Answer: < The Empty Dream ( Chunmong )> (Yu Hyeon-mok, 1965)

It’s < The Empty Dream ( Chunmong )> >, a 1965 film directed by Yu Hyeon-mok. A translation of the Japanese
movie < Daydream>, the film stars Shin Seong-il, Park Am, and Park Soo-jeong, a rising female star of her times.
The film is experimental and far-out to the point where even director Yu Hyeon-mok himself classified it as an
experimental piece. A man runs into an actress during his visit to the dentist. Lying in the doctor’s chair, he falls
into a deep sleep after receiving a shot of Novocain and starts dreaming. In his dream, he sees the actress and
his dentist, and the dentist abuses the actress mentally and physically. His attempts to rescue the actress fail
each time and he wakes up. Awake from his dream, he steps outside the hospital and he and the actress shake
hands before parting. The film has a frame structure and the mise en scne is very expressive and fantastic like
that of German expressionist films.

The problematic scene from this movie is the 6 seconds of nudity shown by the actress Park Soo-jeong. The
Information Agency made an issue of this scene and sentenced him to a year and a half in jail for producing
sexually explicit content, stopped his license for a year and a half, and put him on probation. On the surface,
the Agency held him guilty only for the ‘production of sexually explicit content’ but at the same time, his
supportive speech with regard to director Lee Man-hee and < The Seven Female POWs(Chil-in-ui yeo-po-ro) >
was also a part of the problem. The speech entitled “Freedom of the Silver Screen” presented during the
seminar at the World Cultural Freedom Convention observed that, “The national policy of Korea cannot be
based on anti-Communism. It is only advocated as a national policy to gain leverage for the initiation into the
camp of free nations.” This remark was accepted as a violation of the National Security Law, and it aggravated
Agency members to penalize the movie for certain scenes that were not at all problematic even in the standards
of the times, and even after the director had edited them out beforehand. This is a representative incident
regarding the restriction of freedom of expression in both the public and private aspects, where Park Jeong-
hee’s government attempted to apply relentless censorship to both the political aspect (anti-Communism) and
more private aspects (issue of sexuality).

The censorship policy at the time was institutionalized in the Constitution, allowing unlimited enforcement and
punishment based on the positive law. Afterwards, films such as < Woman In the Wall (Byeoksok-ui yeoja)>
(Park Jong-ho, 1969), < Eunuch (Nae-si)> (Shin Sang-ok, 1968), < Your Name is Woman (Neo-ui ireum-eun
yeoja)> (Lee Hyeong-pyo, 1969) all underwent censorship and had to cut out several scenes but in 1969, these
films were charged of being lewd during the special enforcement period and the directors were all prosecuted.
The prosecutors insisted that different criteria be applied to criminals of producing sexually explicit materials.
For President Park Jeong-hee, who emphasized totalitarian and nationalistic policies, the expression of personal
desires in the form of sexuality, as well as a more macro perspective of politics, basically meant freedom of
speech. This was just as great a threat as the freedom of political expression.

Such reckless prior censorship pushed forward for the maintenance of the dictatorial government finally
disappeared after the persistent efforts from independent film industries and cultural movements in the early
90s. Censorship was finally banned in 1996 by the Constitutional Court after its rein of 80 years. Many stood
in its support as it advocated freedom of artistic expression but the expression of sexuality was not completely
freed. The system shifted to rating but when movies were rated as inappropriate for general viewing, there
were no theaters to screen such movies that were unable to receive a rating. This meant that once the rating
is set at pending for a certain movie, it was actually banned from showing. There are several films that have
instigated heated debates on sexually explicit content recently. < Yuri(Yuli)> (Yang Yun-ho, 1996), < Yellow
Flower (Dulhana sex)> (Lee Ji-sang, 1998), and < Too Young to Die (Jukeodo joah)> (Park Jin-pyo, 2002) which
presented actual intercourse between an elderly couple, were all rated as Rating Pending. Jang Jeong-il, the
author of the original novel < Lie To Me>, was summoned by the prosecutor regarding charges for explicit
lewdness and the movie , which received Rating Pending two consecutive times, became a film that brought
on the hottest debate regarding the freedom of expression and the issues of lewdness. Also,
< Happy Together> (1997) was rejected for import because the film dealt with homosexual relationships.
Nowadays, representations of sexuality rarely receive criminal charges but this is still the most debated issue
regarding censorship and the freedom of expression.