Colonial Era Films: Korean Film Archive Editions

http://www.koreafilm.org/publica/dvd11.html


Movies :
- <Sweet Dream> (Yang Ju-nam,1936) . 4:3 Full Screen | B/W | Dolbi Digital Mono | 48min
- <Military Train> (Seo Gwang-je,1938) . 4:3 Full Screen | B/W | Dolbi Digital Mono | 67min
- <Fisherman's Fire> (An Cheol-yeong,1939) . 4:3 Full Screen | B/W | Dolbi Digital Mono | 52min

Special Feature :
- ‘Sweet Dream’ Pre-restoration Edition (48 min)
- ‘Sweet Dream’ Comparative Motion Picture of the Pre-restoration and Post-restoration Editions (3 min)
- Motion Picture Unearthed in Gosfilmofond in Russia ‘I Will Die under My Flag’ (1930, Lee Ik, Okano Shinichi) (9 min)
- Gosfilmofond Edition ‘Fisherman’s Fire’ (13 min)
- Motion Picture Unearthed in Gosfilmofond in Russia ‘The Story of Shim Cheong’ (1937, Ahn Seok-yeong (13 min)
- Film Scene Collection

Subtitles : Korean, English

This is the second series after the ‘Unearthed Past: Japanese Colonial Period Play Film / 1940s’ which was released and received favorable comments from domestic and international film researchers. It contains films that show the sentiments and landscapes of Korea in the mid or late 1930s including the ‘Sweet Dream’ unearthed in 2005, ‘Military Train’ discovered in 2004, and ‘Fisherman’s Fire’.

‘Sweet Dream’ is a melodrama dealing with a housewife, Ae-soon’s (Mun Ye-bong) deviation and repentance, and you can see the editing method of Korean sound films in the 1930s. ‘Military Train’ is regarded as the first pro-Japan, pro-government Korean film. It is Seo Gwang-je’s debut work as a film director. He was a film critic from KAPF. ‘Fisherman’s Fire’ (38) is Ahn Cheol-yeong’s debut work as a film director. It was also released in Japan as a ‘Peninsula Movie’ that contains the lyric landscapes of Korea. Ahn Cheol-yeong studied film in Germany.

The DVD of each work also contains valuable appendix motion pictures which may please researchers both at home and abroad. The ‘Sweet Dream’ DVD contains Comparative Motion Pictures of the Pre-restoration and Post-restoration Editions for the purpose of comparison with the digital restoration edition of the original. The Military Train DVD contains ‘I Will Die under My Flag’, which was unearthed in Gosfilmofond in Russia. The ‘Fisherman’s Fire’ DVD contains ‘Fisherman’s Fire’ and ‘The Story of Shim Cheong’, which was also discovered in Gosfilmofond in Russia.  

http://www.koreafilm.org/publica/dvd7.html

Feature Film Collection of the Japanese Colonial Period
. Movies :
- <An Angel without a House> (Choi In-kyu, 1941)
- <Spring in the Korean Peninsula> (Lee Byung-iI, 1941)
- <Volunteer> (An Seok-yeong, 1941)
- <Straits of Joseon> (1943)

. Subtitles : Korean, English
. 4:3 Full Screen | B/W | Dolbi Digital Mono

The Korean Film Archive has found and collected 4 feature films of the 1930s and 1940s at the China Film Archive since 2004. Thanks to this discovery, the films of that period which had left a blank in the Korean film archive now relocate themselves at their own place, and the films of the Japanese colonial period only as known in books became open to the public several times.
Various interpretations have been expressed on those films of the period. As a film critic, Kim Jong-won said, however, it would be the first step to open the past unearthed to the public and to see them wisely, before we apply dichotomy of ‘pro-Japan’ and ‘anti-Japan’ to the films. was first designed with this intention. The supplement of this collection contains the commentaries of a senior film critic, Kim Jong-won and the interviews of an actor Song Hwan-chang who starred in An Angel without a House. Most of all, the interview of Song could function as a precious material about the circumstances of film production and the theatrical culture at that time. The thesis of Lee Soon-jin, a researcher on the Korean film history in this brochure will show a way to comprehend the film culture of the period more deeply. The original scenario of An Angel without a House that the Korean Film Archive collected at Kawakita Memorial Film Institute of Japan in 2005 is also inserted in this brochure. It is donated by the widow of Nishikame Motosada who wrote it, which Lim Hwa translated to Korean dialogues. With this as a momentum, we hope to generate more various contexts and point of views and to make bloom of the study on the films and social cultural history in the 1930s and 1940s. 

http://www.koreafilm.org/publica/books.asp

Film Censorship of the Japanese Colonial Period 25,000won | 464 page | soft cover