Feature film
Hong Kil-dong
홍길동
Kim Kil-in · 1986
Synopsis
Under the Joseon dynasty, Hong Kil-dong is born of the love between a nobleman and a servant. Rejected by his father and hated by his father's wife, who wants to have him killed, he flees and owes his life to a martial arts master, who takes him in and trains him. Having become a righter of wrongs, he defends villagers against corrupt magistrates and landowners, gathers a band of companions and confronts Japanese ninjas who have infiltrated as far as the court.
Context
The film, which runs for a hundred and eight minutes, was made under the supervision of Kim Jong-il, at the time when the South Korean director Shin Sang-ok, who had been abducted, was working in Pyongyang. It adapts the Hong Gildong jeon, an anonymous novel of the Joseon period brought to the screen in the North as in the South, and borrows from Hong Kong kung-fu films its sword and wire fights. It circulated widely in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in Poland and Bulgaria above all.
Who it is for
An adventure and martial arts film of one hour forty-eight minutes, in Korean, accessible without knowing the North Korean context.
Prizes and reception
Defectors questioned in 2002 named it the best North Korean film; ticket touts were seen in Pyongyang.
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