SRS Cinema: The Story of Hong Gil-Dong (1967) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of SRS Cinema

홍길동전 or Hong Gildong jeon often translated to The Biography of Hong Gildong penned during the Joseon Dynasty which lasted from 1392 to 1987 is widely regarded as integral to Korean literature and pop culture.  A medieval fable penned by Heo Gyun concerning the illegitimate son of a nobleman and a concubine banished after a false prophecy.  Born with supernatural abilities including cunning intelligence, the titular Hong Gil-Dong and his saga usually drew comparisons to Robin Hood for its lone hero robbing and swindling the rich and the aristocracy.  However, after he and his sidekick Chadol Bawi steal from a ruthless magistrate, troops are summoned forcing Hong Gil-Dong to retreat into the mountains to train under a wise wizard.  Something of a common household name in South Korea, it is considered a quintessential piece of Korean literary fiction with many varying iterations passed on over time and generation but more-or-less maintaining the same plot structure. 

 
The source of countless adaptations including but not limited to music and comic books, the first official screen adaptation of the medieval fable of any kind emerged in 1967 with the very first ever South Korean animated feature film The Story of Hong Gil-Dong.  Created by My Little Pony: The Movie animator Shin Dong-heon and written for the screen by Dong-woo Shin based on his comic book and running a mere but brisk sixty-seven minutes, the world premiere debut of South Korean animation in 35mm was long thought to be lost to time until a surviving 16mm print was discovered in Japan in 2007.  A box office smash raking in an excess of 100,000 attendees within the first four days of release, the previously missing film finally makes its North American blu-ray disc and streaming debut through boutique releasing label SRS Cinema sold exclusively through their webstore.

 
While The Story of Hong Gil-Dong is a bit rusty around the edges technically, often displaying anomalies which American animation bureaus from the 1930s and 40s have long since moved past, part of what makes this very first South Korean animated film so striking are those inconsistencies and occasional repetitions in animation.  Looking neither like anime nor Disney with unusual movement of the characters in motion, painterly backgrounds that look closer to fine art than cinema and unique creature designs of tigers, bats and dragons which feel like a storybook, it represents a unique intermediary period for South Korean animation when they were just figuring out the nooks and crannies of the medium.  Though derived from a Japanese print, the Korean soundtrack to the film survived making it possible to sync up with the print.  For posterity, SRS Cinema went as far as including a mini-documentary on the legendary Korean fable and a reprint of a mini-poster for the film.

Seeing this previously lost animated epic is a time capsule and a history lesson for those interested in East Asian cinema and particularly where their first foray into animation began.  In the years since, both a sequel film and several other screen adaptations of the Korean literary legend hit the big and small screens including a television series.  At one point there was a videogame and even a musical version simply entitled Hong Gil-dong.  While difficult to say which adapted version precisely is the definitive take on the saga, it goes without saying fans of animation today have never seen anything that looks quite like the 1967 The Story of Hong Gil-Dong before or since.  A fabulous curiosity and introductory chapter to one of South Korea’s greatest cult heroes, SRS Cinema have outdone themselves with this beautiful disc release in a film sure to continue enthralling and fascinating moviegoers for years to come.

--Andrew Kotwicki