The experience of modernity is interconnected with the experience of the nation. The fatherland figure in nationalist films engages past traumas with the present economic boom of the nation. It opens up a discussion of the state and civil society in the postcolonial nation, citizenship, and the transformation of the nation into a transnational society. This essay provides a relational perspective into the experience of modernity in South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines and intends to insert itself into the continuing narrative of modernity's transformation of the postcolonial nation