Korean movies & films resources

The history of early Korean Movies was largely a result of a huge influence from the imported films. The very first of these imported movies was a live documentary. This movie was called Cinematograph. This was a movie that was directly imported from France.

This trend of imported movies was soon followed by “Vitascope”, which was a collection of short films that was imported from the Unites States of America. The import of Vitascope from America happened almost eight years after the import of Lumiere's Cinematograph had taken place in 1895. This was also about five to six years behind activity in the movie industries of Japan and China.

The reason for the delay in the import of the foreign movies to Korea could be initially attributed to the seclusion policy followed in the Korean Nation in the late 19th century. This seclusion policy made sure that it suppressed Korea's modernization.

But the true and underlying reason for this delay in the import of the foreign movies was the overall debilitation of Korean politics, economy, diplomacy and culture. This complete debilitation was due to extreme oppression that was caused under the Japanese colonialism.

The first Korean Movie was produced in the year 1923. The production of Korean Movies became a more active process soon after this. Soon this trend of movie production gave rise to the natural emergence of seven film companies in Korea.

Soon after the year of 1926, a spur of more than forty film productions companies have emerged. This trend has marked the setting the first golden period of Korean Movies.

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