this study, it can be considered that the digital game is a medium exploring history in a serious manner. In particular, Detention invokes the matter of game-mnemonics as well as cine-mnemonics. Compared to plentiful research in cine-mnemonics, game-mnemonics has not been extensively studied to date. Therefore, through the analysis of Detention, this paper explores the relationship between digital games, history and memory.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.29
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• pp.209-241
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• 2012

Is a failed blockbuster film? Is there no room for reconsideration of the value of the film in terms of its contents and forms? The purpose of this study is to answer these questions. In 2007, SHIM Hyung-rae's was in the limelight due to the nationalist discourse around the film rather than evaluation of the film itself. In terms of its narrative and formal properties, the film showed the difference from the Korean nationalist blockbuster films. It led to the disaccord and hard-to-understand results of having somewhat disappointed box-office success of 8,500,000 audiences in comparison to the input, of receiving well by a generous part of the audiences absorbed by nationalism, and of getting the critics' cynic criticism of the film's cinematic value. Eventually only provided the cultural battlefield of nationalism, was left as an unnoticed film in the realm of industry and criticism. However, it was interesting that there was a common ground between the film's supporters and the cynic critics. Both sides were being acknowledged that the spectacle of was way out of proportion to the degree that the spectacle was unbalanced with the story unfolding, achieved more than expected. Its spectacle overwhelming the narrative enfever a few audiences, and at the same time, it provided some reasons making critics face away from the film. In this context, the purpose of this study is to examine 's aesthetics that 'the spectacle dominating narrative' or 'the narrative as a pretext for showing spectacle,' leading to discussion of artistic/theoretical/critical value and to find out cinematic value of the film being regarded as a failure. In addition, this study is significant in that it suggests that is a new kind of moving image that it cannot be analyzed with existed critical methods of narrative film criticism; as a result, this study provides the chance to be evaluated through a new conceptual frame of the film. In order to grasp the narratological aesthetics, this study focuses on the concept of trickality that Andre Gaudreault suggests, and Tom Gunning's 'the cinema of attractions,' referring to the spectacle-oriented narrativity or the mode of production displaying the spectacle more than the narrative.