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Fantastic Shin Sang Ok

A Ghost Story of Joseon Dynasty

Shin Sang Ok

Korea1970 81min 35mm Color

Synopsis

Director Shin made quite a few period horror dramas, and A Ghost Story of Joseon Dynasty is one of them, along with Madam White Snake (1960, Dead Woman (1969, A Thousand Year-Old Fox (1969. This feature presents images of a typical ghost that comes to the mind, when we think of a ghost in Korean movies. It stimulates the Korean horror film that will forever take up part of our psychology, when a vengeful female ghost enters the scene with her long black hair hanging all over her face in her white dress. That Director Shin resorted to diverse directorial techniques to deliver powerful psychological effects of horror on viewers is a testament to his experiences he had attained from working in different genres. Most in this film were inexperienced and unknown actors at the Shin Film, but male leading character Cho Su-hyun turned into a heartthrob in the Korean movie industry, who later changed his name into Shin Il-ryong.

Diretor

Shin Sang Ok

He debuted as a director with The Evil Night in 1952, he had made movies throught his life and he established 'the cinematic world of Shin Sang Ok' during the 'Golden Age' of South Korean cinema in the late 1950s and 1960s. Like Howard Hocks in Hollywood, director Shin had huge influence in Koroean film history.