Socio-Critical Cinema in East Asia examines socio-critical cinema through film sociology, tracing how East Asian cinema across South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan confronts social injury, historical memory, institutional failure, and social justice.

In this book, Kyoung-suk Sung situates socio-critical cinema in relation to the social problem film while extending the discussion beyond a single national tradition or genre. It considers how genre cinema, documentary cinema, animation, courtroom drama, disaster film, true-crime narrative, and streaming platforms organize public feeling and make social conflict visible. The study follows several recurring concerns: colonial and wartime violence, contested histories, sexual violence, legal injustice, class polarization, state authority, surveillance, disaster, medical precarity, and the conditions under which cinema contributes to social change. Through close analysis of key East Asian films and their public reception, the book argues that socio-critical cinema turns social problems into shared fields of emotional engagement, interpretation, and public debate. It shapes public interpretation and sustains debates over responsibility, memory, and reform.

Ultimately, the book traces this force as films move from the screen into audience response, journalism, festival culture, digital circulation, and civic response.