''My Home Village'' (; 1949), directed by

Kang Hong-sik Kang may refer to: Places * Kang Kalan, Punjab * Kang District, Afghanistan * Kang, Botswana, a village * Kang County, Gansu, China * Kang, Isfahan, Iran, a village * Kang, Kerman, Iran, a village * Kang, Razavi Khorasan, Iran, a village * Kham ...

, is a

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

in the

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war fi ...

genre, the first film to be made in the then newly independent Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The film portrays the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

Background

Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...

, the leader of the

Korean Communist Party The Korean Communist Party () was a communist political party organized in Shanghai, China and Irkutsk, Russia in 1921. It has its origins in the Siberian region after the Russian Revolution. It dissolved in 1922. Background It was an organiz ...

during the fight to liberate Korea from Japanese colonialism, was determined that cinema should play a central role in "ideological guidance" of his newly liberated country and eagerly accepted Soviet funding and technicians to set up the National Film Production Center. Their first production was ''My Home Village''. The film was shot on 10 standard

35 mm film 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on f ...

reels in

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

. Its running time is 101 minutes.

Cast

*Yoo won jun -Gwan Pil *Yu Kyongae -Gwan Pil's mom * Moon Ye-bong - Ok Dan *Ul-min Tae -Choi jusa, the land lord *Pak Hak - In dal, son of Choi jusa.

Plot

The film opens with a shot of

Mount Paektu Paektu Mountain (), also known as Baekdu Mountain and in China as Changbai Mountain ( zh, s=长白山, t=長白山; Manchu: Golmin Šanggiyan Alin), is an active stratovolcano on the Chinese–North Korean border. At , it is the highest moun ...

, the snow-capped volcano which is the holy mountain considered to be the origin of the Korean race, giving emotional basis for Kim's anti-Japanese guerrilla group. In fact, however, a scale-model of the mountain was used. The story concerns Gwan Pil, a poor farmer who is deprived of his land by an evil landlord Choi jusa and put in a Japanese prison while fighting with Indal, the son of landlord Choi. There he meets an agent of Kim Il-sung's . The two stage a riot and break out of prison to join the guerrillas.Meanwhile, Gwan Pil's fiancee Ok Dan is taken by the japanese army. The guerrillas blow up a Japanese train which crashes through a railway bridge. Kim's army liberates Gwan Pil's home village and reunites with Ok Dan, and he leads the fight to create a new society there. In the presentation of the liberation of Korea in 1945, there was no mention of American defeat of Japan or of the Soviet invasion but showed the liberation of Korea as the work of Kim Il Sung's guerrilla fighters working on their own.

Propaganda

North Korean sources tell that Kim Il-sung's son,

Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

, the future leader of the country, attended a

preview Preview may refer to: Theatre, film, television * Preview (subscription service), an early subscription television service in the United States * Preview (theatre), a public performance of a theatrical show before the official opening * Previe ...

of the film. Even at the age of seven, the story goes, he handed critical notes to the filmmakers pointing out that although there was snow falling, none could be seen on the heads or shoulders of the characters, and that the snow was clearly

cotton wool Cotton wool consists of silky fibers taken from cotton plants in their raw state. Impurities, such as seeds, are removed and the cotton is then bleached using hydrogen peroxide or sodium hypochlorite and sterilized. It is also a refined product ( ...

, not real snow.

Notes

References

* * *

External links

* {{IMDb title
My home village
on

Korean Movie Database The Korean Movie Database (KMDb) is a South Korean online database of information related to Korean movies, animation, actors, television shows, production crew personnel and other film-related information. KMDb launched in February 2006 by Ko ...

''My Home Village''(with eng subs)
on youtube 1949 films Korean-language films North Korean drama films 1940s historical films 1949 war films Korean black-and-white films Korean War films Guerrilla warfare in film