Im Kwon-Taek: The Making of a Korean National Cinema

1 Korean Cinema and Im Kwon-Taek: An Overview

Kyuna Hyun Kim CHAPTER I Korean Cinema and Im Kwon-Taek: An Overview Lousy films hud to come first Im Kwon-Taek, "Lousy Films Had to Come First: Interview with Im Kwon-Taek," interview by John Lent, Asian Cinema 7, no. 2 (winter 1995): 86-92. Anyone who has tried to locate English-language books, articles, or even encyclopedia entries on Korean cinema must surely have met with great frustration. When I first began my research on Korean cinema in 1992, the lengthiest—and perhaps the only available—treatment of the topic appeared in Roy Armes's Third World Film Making and the West (1987), one of the most comprehensive books on non-Western cinemas. Armes gave courteous attention to South Korean cinema, remarking that "[hjardly any of South Korea's huge output is shown abroad, and there are no internationally known film directors."1 More than a decade has passed since both the publication of Armes's book and the first showcases of the New Korean Cinema, which changed the reputation of a national cinema that previously was known only for the regressive language of its "violently introspective melodramas."2 Yet the relative neglect of Korean cinema by Western film scholars continues. For instance, the recent Oxford History of World Cinema, which allegedly "covers every aspect of international film-making," makes no reference to Korean cinema.3 19 2O KYUNG HYUN KIM Cinema of the Colony and Na Un-gyu Western ignorance of Korean cinema can largely be attributed to its inaccessibility. Nofilmmade before 1943 n a s been recovered, despite an active industry that produced approximately 240 featurefilmsduring the colonial period and a desperate search by South Korean film archivists and scholars for them in recent years. Cinema was the most popular cultural medium of nationalist expression during the Japanese colonial period (1910-45), when Na Un-gyu, a flamboyant director and actor, starred in the "golden era of silent films" of the late 1920s. At the age of twenty-two, with only a couple of years of acting experience behind him, Na wrote, directed, and starred in one of the most popular films Korea has ever produced, Arirang, released in 1926 and widely known as Korea's first nationalist film.4 Ariran^s plotline involves a philosophy student who, in the midst of his studies, goes mad. Every effort is made to treat him, but to no avail. Only when his sister is about to be raped by a Korean collaborator, a bureaucrat who works closely with the colonial government, does he regain his senses. Yet his reawakening—not unlike Korea's enlightenment project, which did not begin until after the country had been gobbled up by Japan's colonial machine—comes too late: not until after he has murdered the collaborator. The authorities take him away over the Arirang hills, beyond the point of no return. Figuring visual allegories such as cats and dogs fighting each other and a thirsty young couple hopelessly lost in what is clearly an openfield,the film found loopholes in Japanesefilmcensorship.5 Na was quite possibly Korea'sfirstlegitimate pop star. His persona expressed the virtues ofnational independence, and he exhibited the aura ofa rebellious underdog, making him especially suited for peasant roles. He was hardly a muscular, masculine icon: indeed he was a short man with a toad-like look. Na's emaciated and manic image tapped into the fury and frustration that allegorized Korea's grief as a nation deprived of its sovereignty. The popularity of Korean cinema during the silent film period was short-lived. Film censorship and the general suppression of Korean culture intensified during the 1930s. The Japanese invasion ofManchuria in 1931 and the escalating war efforts gradually transformed the cinemas KOREAN CINEMA AND IM KWON-TAEK 21 of both Korea and Japan into propaganda machines. The prohibition of Korean as a civil language in the late 1930s virtually dismantled the national film industry, since Korean "talkies" could no longer be made.6 By the 1930s, Na Un-gyu himself became engaged in shinp^a (shimpa) melodramatic moviemaking, betraying the nation with an acting role that paired him with a Japanese woman as his romantic counterpart.7 In 1937, the year Japan institutionalized repressive film laws in its newly acquired territories in Manchuria, and two years before all filmmakers were required to formally consent to the forced assimilation policy called naisen ittai (Korea and Japan...