Beast of Me

Overview

The filmmaker is a third-generation Korean who grew up in a North Korean community in Japan. It is mandatory for the schoolgirls in North Korean schools to wear traditional Korean dress as a uniform. The embodiment of anti-colonial nationalism takes form in this dress worn by female students. Whenever anti-North Korean sentiment arises in Japan, fueled more recently by the United States, the effect of international political conflict results directly in the physical violence targeted at the girls wearing this Korean dress in the streets of Tokyo. Female students´ uniforms are slashed and some are hospitalized due to physical attacks from Japanese citizens.