1975 Seoul, South Korea

Lee Young Ran
Born 1952
First Movie Memory in Seoul, South Korea
Interviewed on September 19, 2019
By Richard Park

Gone with the Wind was the first film that I remember seeing in around 1975. Unlike the United States, Korea was still an incredibly poor country, and going to the movie theater was the pinnacle of luxury a student could afford. Seoul was one of the few cities that even had movie theaters back then. Back in school, I remember going to see this film with one of my girlfriends from school, as a reward for finishing our school exams from our parents. The tiled concrete walls greeted me as I walked into the building along with the rest of the crowd of adults and children, and bought the tickets from a small ticket box in the building. We did not have anything fancy like popcorn or any imported candy, and the small food shop setup near the theater sold a kind of squid-flavored peanut, which I passed on as it tasted quite unhealthy. 

As a young adult, the movie is still an all-time favorite for me. It showed off the relatively flamboyant culture of the West, especially the dresses. It was in stark contrast to the long and dull dresses we were expected to wear back then. As I said, Korea was only two decades out from Japanese occupation, and we had barely a content industry especially compared to Hollywood. Most of our TV shows and movies were directly imported from other countries, and most households did not even have a TV to watch it. Therefore, the production standards of the movie blew me away, as nothing remotely close to that level had been produced in Korea yet.

Personally, the film also instilled a message of female empowerment for me, which went against the socially conservative culture of Korea back then. Even though men protect females in the film, women are put into situations where they need to be able to take care of themselves or perish. One of the female characters was a “fallen noble” in the South who had lost all her family wealth and slaves after the Civil War. I think her most memorable line went like “The sun will rise again.” She was so inspiring for me; a strong female lead working through hardship and poverty, ripping curtains to make dresses for herself and working the fields until her palms were coarse. Even though she is self-centered, she takes responsibility for her life and that was incredibly admirable for my young self. On the flip side, she is young and makes some terrible romantic decisions. The man she chooses is seemingly perfect and her first love, but turns out to be without any actual merit and collapses under duress. The girl does not realize a much better man is in love with her even until the end, and it showed me how blind young love could be.

On an aside, we did not know the film was nearly 4 hours long so when it was over, we realized that it was past curfew (Korea was a democratic dictatorship at the time). So public transportation was not an option, and we got into a taxi. But this taxi driver was a terrible fellow and in hindsight, he took us to the red light district, probably to drug us off into a brothel. At the time, my friend and I were not aware of what was going on, but thankfully a military patrol found us as we were leaving the car and the driver offered to take us home. Thanks to him, we managed to get home safely, though our parents were not very happy. I actually even wrote him a thank you letter later on.

Overall, it was a night I could not forget and a movie I recommend everyone to watch regardless of age or generation.