Early Sound Era (1935-1945)
Korea's first sound film was Lee Myeong-woo's 1935 Chunhyang-jeon. The sound technique was reportedly poor, but Korean audiences appreciated hearing their own language in the cinema.
The number of films produced increased during the latter part of the decade. Na Woon-gyu began making a larger number of films again with significant works like Kanggeonneo maeul (1935), and Oh Mong-nyeo (1937), before his premature death in 1937.
Coming as they did during the mid- to late-1930s, sound films in Korea faced much harsher censorship from the Japanese government-General than did the silent films before them. Also, the loss of the byeonsa narrators with the coming of sound film meant that anti-authority messages could no longer be sneaked around the censors in this way.
The showing of American and European films decreased, and were replaced by Japanese films. Korean-made films became a propaganda tool for the government of the Japanese occupation. Starting in 1938, all film-making in Korea was done by the Japanese, and by 1942 the use of Korean language in film was banned.
Read more about this topic: Cinema Of Korea
Famous quotes containing the words early, sound and/or era:
“Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying, “They lived happily ever after” and the following quarter-century warning that they’ll be lucky to make it through the weekend. Possibly now we are now entering a third era in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know it just might work.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)