New school… Tuition (1940), BFI Early Korean Cinema Season

This film was only rediscovered in 2014 in the Chinese Film Archive and of the dozen or so featured in this joint season of the BFI and Korean Culture Centre, it might well be my favourite. Based on a story by a fourth-grade schoolboy it tells the story of a similar boy’s struggle to get by in the face of poverty and illness. In comparison to other more overt melodramas, it offers the most naturalistic take on life under the Japanese whilst still offering a compelling and very satisfying narrative.

Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945 and by the forties, as tonight’s supporting feature Patriots Day in Joseon, showed, the province was being told to be more grateful and supportive of the empire as the Sino-Japanese war progressed through its third year. By this stage Japanese was the chosen first language and yet, Tuition, though originally scripted entirely in that language was re-written to include extensive sequences in Korean.

As if that wasn’t challenging enough it also showed the poverty that could affect even the most hard-working and able of families with a story in which a young boy is left looking after his grandmother as his parents leave to make money as peddlers. That hard work and ingenuity plus steadfast loyalty and love triumph in the end is one thing but these are not necessarily Japanese traits despite the warmth shown by the Japanese school teacher who is the only major non-Korean character.

Directed primarily by Choi In-gyu (Angels on the Street) and Bang Han-joon who stepped in after the former was taken ill, the film is very well-made and seemingly went down a storm both in Korea and Japan where it was praised for illustrating “… the possibility of Joseon filmmakers to produce art films unstained by commercialism.” This point gets to the heart of Tuition’s enduring appeal, it presents as an honest film, treading a path the makers wanted to and telling a sentimental tale with humour and astute observation almost as if the original intentions of the 11-year old writer had been fully carried through.

At one point our young hero, Wu Yeong-dal (Jeong Chan-jo) is arguing with his deadly rival, the smartest girl in the class, An Jeong-hui (Kim Jong-il), over wood they are collecting until they look down to see rice fish in the stream; they immediately stop and work together to catch them. Thus, are friendships made by a mutual fascination with nature whether it be free fishes or even just the cucumber plants Jeong-hui sketches; are you interested in science asks the teacher, “no, I like drawing…” comes the reply.

The film shares its young protagonists’ fascination with discovery and, culminates in Yeong-dal’s epic 24-kilometre solo walk to seek help from his auntie in which we share his brave delight in finding his own way across his country via foot, ox-cart and bus.

We first encounter the two friends-to-be arguing over a football in the playground and then competing to impress their tutor, Mr Dashiro (Susukida Kenji) in class. Jeong-hui outdoes Yeong-dal by drawing their town on the map of Korea fibbing that her father had taken her there on the train. She’s got front and that rubs the boys the wrong way but soon she and Yeong-dal are united by shared interests and their mutual difficulty in paying their tuition fees.

At home Yeong-dal lives with his grandma (Bok Hye-suk) who struggles at the best of times until she falls ill and he must care after her as the money and food begins to run out. He’s not heard from his parents in months and begins to give up hope as everyday the mailman passes them by. He begins to skip school even as neighbours pitch in to help and even when Mr Dashiro subs him the two dollars to pay his school fees, he ends up having to give it to grandma’s landlord… there seems no end to their poverty trap until, in desperation, grandma thinks of her distant sister.

Will there be a happy ending? It doesn’t matter when a film is this engagingly charming and when you already know that Mun Ye-bong was playing Yeong-dal’s mother, you can expect a big finish and the bucolic dénouement does not disappoint.

The acting from the youngsters is especially impressive and is credit to the direction and a generosity of spirit that still leaps from the screen. Definitely one to watch out for and proof that even in the dark days, creativity and hope continue to drive us onwards from the screen.

Mun Ye-bong - perhaps the major film star of the colonial period in Korea?

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.

Silent Seoul… Crossroads of Youth (1934), BFI Early Korean Cinema launch with director Kim Tae Yong

This was the opening of a BFI season subtitled “Lost films of the Japanese colonial period” and none was more nearly lost than Crossroads of Youth the only silent film remaining from this period, one that was badly damaged and not even a finished edit when it was rediscovered in 2007.

