Migration, Trauma, and Sacred Resilience: Korean Popular Cinema and the Global Rise of K-Culture

Why does Korean popular culture resonate so powerfully with global audiences? This paper argues that the global appeal of K-culture can be understood through narratives of migration, trauma, and resilience shaped by Korea’s collective historical experience. Examining four films – Secret Sunshine (2007), Parasite (2019), Minari (2020), and the recent global hit KPop Demon Hunters (2025) – the paper traces how Korean cinema increasingly engages themes of displacement, suffering, and survival. Placed in chronological conversation with the rise of the Korean Wave, these films reveal how collective trauma rooted in Japanese colonial rule, the Korean War, and rapid modernization is transformed into narratives of endurance and hope. Drawing on trauma theory (Bessel van der Kolk, Dominick LaCapra) and postcolonial trauma studies, the paper suggests that K-culture’s global resonance lies in its portrayal of “sacred resilience” – a culturally inflected vision of surviving hardship through relational endurance, moral imagination, and spiritual sensibility.