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ABSTRACT
This paper compares and contrasts the prototypical Korean youth film The Barefooted Youth (Menbal ui cheongchun, Kim Ki-duk 1964) with the Japanese film, Mud Spattered Purity (Dorodarake no junjō, Nakahira Kō 1963), thereby examining the process of plagiarism and adaptation in Korean youth film production. Youth film was a popular film genre during the 1960s Korean cinema renaissance, and it is no exaggeration to say that The Barefooted Youth was a cultural phenomenon, attracting enthusiastic support from young viewers of the day. However, the film is also accused of plagiarism whenever conversation turns to Korean imitation of Japanese culture. I track two phases of plagiarism and adaptation in the case of The Barefooted Youth at a time when Korean imports of Japanese culture were at their peak; I utilize the two films and their corresponding screenplays, as well as archival materials including the actual censorship document that dealt with the film. I find that the screenplays are very similar, but that genuine adaptation took place during the filming process. I focus on mise-en-scene, the theme song and, above all, the shinpa style adopted for Korean viewers. This analysis offers a starting point for studies of comparative Korean–Japanese film history.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Chonghwa Chung is a research fellow at Kyoto University’s Institute for Research in Humanities, where he has held a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship since November 2014. He has been Senior Researcher at the Korean Film Archive since 2003. He received his doctorate, entitled A Historical Study on Joseon Silent Film Style, from Chung Ang University, Seoul in August 2012. His works to date include a book, Korean Film History, and an article, ‘Negotiating Colonial Korean Cinema in the Japanese Empire: From the Silent Era to the Talkies, 1923–1939’, published in Cross-Currents. Between 2010 and 2014 he also edited five volumes of Joseon Cinema in Japanese Magazines. His research interests include comparative Korean–Japanese film history, the popular culture of colonial Korean cinema, and film style.
Notes
1 The English title of the film in this paper is taken from KMDb. Accessed August 31, Citation2015. (http://www.kmdb.or.kr/index.asp).
2 This film was one of the ‘top 100 Korean films' in both 2006 and 2014, as selected by film specialists surveyed by the Korean Film Archive.
3 The reason is simply because this film became famous, unlike so many other plagiarized ones. Some articles and reports appeared the year after The Barefooted Youth hit the box office and argued that it was plagiarized. See ‘(English translation) Japanese films to covet Korea/ a Bait of Co-production/ A Skirmish before Import’, Kyunghyang Shinmun, 10 July 1965; a Korean TV Show, ‘(English translation) Non-Fiction 11: From The Barefooted Youth to the Contact’, 4 March 1999, MBC.
4 For more on imitation, plagiarism and the achievements of modernity in Korean film texts of the 1960s, see the details in Moon (Citation2008, 122–125).
5 Mud Spattered Purity (Running time: 91 minutes/DVD Production: Nikkatsu, 2008)
6 Kim Ki-duk Collection: The Barefooted Youth (Running time: 117 minutes/DVD Production: Korean Film Archive, Citation2013)
7 The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum of Waseda University, Japan possesses the Japanese screenplay; the Korean Film Archive holds the Korean one. The two versions of Mud Spattered Purity (Baba Masaru Citation1962) are preserved, while one version of The Barefooted Youth (Seo Yoonsung Citation1964) is. The ‘preparation version’ of Mud has a different ending to the final cut of the film.
8 According to the dictionary definitions, ‘renaissance’ means the revival or regeneration of academy or arts. Therefore, the Renaissance of Korean cinema in the 1960s postulates a previous apotheosis; Korean film history generally regards this as being the silent film era, when Arirang (Na Woon-kyu 1926) promulgated the film medium for the first time.
9 The English translation of the title in this newspaper article is as follows: ‘The Height of Youth Film, The Barefooted Youth/Great skill to distribute foreign movies/Mr. Cha Tae-jin winning from the boom’. In this paper, I introduce English translations of titles of newspaper articles to help readers appreciate cultural context. All translations by the author/translator and/or editor.
10 The official population of Seoul in 1964 was 3,424,385 (Donga Ilbo, 12 March 1965). Most Korean movies of the 1960s were released in only one cinema in Seoul. Viewer numbers were not precise, but were made public based on figures from that one theater. Numbers of local viewers were often estimated at twice those of Seoul. Therefore, it is presumed that The Barefooted Youth attracted approximately 450,000 viewers nationwide. For reference, it was not until 2004 that the Korean Film Commission started gathering overall box-office statistics in Korea.