I talked to restoration director Kim Tae Yong (director of Memento Mori, Family Ties and Late Autumn) before the screening and he explained how he’d been invited onto the restoration project to re-edit as well as complete the edit on a film that didn’t quite make sense on first viewing. There are no inter-titles and he ended up watching it over a hundred times in order to establish plot and character. With one clear male hero and two female leads, it was only through lip-reading one of the characters calling lead actor Lee Won-yong her “brother” that he realised the relationship between the two. There a narrative looseness which is only fully appreciated when you see the film screened live when the importance of his editing and scripting is also clear.

Sin Il-seon

This was a silent film screening unlike any other I’ve ever witnessed, in addition to a Korean Byeonsa – a more active version of a Japanese Benshi – performed with gleeful energy by Cho Hee Bong, we had two actors, Hwang Minsu and Park Hee-von (who began with K-Pop combo M.I.L.K.) who sang parts echoing the central love story with West-end panache. Accompaniment was provided by composer Lee Jinwook on keyboards, Shin Jia on accordion, Oh Seung Hee on double-bass and Sim Jeongeun on violin an ear-popping combination of styles that seamlessly supported the narrative on and off screen.

The film has been screened several times and Tae Yong confirms that the overlaid narrative continues to evolve with a constant stream of commentary from Cho Hee Bong, all in Korean and veering from the daft to laugh-out loud hilarious. This is not silent film by “the rules”; the Byeonsa narration is invasive, commenting on our hero’s eye make-up, lascivious shots of the women and generally adding a third-party perspective dressed in a pith helmet with a pot of hot tea at his side. But this is not a Western silent film and for this last survivor this is an absolutely-joyful celebration of Korean culture and it’s as close as you can get to Silent Seoul as is possible without an eleven-hour plane flight (and a Tardis).

Lee Won-yong, Sin Il-seon and Kim Yeong-sil

This unique mix suited their silent style and Tae Yong says Byeonsa were more popular than actors with the audience wanting to see them as much if not more than the film for the added value they added to intensely emotive cinema, “...a narrator is the best way to tell a very sentimental story they can show their emotions they can deliver…”.

Tonight our Byeonsa was on flamboyant form as he introduced a tale “from the old days” as a train works its way along the tracks to Gyeongseong Station – now Seoul – symbolising the arrival of “youth” to the capital in search of opportunity and perhaps love… we see Yeong-bok (Lee Won-yong) a young “handsome fellow” among the crowd, a railway porter. He helps a young woman and her mother off the train even though he knows they can’t tip him…

Yeong-bok stares into the middle distance, the screen goes out of focus and we have the oldest surviving flashback in Korean cinema as the camera re-focuses on some lovely shots of the Korean countryside from cinematographer Lee Myeong-woo, including a tracking shot of our hero entering the village. Many filmmakers had been trained in Japan and had seen a broader range of western cinema too and the shots are well made if a little raw.

Depth of field: Yeong-ok is out of focus and unsure but bad-guy Gae Cheol knows what he wants

Yeong-bok is promised to Bong Seon and has been earning her hand in marriage living with her family for seven years, but things will not work out and the Byeonsa fills us in on the details from the lost footage – a rich man came in with a better offer whisking Bong Seon away. Yeong-bok headed for the city leaving his mother and sister Yeong-ok (Sin Il-seon) behind.

