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A kiss is just a kiss?
03-09-2003
Sex sells, as people in the advertising, publishing and entertainment
industries know only too well. In the past decade or two, a couple of "love
scenes" (read "sex scenes") has been a must for all producers looking to
produce a blockbuster - Disney features being the virtual sole exception.
Nor do present-day Korean movies differ very much in this regard from the
Hollywood products. The seductive bodies of Korean stars are exposed to
moviegoers almost as often as the bodies of their American counterparts.
However, this was not always the case.
Indeed, for a long time Korea was, and still to some extent remains, a very
puritanical society. Therefore, for a long time it was unthinkable to include a
sex scene in a Korean movie. Even a kiss, now seen as something quite innocent,
was strictly taboo. Kissing was quite common in foreign movies, widely shown in
Korea from the 1920s. Nevertheless, Korean producers and directors dared not
follow this lead.
The taboo was broken shortly after the Korean War by director and producer Han
Hyong-mo. In 1954, he shot the melodrama ``Fate’s Hand.’’ This was a propaganda
movie, quite typical of the politically charged atmosphere of the day. "Fate’s
Hand" told the story of a group of scheming Communist spies and a noble but
naive Army captain, who found himself enmeshed in a web of conspiracy woven by
a seductive beauty. Needless, to say, the brave captain finally made the right
decision and remained aloof from the enemies, and the beauty (her cover was a
cabaret singer _ what else?) is tragically killed in the final scene. The dying
seductress gives the captain a lingering farewell kiss.
Neither the heavy use of all the romantic cliches of the day nor this
first-ever movie kiss in Korean cinematic history helped the movie much.
"Fate’s Hand" was a commercial failure.
Nor did this immediately usher in an era of sexual openness. For better or
worse, the directors were forced to control themselves. While understanding
that films with sex scenes were surefire moneymakers, they had to be cautious.
In the 1960s and 1970s, neither public opinion nor the government would approve
explicit love scenes, no matter how mild. The powerful Performance Ethics
Committee, which was the major government censorship agency, saw to this.
During 1962-1995, some 57 percent of all Korean movies had cuts ordered by
censors. A large part of these cuts were political, but many dealt with
so-called excessively explicit sexual scenes.
In 1965, the film "Spring Dream" depicted a nude woman from her behind. This
"indecent exposure" lasted a mere six seconds but was enough to land director
in serious legal hot water. In the 1970s, directors tried to outsmart the
censors and display the occasional bare breasts _ even if for a few seconds. In
the course of time, censorship was relaxed and chose to concentrate its fire on
any inroads being made by leftist ideology.
Thus, by the early 1980s, Korean actresses could flash their breasts on-screen
with impunity. This newly found freedom was widely exploited in "Woman Who
Loves Horses," which became the nation’s second largest box-office hit in 1982.
This unabashed erotic movie, about the amorous exploits of a sexually
adventurous heroine, eventually produced a string of sequels. In 1985, director
Pae Chang-ho in his "Equatorial Flower" went even further: he had the lead
female character open a refrigerator door nude. The fridge light left viewers
with little doubt as to the beauty of Chang Mi-hui’s nude body _ and, of
course, also increased the box-office revenues.
The spread of VCRs in the 1980s also made possible the illegal circulation of
pornographic and erotic videos. Most of these tapes were foreign made, but the
local underground studios also began to shoot their own features. Government
agencies normally turned a blind eye to these activities, as long as the movies
were not shown in public cinemas.
However, the era of complete openness, not much different from the modern
Western standards, did not arrive until the early 1990s. One of the turning
points was the decision in 1994 to release the erotic classic, "Emmanuelle,"
which reflected deep changes in sexual mores that had for a long time been
bubbling beneath the surface. But that is another story.
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