Yoo Hyeon-mok

Director Yu Hyun-mok was born in Sariwon in 1925. He attended the Duk-Song Elementary School at Sariwon and went to Seoul to attend Hyimun Middle School. During his years at the middle school, he became interested in novels, music, art, and dance. He then went to Dong-guk University to major in Korean literature. It was during this time in 1947 that he set his first step in the world of cinema as the assistant director for director LEE Kyu-hwan. He made his debut in 1956 with the film The Crossroad. YU began the trend for Korean social realism cinema with such well-known directors as SHIN Sang-ok, KIM Ki-young, KANG Dae-jin, and LEE Man-hee. His films criticized the decadence of the post-Korean war Korean society and its ideological disputes. His film An Aimless Bullet (1961) depicted the corruption of a family in the post-Korean war Korean society using multiple perspectives, while such films as The Seizure of Life (1958) and Extra Human Beings (1964) portrayed the wretched reality of social life in Korea. Though these films criticize the social reality of Korea at that time, films like Descendant of Cain (1968), Flame (1975), and Rainy Days (1979) deal with the ideological landscapes of Korea. In these films, men hate men for no other reason than difference in ideologies. Of all of YU’s films, An Aimless Bullet (based on a novel by Lee Bum-sun) is held in particularly high regard and is generally considered as one of the greatest Korean films ever. YU has also made films dealing with faith and sacrifice. Martyr (1965) is a film about martyrdom, and Son of Man (1980) is a film about a young man caught in a religious crisis. YU’s films, however, do not strictly follow the tradition of social realism. Rather, his films are filled with various visual experiments, psychological depiction, and clever use of visual space. In Daughters of Kim’s Pharmacy (1963), the director depicts the fate of the nation through one family, and in such films as Three Henpeck Generations (1967) and School Excursion (1969), one can witness the comedic tendencies of the director. Especially in Woman (1968), a film co-directed with directors CHUNG Jin-woo and KIM Ki-young, the director’s modernist tendencies can be seen. YU’s films are generally dark and oppressive, and it was his childhood memories that influenced the look and style of his films. The director was also greatly influenced by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Especially the novel Crime and Punishment, with its keen insight into the human psyche has acted as a profound touchstone for the cinema of YU. YU built his world of cinema by clashing head-on with post Korean War society - a world filled with grief - his honest depiction of what he saw then lead him to be now considered as the foremost Korean social realist film director.