11 The duo of Shin and Uhm can be compared to the duo of Yoshinaga Sayuri and Hamada Mitsuo in Mud. Nikkatsu's youth films led to the pure love genre starring Yoshinaga and Hamada, after Taiyo-zoku films starred Ishihara Yujiro in 1956. Yoshinaga and Hamada starred in more than 40 films, including Kyūpora no aru machi (Urayama Kirio 1962). See the details in Uematsu (Citation2011, 6–11).
12 Ostensibly, Korean youth film plagiarism from Japanese films was unidirectional rather than a process of exchange and dialogue, but I argue that this is not really the case. For instance, before the name of youth film genre had been designated, the screenwriter Kim Ji-heon mentioned that Young Expression (directed by Lee Sung-gu 1960) was filmed after communication with Oshima Nagisa, a Japanese contemporary filmmaker. The producer of Young Expression, Jeon Hong-shik sent a 16mm print of the film to Oshima Nagisa and Oshima wrote an article about the film in a film magazine called Scenario. Young Expression was produced owing to the influence of Japanese Taiyozoku film (KOFA Citation2004, 75).
13 ‘(English translation) Film/What should we block?/Cultural stance to Japan before normalization of diplomatic relation/Getting bigger due to plagiarism competition/This is because of the superstition that something Japanese will hit the box office/We should establish an organization to review screenplays’.
14 ‘(English translation) Broadcasting having the year of desert in both fields/most of youth films are plagiarism from foreign films. They keep struggling for the Motion Picture Act/Opening RSB, DTV and other broadcasting companies’.
15 See the details about this plagiarism case issued by L. Y. in Yang (Citation1998, 57–70).
16 The film A Slope in the Sun (Hi no ataru sakamichi) was first made in 1958. (Nikkatsu, Tasaka Tomotaka).
17 The film That Guy and I (Aitsu to watashi) was first made in 1961. (Nikkatsu, Nakahira Kō).
18 Cheon (Citation2012, 528–530).
19 The Kim Dae-jung administration announced a policy of opening up to Japanese popular culture in October 1998. For the first time in South Korea since the Liberation, a Japanese film, Fireworks [Hana-bi] directed by Kitano Takeshi 1997), was released in a Korean theater in December 1998.
20 See the details in Cheon (Citation2012, 539–544).
21 ‘(English translation) High Wave in Hyeonhaetan/What comes after the Treaty on Basic Relations between Korea and Japan(8)/Invasion of Popular Culture’.
22 UNESCO established universal Copyright Convention in 1952, and South Korea ratified it in 1987.
23 Contemporary Korean filmmakers and producers could initiate the production of a film after receipt of a deposit from local distributors in five different regions aside from Seoul. They offered screenplays to distributors to act as a guarantee of a box office hit.
24 ‘(English translation) Daejong Awards to open on the 31st at the Citizen's Hall/For 16 Categories, the Awards to exclude plagiarisms, imitations and adaptations’.
25 See the details in Chosun Ilbo, 28 January 1965 ‘(English translation) Rejection of accepting submission of Resistance and two other movies/the Ministry of Public Information taking a first action to a plagiarized screenplay’.
26 See the details in Donga Ilbo, 12 January 1965 ‘(English translation) New Film Scenes/The Ministry of Culture and Public Information to Announce New Promotion Plans/Stricter Controls on Plagiarism/Focusing more on International Advances’.
27 The Korean Film Archive preserves this document. Its Agreement of the Adapter in Japanese says, ‘Entrusting the entire production license of Mud Spattered Purity that I adapted to Cha Tae-jin, I agree that Keukdong Heung-eop Productions shall produce the film’. This document is typewritten as of the year of Showa 39 (1964) January (Date is not written). Ishizaka's name is hand-written in Chinese characters with stamped.
28 ‘(English translation) A star and an author becoming pan friends: Ishizaka and Miss Uhm, Thanks to the film, Private Tutor’.
