This paper examines the ethical paradox inherent in the representation of female suffering in East Asian art cinema. Focusing on films such as Kim Ki-duk's The Bow and Philip Yung's Port of Call, it argues that while directors often employ prolonged gazing and aestheticized pain to critique social injustice, these very techniques risk transforming female pain into a consumable spectacle. Through a theoretical framework of "intersectional collusion"—which integrates gaze theory, gender performativity, and intersectionality—this study reveals how power axes such as gender, class, and festival-market mechanisms collaboratively shape the visual economy of suffering. Methodologically, it proposes a triangulated approach combining close formal analysis, quantitative measurement, and contextual discourse analysis, alongside four ethical principles for cinematic representation. The research contributes to film ethics by offering a critical toolkit to differentiate between the performance of pain and its consumption, advocating for a cinema that restores agency and dignity to the suffering subject.
Liang Siyue (Wed,) studied this question.