''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 * Kha ...

, 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 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, the leader of the Korean Communist Party 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 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, 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 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
''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