Korean Farm Life

A Korean promotional film produced in 1948 by the United States Information Service in Korea, directed by Lee Han-geun (李漢根), a Korean-American lieutenant in the U.S. Army. It is the only surviving film produced during the period immediately following the establishment of the Republic of Korea, when public information responsibilities were being transferred from the Public Information Office of the U.S. Army Forces in Korea to the United States Information Service in Korea, and the organisation's operations were being restructured. The film not only provides a valuable record of rural Korean life in the 1940s but is also one of the very few surviving visual records documenting traditional Korean farmers' music and dance (nongak), Hwarang Changgeuk (화랑창극), and the general outline of a dance adaptation of Chunhyangjeon (춘향전), performed by the married couple Jo Taek-won and Kim So-young.