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Cinema of Korea
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Cinema of Korea
The cinema of Korea encompasses the film industries of North Korea and South Korea, as well as the historical film industries of the Korean Empire and Korea during the Japanese occupation. While both countries have relatively robust film industries today, only South Korean films have achieved wide international acclaim. North Korean films typically portray Juche ideology or revolutionary themes.
South Korean films enjoyed a "golden age" during the late 1950s and 1960s, but by the 1970s had become generally considered to be of low quality. Nonetheless, by 2005 South Korea became a nation that watched more domestic than imported films in theatres. This was partially a result of laws placing limits on the number of foreign films able to be shown per theatre per year. It has been noted that Korean movies have consistently outperformed foreign films with very few exceptions in the Korean box office.
American traveler and lecturer Burton Holmes was the first to film in Korea as part of his travelogue programs. In addition to displaying his films abroad, he showed them to the Korean royal family in 1899.
Korea's first film studio, Dongdaemun Motion Picture Studio, was opened in 1903. There are several competing claims for which is the first movie theater in the country. Dansungsa, which opened in Seoul in November 1907, is widely considered the first theater. However, a 2021 article in The Hankyoreh claims that the Incheon-based Ae Kwan Theater, which first opened as Hyŏmnyulsa (협률사; 協律舍) in 1895, is the first.
Righteous Revenge, a 1919 kino-drama (stageplay with a film backdrop) is widely considered the first Korean film, although this label is disputed. It premiered at Dansungsa, on the same day and just after the premiere of the companion documentary film Panoramic View of the Whole City of Gyeongseong. The anniversary of its release is celebrated as Korean Film Day in South Korea.
For the next few years, film production in Korea consisted of kino-dramas and documentaries. As with the first showing of a film in Korea, the first feature film produced in Korea also appears to be unclear. Some name a filming of Chunhyang-Jeon (춘향전) in 1921 (released in 1922) as the first Korean feature film. The traditional story, Chunhyang, was to become Korea's most-filmed story later. It was possibly the first Korean feature film, and was certainly the first Korean sound film, color film and widescreen film. Im Kwon-taek's 2000 pansori version of Chunhyang brought the number of films based on Chunyang to 14. Other sources, however, name Yun Baek-nam's Ulha ui Mengse ("Plighted Love Under the Moon"), released in April, 1923, as the first Korean feature film.
In 1925, the German priest Norbert Weber captured footage of Korea in order to document Korean culture in case it was wiped out by Japanese colonization. He then returned to Bavaria and edited the footage into a feature-length documentary, Im Lande der Morgenstille (lit. 'In the Land of Morning Calm'), as well as five other short films. The documentary aired until the 1930s in Germany and Austria and was largely forgotten about until it was rediscovered in the late 1970s by South Korean researchers. The film has since been digitized and is now available for free online.
Korean film studios at this time were Japanese-operated. A hat-merchant known as Yodo Orajo established a film company called Choson Kinema Productions. After appearing in the Choson Kinema's 1926 production Nongjungjo, the young actor Na Woon-gyu got the chance to write, direct and star in his own film. The release of Na's film, Arirang (1926) is the start of the era of silent film in Korea. Hidden or subtle messages could be magnified through the common use of a live narrator at the theater, a tradition known as byeonsa (benshi in Japanese). The tradition of byeonsa was imported from Japan and provided an economical and entertaining alternative to translating intertitles. When Japanese authorities were not present, the narrators could inject satire and criticism of the occupation into the film narrative, giving the film a political subtext invisible to Japanese government censors. The byeonsa operated as "a narrator that introduces the characters and the setting, and explains the physical actions and psychological dilemmas during silent film screenings." The byeonsa also functioned "as a cultural intermediary during the Korean audience's film-viewing experience, and utilized his narration to complement censorship or technological limitations during the silent film period." Some of the more popular byeonsa were better-paid than the film actors.
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Cinema of Korea
The cinema of Korea encompasses the film industries of North Korea and South Korea, as well as the historical film industries of the Korean Empire and Korea during the Japanese occupation. While both countries have relatively robust film industries today, only South Korean films have achieved wide international acclaim. North Korean films typically portray Juche ideology or revolutionary themes.
South Korean films enjoyed a "golden age" during the late 1950s and 1960s, but by the 1970s had become generally considered to be of low quality. Nonetheless, by 2005 South Korea became a nation that watched more domestic than imported films in theatres. This was partially a result of laws placing limits on the number of foreign films able to be shown per theatre per year. It has been noted that Korean movies have consistently outperformed foreign films with very few exceptions in the Korean box office.
American traveler and lecturer Burton Holmes was the first to film in Korea as part of his travelogue programs. In addition to displaying his films abroad, he showed them to the Korean royal family in 1899.
Korea's first film studio, Dongdaemun Motion Picture Studio, was opened in 1903. There are several competing claims for which is the first movie theater in the country. Dansungsa, which opened in Seoul in November 1907, is widely considered the first theater. However, a 2021 article in The Hankyoreh claims that the Incheon-based Ae Kwan Theater, which first opened as Hyŏmnyulsa (협률사; 協律舍) in 1895, is the first.
Righteous Revenge, a 1919 kino-drama (stageplay with a film backdrop) is widely considered the first Korean film, although this label is disputed. It premiered at Dansungsa, on the same day and just after the premiere of the companion documentary film Panoramic View of the Whole City of Gyeongseong. The anniversary of its release is celebrated as Korean Film Day in South Korea.
For the next few years, film production in Korea consisted of kino-dramas and documentaries. As with the first showing of a film in Korea, the first feature film produced in Korea also appears to be unclear. Some name a filming of Chunhyang-Jeon (춘향전) in 1921 (released in 1922) as the first Korean feature film. The traditional story, Chunhyang, was to become Korea's most-filmed story later. It was possibly the first Korean feature film, and was certainly the first Korean sound film, color film and widescreen film. Im Kwon-taek's 2000 pansori version of Chunhyang brought the number of films based on Chunyang to 14. Other sources, however, name Yun Baek-nam's Ulha ui Mengse ("Plighted Love Under the Moon"), released in April, 1923, as the first Korean feature film.
In 1925, the German priest Norbert Weber captured footage of Korea in order to document Korean culture in case it was wiped out by Japanese colonization. He then returned to Bavaria and edited the footage into a feature-length documentary, Im Lande der Morgenstille (lit. 'In the Land of Morning Calm'), as well as five other short films. The documentary aired until the 1930s in Germany and Austria and was largely forgotten about until it was rediscovered in the late 1970s by South Korean researchers. The film has since been digitized and is now available for free online.
Korean film studios at this time were Japanese-operated. A hat-merchant known as Yodo Orajo established a film company called Choson Kinema Productions. After appearing in the Choson Kinema's 1926 production Nongjungjo, the young actor Na Woon-gyu got the chance to write, direct and star in his own film. The release of Na's film, Arirang (1926) is the start of the era of silent film in Korea. Hidden or subtle messages could be magnified through the common use of a live narrator at the theater, a tradition known as byeonsa (benshi in Japanese). The tradition of byeonsa was imported from Japan and provided an economical and entertaining alternative to translating intertitles. When Japanese authorities were not present, the narrators could inject satire and criticism of the occupation into the film narrative, giving the film a political subtext invisible to Japanese government censors. The byeonsa operated as "a narrator that introduces the characters and the setting, and explains the physical actions and psychological dilemmas during silent film screenings." The byeonsa also functioned "as a cultural intermediary during the Korean audience's film-viewing experience, and utilized his narration to complement censorship or technological limitations during the silent film period." Some of the more popular byeonsa were better-paid than the film actors.
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