The Awakenning of Korean Cinema

PART I

France, 28 of December of 1894, the Lumiere screen for the first time the images of workers and the cinema start as the social phenomenon that we know now. Few years later, 1903, for the first time a film is released in Korea at the time that the Japanese army is invading the peninsula. By this time, Korea has to be considered as an occupied country what has been influence for the evolution and the development of the cinema.

If we take a look to the Korean cinema history over the last century we can clearly appreciate 2 stages that have Korean War as point of inflexion.

The Beginning of the cinema in Korea was characterized by the Japanese occupation, a very repressive period that much of the time was characterize by a strong censorship. Most of the films created in this time were destroyed. From the over 160 movies of this stage, just few of them survived and are still conserved (Arirang, 1930 or, The turning point of the Youngsters, 1934).

Was in 1935 when Japan start a very repressive politic censorship over Korean films, allowing just dramas and historic but always pro-Japanese. But when Japan start to conquer China (1937), the Korean film industry start to be used for propaganda and it’s during this period that the censorship gets stronger, the Japanese government pretended to eradicate any kind of nationalistic feeling with the prohibition of Korean language movies and forcing the use of Japanese language.

Owing to the geographical situation, Korea has always been the target of many surrounded countries.

Once Japan was defeated during the II World War, the pro-Japanese films that were so frequent during the occupation were replaced for anti-Japanese movies. After the Triumph over Japan, Korea found itself under the guardianship, “protection”, of USA and URSS.

The tension produced with the beginning of the cold War, were the cause of the division of the peninsula in 2 independent states. Both governments were established with a dictatorship, one communist and the other one capitalist, pro- American.

In 1950, Kim Il-sung and North Korean army moved forward to South Korea and this moment fix the beginning of a war that will extend for three years. During this time there was no choice for others films but the propagandistic ones. And, moreover, the production was almost nonexistent, just around 8 movies per year.

Probably the most remarkable film during this period was a documentary about the war, This is Korea!, directed by John Ford. Obviously, this documentary, supported by the US army and the government as well, was shot from a very pro-American point of view.

Korea has gone from the censorship of the Japanese occupation to the one established by the government.

During the war, the film industry was used as a propagandistic instrument, but, by the end of the conflict, the production was completely destroyed. Devastated economically and receiving the economic support of USA, the people started to go to the cinema. Korean movie production went from approximately 8 films per year to more than 100 films a year. But this sector was really re-activated with the industrialization process and the economic development of the country during Park Chung-Hee dictatorship. The importance of the cinema during this period was focused in the necessity of escape.

The government established policies to help the evolution and the enrichment of the industry through the introduction of the quota of screen time and a law that determined a minimum production of 15 films per company per year, keeping the censorship for the perspectives against the government.

The military conflict and the division have been a frequent topic in Korean movies maybe moved by its cultural implications, the sentimental values or just to reaffirm the nationalistic feeling after the war.