KPC3422: The 100th Anniversary of Korean Film

What is your answer if someone asks you of your hobbies? There are, of course, a long list of hobbies, such as collecting stamps, traveling, reading books, and listening to music, and so on. However, quite a number of people would answer that his or her hobby is watching movies . According to a survey conducted by IHS, the world`s leading industrial research organization, Koreans watch an average of 4.2 films each year, which is the second highest yearly cinema attendance per capita in the world after Iceland. As watching movies became Korea’s most favorite hobby, increasing attention is being paid to Korean films not only by the Korean people, but by people around the world. As this year marks the centennial of Korean cinema`s birth, the Korea Post issues commemorative stamps.

The Gwangmudae was originally the warehouse of Hansung Electric Company where Mr. Henry Collbran, an American businessman, held the first public screening of a short film in 1903 at the admission fee of 10 jeon(coin) per viewer. In 1908, Park, Sung-pil, a theater-operator, took it over and changed its name to Gwangmudae . It was around 1910 that permanent theaters began to be built in Seoul.

In 1917, Park acquired a theater that had been owned by a Japanese and expanded it into a motion picture and drama theater after a year-long renovation. This movie theater is Korea’s first permanent movie theater, Danseongsa. Park Sung-pil, who became the owner of Danseongsa after the Gwangmudae, decided to produce a kino-drama which was popular back then at Japanese theaters. He asked Kim Do-san who gained fame as a director and an actor, to direct this film.

At last, Korea’s first kino-drama “The Righteous Revenge (Uirijeok Gutu)” was first shown at Danseongsa Theater. The Righteous Revenge was a play with motion picture inserts. Viewers were amazed and excited by this kino-drama with a mixture of theatrical play and film in which actors performed against a backdrop of projected motion pictures. The Righteous Revenge (Uirijeok Gutu), produced with our own capital was premiered on October 27, 1919. Thus, October 27th is considered the birthdate of Korean film industry.

After the liberation from Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War, Korean cinema, which aroused national consciousness with enlightenment films during the Japanese colonial rule amid oppression by Japanese colonialists, experienced a golden age in the 1960s. Though the movie industry in Korea once slumped in the 1970s and 80s due largely to the spread of TVs and censorship, the industry was reinvigorated with the investment of conglomerates in the 1990s. Since the 2000s, Korean films have led the Korean Wave, winning a variety of awards at three most prestigious film festivals, including Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

As a familiar symbol of Korean cinema, a film reel image with a combination of blue and red Taegeuk pattern is used in this commemorative stamp. Following the issuance of the commemorative stamp, 100 Years of Korean Cinema festival will be held on Oct. 26 and 27 at Gwanghwamun Plaza, Seoul. We hope filmmakers and audiences who love Korean films enjoy this festival.