Korean Film Archive holds an eye-opening conference to trace the lost history of film in colonial Korea

An academic conference held by the Korean Film Archive traces the lost history of Korean cinema during the colonisation of Korea by Japan.

By Ishani Sarkar

Updated on Dec 17, 2020 | 02:29 PM IST | 1.1M

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Korean Film Archive holds an eye-opening conference to trace the lost history of film in colonial Korea

The history of Korea is rich with their brave struggle for independence and fight against colonialism yet behind this lies a slew of oppressive regimes, unfair censorship, cultural and linguistic imperialism and more. In the twentieth century, the Korean people endured a barrage of nightmares, facing injustice and life under constant, successive authoritarian regimes; from Japan's illegal annexation and occupation of Korea (1910-45), the partition of the country by Western powers into mutually opposing states – North Korea (under Russian influence) and South Korea (under the United States) in 1948, to the horrors of post-war dictatorship and military rule for decades. Needless to say, at every stage, infringements of liberty proliferated, manifesting themselves clearly, and particularly, in expressions of art.

Through censorship, tight regulation of production and selective promotion of propaganda cinema, the government exerted biased and heavy-handed control over the film industry. Even the use of the Korean language in domestic films was prohibited by the Japanese colonisers in the 1940s. During this time, over 150 films were made out of which merely 16 have survived the test of time and could be recovered by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA). One of the earliest surviving Korean motion picture was Ahn Jong-hwa's "Turning Point of the Youngsters”.

Only through secondary sources and promotional material that could be preserved by the KOFA, can the forgotten history of film and theatre of colonial Korea be retraced. It was only through these forgotten mediums that the foundation for Korean cinema could be established. It is important to have these artefacts of cinema resurface in order to understand the legacy of Korean cinema, the fan culture of Korea under Japanese oppression and imperialism, the target audience and the political currency of the cinema of that time.

One of the main film theatres during that time was called Dansunga, established in 1907. The theatre produced thorough reviews and details about the films it screened in two versions: a highly intricate one for the literate public who were academically interested and a simpler version for the general public. During the 1920s to 1930s, Hollywood feature films and theatre productions based on the same grew in popularity. For families of Japanese Government officials and other Japanese people that came to reside in Korea during the colonisation period, cinema became an extension of the national culture of Japan and even served as a medium evoking nostalgia.

It is safe to say that owing to the bravery and resistance that the cinema industry showed during such trying times, despite strict censorship policies from a dictatorial Government, Korean films as we know them today, have achieved worldwide fame. The legacy of Bong Joon Ho's Oscar win with Parasite goes way back to the heroes of Korea from decades ago.