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A Study on The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon (1924) － With Focus on Its Relationship to Original Old Classic Novels －
Journal of Humanities
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The movie The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon (薔花紅蓮傳) was a silent film that was produced in 1924 by Dansung Film Corporation; it was overshadowed by another film The Story of Chunhyang (春香傳) in term of box-office hit and did not receive much attention. The Story of Chunhyang was the first Korean film and the popularity of the original novel was too enormous that The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon, the second silent film, never received the due appraisal and significance it deserved. The significance of this film lies in thorough planning that went in as to how to package the film effectively. The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon was made by the staff that consisted purely of Koreans, including a Korean cinematography director. Besides, the film promoted such a fact and used “pure Korean film” as the film’s identity and a promotional strategy to respond to the popularity of The Story of Chunhyang. As a result, the film not only ended up gaining more success at the box office than The Story of Chunhyang but also even helped The Story of Chunhyang to promote its commercial success, which is proven by related resources and data. Moreover, in terms of methodology as to how to best utilize the original old classic novel, there is a need to pay attention to the differences between the two works. If The Story of Chunhyang aimed to faithfully reconstruct the original novel without many changes, The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon was created under a clear direction and planning as to what to delete and what to embrace from the original novel. In this sense, it followed the progress of The Story of Chunhyang. Contrary to the original classic novel of The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon, revolving around a step-mother figure and the two sisters who are resurrected from death, the film version omitted the resurrection story in order to transform the original work into a more modern story and remade it a tragedy in purer form.
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