''The Crime of Korea'' was a 1950
propaganda film produced by the
US Army Signal Corps mainly concerning the
war crimes committed by the
North Koreans.
Plot
''Crime of Korea'' opens with the narrator reminiscing about what Korea was like when he first arrived in 1945 for the
Japanese surrender. He notes how well the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
were received and how the Korean people were glad to finally be rid of their
Japanese colonial masters, as well as "centuries of
Russian and
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
domination." Various public buildings are shown and the many activities for rebuilding the nation are described.
Flash forward to 1950, and the narrator is back in Korea as a war correspondent. The many buildings and public centers are seen gutted or destroyed and many Korean people are shown shot, with their hands tied behind their backs. The narrator gives background information about
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
war crimes, stating that it was monotonous that they found the same stories everywhere. But then, there was the crime of war, the crime of aggression that has sent so many people to their deaths needlessly.
The massacre shown illustrates the true nature of the aggressor, the North Korean invaders. "Everywhere lay the murdered dead". The field of pits of dead bodies shown in the film is from the
Daejeon massacre. The film suggests the numbers of victims are 10,000 to 25,000 or more. The narrator tells us that "...perhaps the total figure right now is approximate, if that makes any difference." The actual number was over 7,000.
Other details that don't seem to make any difference to the narrator who vows that "we will make these war criminals (meaning the communists who are blamed for the massacre) pay." According to the historian Bruce Cumings, author of books on the origins and conduct of the Korean War, "this is a complete reversal of black and white done as a matter of policy". The Taejon massacre near Seoul was conducted by South Korean police while American military and intelligence people watched. This information was suppressed and the more revealing photos showing the true perpetrators classified until those photos were released in 1999. According to Cumings, the film follows an official policy to deceive viewers into thinking that the massacre was conducted by North Korean aggressors.
Shots are then shown of
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 ...
and the Communist leadership, as well as Communist rallies and parades, and the narrator speaks about the need to counter it to stop "other Koreas."
The final segment of the film exerts the
home front to keep up production and buy
war bonds for the war effort.
Cast
External links
Complete film at archive.org
American anti-communist propaganda shorts
1950 films
Korean War films
1950 documentary films
American black-and-white films
1950s American films
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