29 ‘(English translation) Filming a Japanese Novel/Accepted the permission from the author/Filming Mr. Ishizaka's A Slope in the Sun/Translation was not accepted once’, (Ministry of Public Information, Citation1962) according to the review material of this film that is preserved by the Korean Film Archive, the date on the Agreement of the Author is 10 August 1962. And the letter written on 24 October 1962 is attached. It says that the author was glad that he met Uhm Aeng-ran in September at Empire Hotel in Japan and received a present. He also wished the film Private Tutor would be successful. A newspaper article actually delivers news that Uhm became ‘a pan friend’ with Ishizaka after they met at the hotel. See the article in note 28, Donga Ilbo, 18 February 1963.
30 See the details in ‘[Film Review] A tragedy ending with love death/The Barefooted Youth (by Keukdong Heung-eop Productions)’, on Chosun Ilbo, 10 March 1964. And also see ‘[New Movies] A pure love story with co-starts Shin Sung-il & Uhm Aeng-ran/Director Kim Ki-duk, The Barefooted Youth’ on Seoul Shinmun, 4 March 1964.
31 In addition, I argue that there is the highest probability that Keukdong Heung-eop received the screenplay of Mud Spattered Purity directly from Baba Masaru. I also confirmed that the screenplay of Mud had not been published in film magazines including Kinemajunpo and Scenario then.
32 ‘(English translation) Retreating Domestic Film Scene/No good in quality or quantity/Owing to shallow foundation of corporations’.
33 ‘Last year, there were 40 plagiarized films copied from Japanese films. Until now there are 70–80 plagiarized films. For example, The Barefooted Youth (Japanese film entitled Mud Spattered Purity), The Elegy (Manga) (Japanese film the Elegy), Private Tutor (Japanese film Youth Mountains), Spring Dream (Chunmong) (Japanese film Daydream) … ’. See the details in the article ‘(English translation) Japanese films to covet Korea/a Bait of Co-production/A Skirmish before Import’ in Kyunghyang Shinmun, 10 July 1965.
34 In the case of The Barefooted Youth, the final scenes are extended; Agari (Twist Kim) puts his shoes on Dusu's foot, while Dusu's body is carried on a flat-bed cart.
35 Yi Hyo-in (Citation2013) concludes that the core of shinpa contains repetition of emotions, contrivance (contingency) for dramatizing, and extreme expression of psychology itself instead of revealing psychology by events. In his article, shinpa refers to the shinpa as a style in order to attract the public to contemporary Korean cinema (15).
36 We can check out the same recollection of director Kim Ki-duk from the DVD commentary of the Barefooted Youth from the Kim Ki-duk Collection that this author planned and produced.
37 The president of Keukdong Heung-eop Productions, Cha Tae-jin was one of the Korean delegates to the 10th Asian Film Festival in Tokyo, which was held from 15 to 20 April 1963. Although Mud was not one of the films screened at the festival, it can be assumed that he decided to film Mud in Korea following the visit after watching this film in a cinema in Japan. See the details in (English translation) 24 delegates to start/To participate into Asian Film Festival’ in Dong-a Ilbo, 13 April 1963. At that time, it is true that Asian Film Festival became the official and public route to contact the actual Japanese films instead of the screenplays. For instance, Tsuma wa kokuhakusuru (Daiei, Masumura Yasuzō 1961) was one of the entries of the 9th Asian Film Festival held in Seoul, May 1962. Segi Sangsa Corporation in South Korea purchased the filming right of the film, and Yoo Hyeon-mok directed A Wife Confesses in 1964.
38 Singer (Citation2001) analyzes melodramas through the lens of a cluster concept containing five key constitutive elements: (1) strong pathos; (2) overwrought emotion; (3) moral polarization; (4) non-classical narrative structure; and (5) spectacular sensationalism (44–49).
39 The Barefooted Youth won the award for Best Music at the Second Blue Dragon Awards in 1964. This was its only success in domestic film festivals.
40 The song was written by Yu Ho, composed by Lee Bong-jo and sung by Choi Hee-jun.
41 ‘(English translation) Shameless screenwriters/Including The Seizure of Life and Oh! My Hometown/A lot of imitations’.
42 ‘(English translation) The number of films increased but the quality decreased/Barmecidal residency, Arrogance of Stars/Blaming quick production and lack of original works’.
43 See the details in ‘(English translation) Dreams of Youth Will Be Splendid has a clumsy sense of comedy’ on Donga Ilbo, 26 September 1963.