The Bell Tower

< The Bell Tower >, which was the third full-length feature by forgotten director Yang Ju-nam, is a beautiful film that depicts a love story between a bell maker, Seok-sung, and three women who loved him. When the movie first came out, many newspapers praised it and said it had “a serious passion to explore people,” “It is an expression of the direction that Korean movies should move torward,” “It is good to see a thick romantic atmosphere present in a movie for human exploration,” and “A passionate piece among commercial movies,” but oddly, the movie was forgotten afterwards. Heo Jang-gang, a young man in his 30s, the relatively old Seok-Sung, and Ok bun, portrayed by Moon Jeong-suk in his late 20s, acted in this movie with a minimal script. Director Yang Ju-nam had broken ranks with other directors such as Sin Sang-ok, Kim Ki-young, and Yoo Hyeon-mok ect, and made this movie which could have been “one of the main Korean movies. And now it is refocused by us after the half a century since its release. The pamphlet contains an essay by movie critic Jung Sung-il, who was a supporter of < The Belfry >, a documentary on the director titled < Forgotten Artisan Yang Ju-nam > produced by the Korean Film Archive, and an introductory summary by movie critic Kim Jong-won.