If you are curious about the anti-communist film censorship process 60 years ago

In the Museum of Broadcasting and Film located in Berlin, Germany, there is an official letter sent by the Nazis to the production company in 1942 containing the results (evaluation table) of the censorship of the movie ‘Titanic’ scenario. The official document stated that “the sinking of the Titanic should be used as a punishment for selfish and greedy British capitalism.” In Korea, such film censorship materials can be easily seen.

The Korean Film Archive has released censorship data on 153 anti-communist films produced between 1955 and 1970 through the Korean Film Database (KMDb). It has a total of 9038 pages, about 60 pages per film. After the Korean War, it is a major source of information that can confirm the standards and methods of domestic media censorship during the era of Lee Seung-man and Park Chung-hee.

Anti-communist films were established with government policy support in the late 1960s, and along with the existing war films, domestic espionage films depicting the activities of informants to hunt down domestic spies and international espionage films that deal with foreign spy organizations appeared. The Korea Film Archive explained, “Contrary to the perception that it is a pro-government film, the intensity of censorship in anti-communist films was not low, and the number of incidents related to censorship was not small. Compared to other films, the censorship process and subject were special.”

An example of censorship is Cho Geung-ha’s Barbed Wire (1960), set in a prisoner of war camp. According to the censorship opinion at the time, “Since the issue of prisoner accommodation management is guaranteed by international law, such disorderly management not only threatens to damage international trust, but also does not hold any legal responsibility for the ruthless killing of countless lives. The point is that it is impossible as a country ruled by law, and the fact that an American soldier guarding the sentry was very easily seduced by a woman could cause misunderstandings about the United States as a free ally.” Eventually, the production company had to embark on a major re-edit.

According to the Korean Film Archive, many anti-communist films were censored by the Central Intelligence Agency (permission for screening), and in the case of important films, they participated in screenplay censorship. The record of participation in the censorship of the Central Intelligence Agency can be found from (Lee Young) in September 1961, and from the end of 1968, he participated as a censor of all commercial films as well as films that could harm ‘national security’. The Korea Film Archive said, “This anti-communist and censorship collection will serve as an essential source for reconstructing not only the history of censorship of Korean films, but also the history of Korean films and the history of popular culture in general.”

*’Anti-Communism and Censorship’ collection link = https://www.kmdb.or.kr/collectionlist/detail/view?colId=581&isLooked=true#none