7 movies from 1950s that tell Korean cinema’s ‘unexpected success story’ showing at Far East Film Festival in Italy

This year’s Udine Far East Film Festival, in Italy, in collaboration with the Korean Film Archive, is showing 7 films made in Korea during the turbulent 1950s

The programme aims to introduce the world to Korean films beyond Oldboy and My Sassy Girl. A YouTube channel shows the movies for those who can’t make the event

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A still from Nakdong River (1952), one of the classic Korean films being shown at this year’s Udine Far East Film Festival as part of a programme to tell the Korean film industry’s “unexpected success story” during the tumultuous 1950s.

Published: 4:15pm, 1 May 2024

Every spring in Udine, a charming medieval town facing the snow-capped Alps in northeastern Italy, cinephiles and filmmakers gather for the Far East Film Festival (FEFF), Europe’s grandest celebration of Asian cinema.

For this year’s 26th edition, FEFF has partnered with the Korean Film Archive (KOFA) to celebrate the latter’s 50th anniversary in a special programme, titled “50/50: Celebrating 50 Years of Korean Film Preservation”, which takes a journey through South Korea’s formative cinematic output from the 1950s.

When film lovers consider the national cinemas of East Asian countries, they are as likely to think of classic films as they are of current ones, be it the output of China’s “fifth generation” of filmmakers, the golden age of Japanese cinema in the 1950s, or that of Hong Kong in the 90s.

In the case of South Korea, however, movie watchers tend to be familiar with the country’s post-2000 output – from My Sassy Girl and Oldboy, all the way to Parasite – but largely unfamiliar with what preceded this modern golden era.

A still from South Korean film Piagol (1955).

Of course, contemporary Korean cinema did not emerge from a vacuum, and today’s Korean masters stand on the shoulders of domestic cinematic giants.

The KOFA, which was founded in Seoul in 1974, has been preserving, restoring and reintroducing historic Korean films for the past half-century.