<Kinship (Hyeolmaek)> (1963)

Director : Kim Su-Yong
Production Company : Han Yang Films Co., Ltd
Date of Rate : 1963-10-03
Genre : Literary Art

Staff :
Writer : Kim Young-Su
Screenplay(Adaptation) : Lim Hee-Jae
Producer : Baek Wan
Executive Producer : Park Min
Director of PhotoGraphy : Jeon Jo-Myeong
Gaffer : Sohn Young-Cheol
Music : Jeong Yun-Ju
Art Director : Park Seok-In
Editor : Yoo Jae-Won

Cast(Actor/Actress) :
Kim Seung-Ho, Hwang Jeong-Sun, Kim Jee-Mi, Choi Nam-Hyeon

Synopsis

On a hillside, there is a village inhabited by people who have traveled south from the northern regions of Korea. Among the villagers, who live each day hand-to-mouth by selling trifles like socks and pens, the chasm of conflict between older and younger generations runs deep. Widower Kim Deok-sam (Kimg Seung-ho) presses his son Geo-buk (Shin Seong-il) to enlist with the U.S. military, and his neighbor Hwang Jeong-sun forces her daughter Bok-sun (Um Aing-ran) to learn the requisite skills for becoming a courtesan. Another of Deok-sam's neighbors is a young husband and father (Shin Young-kyun) who scrapes by on the money he and his young daughter make from gathering cigarette butts. His wife is dying from an illness, but he cannot afford even to take her to the hospital. On the other hand, his younger brother (Choi Mu-ryong) has even graduated from college in Japan, but works as a manual laborer at a construction site after holding out without a job on the pretext of writing a novel. Geo-buk and Bok-sun rebel against their parents, who are unable to abandon their indolent way of life and even seek to hand it down to their children, and run away from home. They find employment at a textiles factory in Yeongdeungpo. Their fathers (Kim Seung-ho, Choi Nam-hyeon) come to visit them and give their blessings on their marriage, saying, "We're in this sorry state because we can't do any better, but you two must go on to better things."Geo-buk, Bok-sun, and their fathers walk away together with glad hearts.

Notes

Kim Soo-yong embarks on his path as a filmmaker
Kim Yong-soo's original play, which he adapted into the movie Kinship, is actually set sometime after the end of the colonial period but before the outbreak of the Korean War, in a slum occupied by families who came down from the northern parts of the peninsula. The temporal setting for the film is somewhat ambiguous, because it mixes elements from the play's historical backdrop with those from the 1960s, when the movie was made. In any case, Kinship lies on the same level of artistic achievement as Aimless Bullet(Obaltan) in that it realistically reflects the lives of the lower classes at the time (their conditions were not significantly different whether they lived in the 40s or the 60s) while incorporating the cinematic forms of expressionism. It further resembles Aimless Bullet in its detailed portrayal of each member of the impoverished class as well as in its rich visualization of individual characters. The premise that most powerfully reflects the realities of the time in the film is the problem of inter-generational conflict: fathers and sons, or mothers and daughters, come into conflict and eventually reconcile. As is well known, after the April 19 revolution of 1960, generational shift was the most compelling issue in Korean society. The denouement of Kinship, in which the conflict between generations is resolved, shows the two fathers being invited to the textiles factory where their children work. The sight of the children working diligently in their clean, white uniforms indicates that the parents' generation is giving way to the next generation, and that the lives of the new generation will be different from those of the preceding generation. Kinship also revealed the artistic potential of director Kim Soo-yong, who had thus far been known as a director for the stage.

Director Bio: Kim Soo-yong (1929- )

He was born in Anseong, Gyeonggi-do, in 1929. He graduated from Seoul National University of Education and made his directorial debut with the black and white film, A Henpecked Husband (Gongcheoga) (1958). Kim Soo-yong is not a director that can be easily classified or categorized. During the 60s and 70s when he was most active, he experimented with formality and adopted novels and plays, receiving acclaim for these "Literature Films" which have since been recognized as some of the greatest films in Korean cinematic history. In The Seashore Village (Gaenma-eul) (1965) and Flame in the Valley(Sanbul) (1967), he explored themes of human ambition and society. And through Mist (Angae) (1967), Night Journey (Yahaeng) (1977), and A Splendid Outing (Hwalyeohan oechul) (1977), he showed his modernist side by breaking existing notions of genre and attempting formal experimentation. He retired as an act of protest when his film, Jung-kwang's Nonsense (Junggwang-ui heoteunsori) (1986), was censored in 10 different places. He made a comeback with The Apocalypse of Love (Sarang Ui Muksirok) (1995) and Scent of Love (Chimhyang) (1999), but hasn't directed any films since