Master Collection

THE PAST UNEARTHED Boxset, Vol. 1

Year: 2007

The Korean Film Archive has found and collected 4 feature films of the 1930s and 1940s at the China Film Archive since 2004. Thanks to this discovery, the films of that period which had left a blank in the Korean film archive now relocate themselves at their own place, and the films of the Japanese colonial period only as known in books became open to the public several times.

Various interpretations have been expressed on those films of the period. As a film critic, Kim Jong-won said, however, it would be the first step to open the past unearthed to the public and to see them wisely, before we apply dichotomy of ‘pro-Japan’ and ‘anti-Japan’ to the films. was first designed with this intention. The supplement of this collection contains the commentaries of a senior film critic, Kim Jong-won and the interviews of an actor Song Hwan-chang who starred in An Angel without a House. Most of all, the interview of Song could function as a precious material about the circumstances of film production and the theatrical culture at that time. The thesis of Lee Soon-jin, a researcher on the Korean film history in this brochure will show a way to comprehend the film culture of the period more deeply. The original scenario of An Angel without a House that the Korean Film Archive collected at Kawakita Memorial Film Institute of Japan in 2005 is also inserted in this brochure. It is donated by the widow of Nishikame Motosada who wrote it, which Lim Hwa translated to Korean dialogues. With this as a momentum, we hope to generate more various contexts and point of views and to make bloom of the study on the films and social cultural history in the 1930s and 1940s.

An Angel without a House (Choi In-kyu, 1941)
Spring in the Korean Peninsula (Lee Byung-iI, 1941)
Volunteer (An Seok-yeong, 1941)
Straits of Joseon (1943)