Korean cinema of perseverance: pushing the boundaries of quality during the Park Chung Hee authoritarian era, 1961-1970

Abstract

This thesis analyses film policy, production practices and genre construction under Park Chung Hee’s totalitarian government, which ruled South Korea between 1961 and 1979. It offers new theoretical insights about the modernisation of film culture in Korea, which left a rich legacy for filmmakers in the 21st Century. The period chosen for this study (1961-1970) is best known for the compressed industrialization that the nation experienced. This period called a golden age of the Korean cinema is known for struggle and success under the constraints of industrialisation, when the industry produced an average of 164 films per year. It was a time when the nation experienced the first post-liberation film policy since the end of the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), a new mode of cinematic production, the rise of master directors and the formation of new genres. Despite these remarkable changes, the golden age has been largely discussed in terms of the industry’s development in quantity and aesthetic achievements represented by a small number of directors such as Shin Sang-ok, Yu Hyun-mok and Kim Ki-young. The dynamic and complex nexus between film policy, producers, directors and genres in the 1960s, which all contributed to build up the golden age, has yet to be fully explored. This study aims to situate the industrialisation of Korea’s national film industry in the larger discussion of national cinema, film policy and genre studies while building upon earlier, albeit limited, scholarship on the Korean cinema. By analysing these complex and interconnected industrial activities, this thesis reveals how the industry operated in the 1960s, how the relentless activities of each stakeholder such as the government, producers and directors helped the film industry to reach a peak, and thus provides a more dynamic view of the 1960s Golden Age of Korean Cinema, that is, Korea’s cinema of perseverance.