Back in the present, a “modern man” and a loan shark Gae Cheol greets Ju Myeong Gu who, surprise, is the very same rich man from the country who whisked Bong Seon away from Yeong-bok. Now he has come to the city for some “action” in the company of his dodgy mate. The two head to a bar/brothel where the madame introduces them to a young woman sitting at the bar, mourning her recently-passed mother, it is, of course, Yeong-ok who has come in search of her brother…

Kim Yeong-sil

Talking of which, we meet Yeong-bok’s new girl, Gye Soon (Kim Yeong-sil) a petrol station “gas girl”, who puts up with his drunken disinterest as he wastes away his days with his two pals. Sweet Gye Soon looks after her sister and ailing father who has fallen deeply in debt to the loan sharks and, unless she can find a better paid job, will be forced to marry her off. Heartbroken, she writes to Yeong-bok and the two have a poignant discussion at a well where they wonder if life is worth living and whether they should try to escape… serious stuff this melodrama, as the Byeonsa might say.

The baddies take Yeong-ok and the club madame to the golf club for a weekend of fore-play. Gae Cheol is pursuing and will not take no for an answer… the morning after, the focus literally moves out from Yeong-ok, devastated after having given in, then back in on Gye Soon who is thinking of Yeong-bok. Ahn Jong-Hwa's direction has many delicate touches.

Gye Soon bumps into Madame and is properly introduced to Yeong-ok – unbeknownst to her, her lover’s brother now attached to another… they take her for a meal and soon she become drawn into their world. The commentary has this as her first ever trip in a lift, there’s a theme of modernity as well as western ways changing society… the contrast between the rural idyll and the impact of money on happiness… and with money comes beer and other western temptations. The baddies get wasted in smart suits and prey on the women in ways both clear and startling, Hays would have had kittens.

It’s a worthy of a Victorian novel but a classic set up and even though you know where all of this will probably lead the narrative is well controlled. Once all the pieces of the tragedy are in place and the three heroes could hardly sink any lower there is an absolute stormer of a finish that is dynamic and very satisfying: you can’t fail to be carried away and this is irresistible, communal, cinema.

“He is no longer the tamed ox, he marches like a tiger!”

The acting is impressive across the board with Lee Won-yong an exceptional leading man – handsome and deftly expressive. Sin Il-seon is equally impressive as his forlorn sister and Jong-Hwa is especially fond of close-ups showing her emotional transitions as he is of Kim Yeong-sil, so capable also of sophisticated expression. It is a shame there is not more available to see these professionals further work but that makes this film even more precious.

I couldn’t sort out who plays what (there’s no cast list identification apart from the above) from the following performers Park Yeon, Moon Kyeong-sim, Park Je-haeng and Choy Myeong Hwa but who ever played Gae Cheol deserves special mention; a truly memorable baddie with a most excellent moustache!

Lee Won-yong

Returning to my discussion with director Kim Tae Yong, he feels that the narrator is the best way of expressing the emotions of what is a very complicated story. He compares the film to a soap opera in its complexity and, after the film was discovered in 2007, he watched it hundreds of times to work out the story, characters and their relationships. Certainly, the film is different to contemporary Japanese silents and Tae Yong identifies a need to smuggle in Korean sensibilities under the watchful gaze of the occupying Japanese. This would explain the sense of humour so powerfully in evidence; a coded comedy of emotional solidarity.

The film was last screened in London at the Barbican in 2012 and. Whilst the source material is unchanged, the narrative and performance has evolved with Tae Yong seeing new meanings as he tries to connect with the original intensions of Ahn Jong-Hwa stressing that “…this is not my film I need to find his way”.

The big finale

As the Japanese occupation drew on there were more restrictions on film makers, the first Korean film was made in 1919 in relative freedom although the director of film the Sin Il-seon made in 1926 was arrested. She married and left the business until her return for this film under the direction of Jong-Hwa, who was not a “politically dangerous” film-maker and more focused on action movies. The Thirties were a period of relative stability in Korea but as the decade progressed the pressure to make more propagandist films increased as the BFI series will show.

After liberation and the Korean war, Tae Yong says that the film makers from this era found their way more in television than films with the output of the fifties and sixties and beyond founded in the same style of sentimental melodrama. Which makes this amazing mixture of his direction, live performance and silent film even more poignant: after so much disruption, national creative character proves indomitable.

Details of the season are on the BFI site as well as the Korean Culture Centre’s – screenings being split across the two.