Contact Admin. Mun Ye-bong, the first Korean film star? Sweet Dreams was rediscovered in the Chinese Film Archive in and is the earliest surviving Korean sound film and a fine example of the melodramatic fare that typified the cinema of the time.
The dialogue is in Japanese with Korean subtitles and reflects the increasing control of the colonial government even though this is not a propagandist film, except for a strong message on the importance of road safety and motherhood. There are also some glorious shots of the streets and buildings of this distant Seoul, wide streets populated by very few cars β unimaginable now β and fascinating glimpses of hotels, cafes and theatres.
Mun Ye-bong plays Ae-soon a discontented house-wife married to a serious man, Lee Seon-ryong Lee Geum-ryong who frets over her continuous shopping and general galivanting. We see a bird in a cage, an image of how Ae-soon sees herself, even as she ignores her daughter Jeong-hee rather splendidly played by Yoo Seon-ok.
The couple row and Ae-soon leaves amidst genuinely distressing scenes as she pushes her daughter back as she slams the doorβ¦ father walks slowly back into the room and comforts his daughter. Ae-soon becomes bored and flirts with a theatre performer, sending him flowers which he gives to another performer, getting the measure of this her: As with all melodrama there will be a balance and as Ae-soon shops her boyfriend after he pulls off a messy robbery, fate is about to interveneβ¦.
On this evidence, Mun Ye-bong was deservedly a star and has the emotional flexibility to accompany the looks. It was the first Korean film to experiment with live sound recording and has a neo-realist feel way ahead of even the Italians. Well worth seeking out and director Choi In-gyu deserves more recognition for a film that has gorgeous locations and smuggles plenty of native wit despite a full-on propagandist resolution complete with salutes to the Japanese flag.
