Sex and the city… Sweet Dreams (1936)/Fisherman’s Fire (1938), BFI Early Korean Cinema

Mun Ye-bong, the first Korean film star? 

Sweet Dreams was rediscovered in the Chinese Film Archive in 2005 and is the earliest surviving Korean sound film and a fine example of the melodramatic fare that typified the cinema of the time. The dialogue is in Japanese with Korean subtitles and reflects the increasing control of the colonial government even though this is not a propagandist film, except for a strong message on the importance of road safety and motherhood.

The film was originally seven reels and was badly damaged when found, and there are some narrative jumps that result that can’t be laid at the door of director, Yang Ju-nam, who has some interesting ideas. A fight occurs off screen with appropriate sounds and the odd character falling into view, there is a good use of space, overhead shots of characters in pivotal conversations, tracking shots and extensive close-ups of the film’s star, the very striking Mun Ye-bong as things reach their fateful conclusion.

There are also some glorious shots of the streets and buildings of this distant Seoul, wide streets populated by very few cars – unimaginable now – and fascinating glimpses of hotels, cafes and theatres.

Tense reflection, Lee Geum-ryong and Mun Ye-bong

Mun Ye-bong plays Ae-soon a discontented house-wife married to a serious man, Lee Seon-ryong (Lee Geum-ryong) who frets over her continuous shopping and general galivanting. We see a bird in a cage, an image of how Ae-soon sees herself, even as she ignores her daughter Jeong-hee (rather splendidly played by Yoo Seon-ok). The couple row and Ae-soon leaves amidst genuinely distressing scenes as she pushes her daughter back as she slams the door… father walks slowly back into the room and comforts his daughter.

Ae-soon is picked up by a dodgy-looking chap with a sharp suit and spivvy moustache, Yoon Byeong-ha (Lim Woon-hak), who offers her the chance of the good life even though he’s all mouth and must steal to maintain the lifestyle. Ae-soon becomes bored and flirts with a theatre performer, sending him flowers which he gives to another performer, getting the measure of this her: “pretty flowers have thorns…”

As Ae-soon follows her dream of the sweet life through wealthy-male acquisition, her daughter dreams constantly of her mother’s love and the loss of happiness; it’s manipulative but believably painful. As with all melodrama there will be a balance and as Ae-soon shops her boyfriend after he pulls off a messy robbery, fate is about to intervene…

Mun Ye-bong and Lim Woon-hak

On this evidence, Mun Ye-bong was deservedly a star and has the emotional flexibility to accompany the looks. She is also in three of other extant films from this period, also included in the BFI/Korean Culture Centre’s season – Angels on the Street (1941), the full-on propagandist Military Train (1940) and Straights of Chosun (1943).

I watched Angels at the KCC and it’s a fascinating film about two orphaned children saved from the streets by a priest and his family. It was the first Korean film to experiment with live sound recording and has a neo-realist feel way ahead of even the Italians. Well worth seeking out and director Choi In-gyu deserves more recognition for a film that has gorgeous locations and smuggles plenty of native wit despite a full-on propagandist resolution complete with salutes to the Japanese flag.

Angels on the Street (1941)

 Fisherman's Fire (1938)

“She is old enough to do housekeeping here.”

“Housekeeping? Your wife can do housekeeping…”

This film was a different kettle of fish… but with the same melodramatic drivers and a stricter, more old-fashioned underlying morality. Young girl leaves the fishing village for the bright lights of Seoul; what could possibly go wrong?

Director Ahn Chul-yeong paints a lovely picture of the coastal life and this is a well-edited, visually poetic film with lingering shots of tumultuous seas set against a patient shoreline and a strong-featured cast. It looks idyllic and you wonder why anyone would want to leave it for the smelly old city unless, the y had to. The dialogue is recorded in studio and has the ambience to go with it, early days but Sweet Dreams sounded more naturalistic to me.

In-soon (Park Rho-kyeong) has just come of age and whilst her conservative fisherman father is keen for her to do the washing and cleaning she wants to explore, get educated and earn the money he is struggling to make… Sadly Dad gets lost at sea and, in debt to the dastardly money lender Mr Chang, her mother agrees to sell her to him only for his son, Chul-Soo, to offer to clear the debt… He has reasons of his own, of course, and is trying to steal her away from her true love, handsome fisher-boy Chun-Seok.

She ends up going with Chul-Soo to Seoul and things get very complicated and, frankly, very frank despite her pal Ok-Boon trying to lead her onto the straight and narrow. One thing leads to another and destitution may surely be followed with serious moral and physical consequences unless there’s a way of returning to the simple bliss of fishing.

A lovely-looking film and another precious snapshot of a lost age.

In-soon (Park Rho-kyeong) and her city "host" Chul-Soo

There’s still one week to go with the quietly-subversive Tuition (1940) on Tuesday 26^th (Mun Ye-bong is in that too) and Hurrah! For Freedom (1946) on 28^th – appropriately completing things with a celebration of Korea’s liberation from Japanese control after a quarter of a century. Details on the BFI and KCC sites.