Shin Sang-ok (1926 - 2006) was a Korean movie writer, director and producer, who studied film in Japan and returned to South Korea, where he gained fame and became the
uncontested leader of the film industry in the 1960s, in a time when regulations on the industry limited other studios. In the 1970s under the
Fourth Republic of South Korea, the film industry was even further limited, which lead to Shin's studio being closed. Things went from bad to worse, when
"the Orson Welles of South Korea" was kidnapped by request of Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korea's dictator, Kim Il Sung. The reason? Kim Jong Il wanted the nation's film industry to promote the virtues of the Korea Workers' Party to a world-wide audience. After being imprisoned for four years, Shin was reunited with his ex-wife (who was also a captive of North Korea) and the given relative freedom, producing seven films in North Korea. While setting up a distribution deal to share Kim Jong Il's vision with a broader audience for a Godzilla-like monster movie, Shin and his wife escaped and sought political asylum in the United States. Their freedom was possible because of that last film for Kim, entitled
Pulgasari. But Shin's life in movies was not over yet.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 5, 2010 -
14 comments
Birth of a Nation: one of the most
controversial films in american history.
The film "...was banned in more than a dozen localities (and furthermore has been the most banned film in American history) because of its white supremacist sympathies, racist stereotypes, and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan..."
Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy,
Marjorie Heins.
Given the recent controversy over Gibson's film, where do we draw the line between
freedom of expression and
censorship? when are these debates influenced by politcal agenda rather than sincere concern?
posted by poopy
on Feb 25, 2004 -
27 comments
Seen any St***n S***rb**gh films lately? CleanFlicks, a Utah (US) based company, is using digital editing to "clean up" popular films by removing the sex, nudity, profanity and extreme violence (for example, the edited natural born killers runs approx. 2.5 minutes, while the CF version of Resevoir Dogs is titles and credits only).
Recently the Colorado licensee of Cleanflicks got wind of a potential lawsuit by the Directors Guild of America. Deciding not to wait for this to even get off the ground, Cleanflicks has
decided to sue 16 of the directors that are apparently most offensive to them.
posted by i blame your mother
on Sep 17, 2002 -
116 comments
I was watching "The Craft" last night, and noticed that they censored the image of
Robin Tunney's parents' plane going down (actually a
Glamour, but you know that), and later Nieve Campbell's character says "you know the [silence]", they actually cut out the words "plane crash". Has anybody else noticed this kind of censorship? Would anybody have been really shocked to hear Nieve say "plane crash"? Do you think the WB would've been swamped with calls? It's bad enough what they did to
homer or what the geniuses at
clear channel are doing. Good movie, though.
posted by signal
on Sep 28, 2001 -
16 comments
The movie censored in France opens in the US this week. Base-Moi is being translated by the newspapers as "Rape Me" but a better translation would be "Fuck Me," which better indicates that sexual power that the main female characters have. They use sex as a weapon, as the gateway firearm to murders and massacre. Violent, bloody, aggressively sexual, even pornographic, filled with "chic amoralism," as the
New York Times says, and perhaps difficult to redeem. Gratuitous everything.
posted by Mo Nickels
on Jul 6, 2001 -
18 comments
A modern Dr Bowdler... (yeah, I know it's Salon, but...) A video-rental store in Utah offers "cleaned up" versions of modern films. First thought: is it legal? Post-DeCSS, one would think not: after all, the MPAA has done its best to protect its right to control the manner of reproduction. But are the studios not jumping to litigate, because they're happier to alienate Linux users with DVD drives than the LDS contingent in UT?
posted by holgate
on Jan 11, 2001 -
31 comments
