1943 Seoul, South Korea

Yong-In Lee

Born 1939

Seoul, South Korea

Interviewed on 9/6/19

By Allison Chun

I didn’t watch many movies when I was young. I was living in South Korea until 1963, and the country was very poor. I remember seeing seeing my first movie in a small dingy theater. Actually, it was probably a school auditorium – I don’t know if Korea had theaters then. I just remember sitting on the floor in a dark, small and dirty space. I was young, sometime before I started school. I went with my mother and my older sister.  I’m not sure if they remember the film, and I don’t even remember the title or what the movie was really about. But I could never forget this one gruesome scene. The scene took place when Japan colonized China, and in it Japanese soldiers and officials were beating Chinese citizens. And the torture was so horrible, I don’t know why my mother made us watch this. It’s too difficult to talk about even today. Do you know those black and white documentary clips from WWII, the ones that documented the tortures and murders of jews during the holocaust? It was similar to those. I was terrified – during this time, the Japanese were occupying Korea and tormenting and abusing Koreans like they were on screen. I don’t even know why they were showing this film; the scene was so horrible. Maybe they wanted to scare us. I just can’t believe my mother took us to watch this terrifying film. It wasn’t like that was the only film to watch in Korea. She was always so strict and hard, and my older sister was the same, probably because they remember North Korea as home.

Since then, I haven’t watched many movies, but not from a lack of trying. In Korea, after the Japanese colonization ended and the Korean war had passed, the South Korean government forbade teenagers from watching movies. Students in 7th grade and above, including college students, were banned from watching movies. There would even be teachers after school patrolling the local movie theater to try and catch students. Of course, students found ways to sneak in. Some of my friends would steal their mother’s clothes, heels, and scarves to cover their heads. They would even wear lipstick and powder to look older. I once got caught trying to sneak in. My friends and I wanted to see a biography film about Caruso, who was a really famous singer at the time (Writers Note: the film is titled The Great Caruso). I really wanted to see it, but I was caught before entering. I remember my three younger brothers snuck in when they were in high school, and I think they got in through the back door and pretended they weren’t students. 

Besides the fact that it was hard to watch films in Korea during that age, I remember what films were showing. It was mostly feature films, but I don’t remember specific titles in English because of the translations. There were some, like Gone with the Wind, that were so well known that the titles were easy to find again. But there was one movie that’s been stuck in my mind that I’ve wanted to watch again in English, but I can’t remember the title. It was one of my favorite movies of the time, and I would love to see it in English. The movie is about a widow who is trying to remember her deceased husband by going through a book of memories and searching for old friends who could tell her stories about her husband or pass on other memoriam. I would love to see it again, and I tried asking my step son who’s a film person but he has no idea what I’m talking about. I remember I was in high school, so it was after the Korean War, which means I think it was shown in Korean theaters during 1953-1957. But since it took so long for films to be translated into Korean and then brought to Korean theaters, the film may have come out in the 40s. It’d be a miracle if I could find the title and watch the movie at a better time.