Korean cinema 101

From under the shadow of state control, we look at how Korean cinema has evolved to where it is today...

The Good The Bad The Weird, an Eastern Western from South Korea, wowed film festival goers all through last year's circuit. It's now starting to get some mainstream releases, though we're still waiting to see it in Australia. Still, we love the trailer, and can't wait to see the full film, so what better excuse could we have to introduce you to the cinema of Korea?

Public screenings, or cinema as we know it, was first introduced to Korea in the late 1800s to early 1900s. The exact date is somewhat disputed, but it's cited that the first screening took place in a shabby barrack, on loan from a Chinese landlord in October 1897. Silent films were shot in Korean film studios from the early 1900s, however, all output from the Korean studio system was operated by the occupying Japanese forces, as The Korean Peninsular was occupied by Japan between 1910 and 1945.

Dansung-sa, Korea's first movie theatre, opened in Seoul in November, 1907 and is still in operation today. In 1919, although Korea was still under the occupation of Japan, the country was annexed and produced it's first ‘film' Uirijeok Gutu. This is, in fact, a ‘kinodrama' - a stage play interspersed with projected motion pictures.

It was common in Asia for silent screenings to be accompanied by a byeonsa (or in Japanese - benshi), a live narrator who would substitute for translated intertitles as much of the moving picture material in Asia was provided by French newsreel companies, such as Pathé.

After Japan's defeat in 1945, Korea enjoyed a very brief period of joyous liberation (which was reflected in films of the time) only to descend into civil war five years later and divide into what we now know as Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and The Republic of Korea (South Korea).

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, efforts were made by the government to rejuvenate the film industry, however, film censorship in South Korea escalated. Additionally, any pro-communist messaging was totally outlawed. Due to a change in leadership, control and censorship reached a pinnacle in the mid 1970s, when filmmakers were forced to include government ideology in their productions. Many feel this was the lowest point in Korean's film history. Meanwhile, North Korean cinema went the way of propaganda, with all film output having an explicit or implied Socialist message.

1985 saw the release of a North Korean and Japanese co-production called Pulgasari, a film infamous for the story behind the production, rather than its fairly sub-Godzilla content.

Pulgasari was directed by native South Korean Shin San-Ok who was kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il's father. Reportedly a big fan of the director's work, Kim Il-Sung kept Shin San-Ok under house arrest for many years while he produced dramas of a political slant for North Korea. The plot of Pulgasari alludes to The Party's line: A poor man crafts a doll from rice while in prison; a drop of blood brings the tiny doll to life. At first a friendly and happy companion, the doll soon becomes a menace to society as it grows to an enormous size by eating metal, an allegory of capitalism.