Colonial Korean

Cinema

The key turning point of colonial cinema is the March First Independence Movement in 1919

Mathieu Dussoulier
What is the Colonial Korean Cinema ?

The radical change arrived in 1938

→ "Japanese and Korea as one body"

Western entertainment and “spectacle” films were banned of the Korean

cinema scene
→ Creating more place for promoting pro-Japanese propaganda films

Korean filmmakers and Japanese film industry became one same body

Volunteer (지 원병, Ahn Seok-yeong, 1941)

Introduction

Tuition (1940)

-Released nearly 80 years ago

-A copy of the film found in China in 2014
-Shot in Korea during the late Japanese colonial period of the 1939 and
released a year after.
-Produced by Lee Chang-yong-III
-Directed by Choi In-gyu and Baek Un-haeng,

Shibam (Yemen) - The raw-earth Manhattan

Quick resume

Yeong-dal (protagonist)
→ a school boy who loves attending school and is a good student
→ Unstable financial situation, leaving with his grandmother
→ his grandmother becomes seriously ill and cannot work anymore

→ He found support from a schoolmate but even her support is not enough.
→ The boy decides to travel to another area in order to ask his aunt for help
Education

School is the representation of the knowledge

-Teaching and educating children with Japanese values and traditions

-Perfect example of the perfect tool to transform the culture of a nation
-The directors took care of portraying the school environment
as a truly idyllic place.
Japanese Teacher
Tactics of the Japanese

It was necessary during the 1940s for Japanese colonialism in Korea “to eventually extend its
control into the private sphere of communities, families and individuals.”

Using the cinema as a weapon to promote pro-Japanese thinking

→ Influence people even through their very personal buble
→ Touch people emotionally to have a strong influence on their personality

Use more direct or non-direct way to promote the regime through the cinema in Korea
Depend on : -the date, the productor and the subject
House owner

Korean house owner is the villain

-Kick out an old lady and small kid
-No regrets in getting Yeong-dal's tuition money

Make contrast between Korean landowner and the

benevolent Japanese teacher
→One of the main sources of propaganda in the
film
American Censorship

-Ban prevented Korea’s cinemas from screening American films,

→ Korea became a key exhibition market for Japanese products

Very local cinema became the representation of the Japanese

propaganda to
-Touch the people deep inside
-Get their attention with something they can reflect themself
into
→Most of the people were living with very little money at
that time in Korea and a lot of people were in poverty.
Director used this detail to make the film even more powerful
Pro Japanese cinema (1938-1945)

“To inculcate educational messages intended to transform the Korean people

into loyal subjects of Japan.” Yecies (2003)

Inculcate a new way of thinking into Korea's children's minds can resume the film as itself
Tuition, the reflect of the
korean film industry at that
time

Korea’s film industry was transformed into a very new type of

propaganda tool
→ Related to assimilationist policy and the monolingual use of
Japanese language by students inside all schools.

Very good example to understand the premise of how Japanese

wanted to use cinema as a tool of cultural assimilation.

Japanese chose the integrative direction, it ensured that Koreans

would engage with the film
→ Only some scenes use Japanese to touch the people globally
More global point of view

The colonial cinema in general, not only the Korean cinema, adapt his tactic depending on the people it had to influence
→It takes the perfect form that it must adopt to best reach its targets.

English censorship and propaganda on Indian cinema

-The occupation was much longer than the Japanese occupation in Korea
→ See long-term effects of film propaganda on the culture of the country

Indian first silent film under British occupation in 1913 (Raja Harishchandra)
-1918 law on the censorship of Indian cinema.
→ Creates the Boom in the indian cinema scene (any major films were released at that time).
-Strong censorship in 1940

How to have the strongest impact on people ?

The soft and less propagandistic way worked best for England in India and allowed them to have influence over a long period of time, to make
the British ideology accepted in director’s minds.
Bibliography Brian, Yecies “Lost Memories of Korean Cinema: Film Policy During Japanese colonial rules, 1919-1937 ” ResearchGate, Sep 2003., School PDF

Chonghwa, Chung “Negotiating Colonial Korean Cinema in the Japanese Empire: From the Silent Era to the Talkies, 1923–1939 ” The Asia-Pacific

Journal , June 2013, School PDF

Richard, Howson “The Korean “Cinema of Assimilation and the Construction of Cultural Hegemony in the Final Years of Japanese Rule” ResearchGate,

Sep 2003, https://apjjf.org/2014/11/25/Brian-Yecies/4137/article.html

Hayley, Scanlon“Volunteer (志願兵 / 지 원병, Ahn Seok-yeong, 1941)” Windowsonworlds, February 2019,

https://windowsonworlds.com/2019/02/17/volunteer-%E5%BF%97%E9%A1%98%E5%85%B5-%EC%A7%80-%EC%9B%90%EB%B3%91-ah

n-seok-yeong-1941/

Uday, Bathia “Inde. Cent ans de censure au cinéma” Courrier International Oct 2018.,

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/inde-cent-ans-de-censure-au-cinema

Panos Kotzathanasis “[HanCinema's Film Review] "Tuition" + Full Movie” Han Cinema, Jan 2020,

https://www.hancinema.net/hancinema-s-film-review-tuition--full-movie-137381.html