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The Bell Tower AKA Jonggak
R0 - South Korea - Korean Film Archive/Blue Kino Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (30th July 2016). |
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The Film
 “The Bell Tower” AKA “The Bell Tower: Missing Another Dawn” (Jonggak) (1958) The young 22 year old woman Young-sil (played by Mun Jeong-suk) listens to the sound of the bell of Goryeong Temple - a beautiful and soothing sound that she learns was made by the elderly bell maker Seok-sung (played by Heo Jang-gang). She is eager to hear about his past and about the bell, and even though he is quite sick and frail, he tells her the story of his life - which was filled with many hardships and many heartbreaks. In flashbacks shown, as a young man his first love was Ok-bun (played by Mun Jeong-suk) who loved the sound of the local temple’s bell. Seok-sung was the grandson of a famous bell maker and decided to continue in the name of his grandfather and to the woman he loves to become a bell maker himself and to make the bell with the most beautiful sound in the world. Tragedy struck the first time for him when Ok-bun suddenly died of acute appendicitis, but he continued his promise by training for ten long years. Following years of training, Seok-sung would see more tragedy in his life with the death of his elderly master, and even though he would find happiness by marrying a young woman that he helped on the riverside (played by Mun Jeong-suk), though childbirth complications would make him a single father. Seok-sung would eventually make the bell with the most beautiful sound in the world as heard by Young-sil, but the trials and troubles that Seok-sung would go through is filled with even more drama and difficulties. “The Bell Tower” is considered the first Korean film to use flashback as a narrative device, with almost three quarters of the story being in flashbacks. Like Akira Kurosawa’s monumentally influential flashback film “Rashomon” (1950), it was not initially a huge success in its home country but one that would gain critical praise in the following years. Being something of a "new" way of storytelling, contemporary audiences may not have been used to seeing a film that was mostly told in the past form, but later critics have singled it out as one of the best Korean films of the 1950s for its use of flashback narrative, voice-over narration, poetic dialogue, the performances of the actors, and its use of montage to full accentuate the passage of time. The film’s “present day” is around the beginning of WWII as the occupying Japanese forces are claiming property and materials, it spans a period of 50 years or so flashbacks. Techniques such as fades to black, montages of snowfall, leaves falling, seasonal changes are done very skillfully and beautifully as well as “Citizen Kane” inspired cuts back to the present day. Though there are no technical innovative shots as Kurosawa introduced with cameraman Kazuo Miyagawa or Orson Welles with cinematographer Gregg Toland, ”The Bell Tower” still employed a distinct visual style along with many outdoor locations beautifully framed. By no means is it a perfect film. In the 96 minute runtime, most of the time is allotted to Seok-sung's flashbacks and very little time is given to the flashback of Young-sil. Her story of escaping from life as a prostitute, losing her family and lover were fascinating but the flashback lasts far too short and comes far too late in the film. If this had been expanded it would have certainly given a much needed boost into her character, but if her flashbacks were taken out entirely, the film still could have worked with only Seok-sung's life being the sole focus. Aesthetically praised, but the performances are also very noteworthy. Heo Jang-gang played the tragic male figure in all scenes from the young 20 year old in love until the elderly bedridden man 50 years later. make-up effects, changes in body language made it possible for the then-33 year old actor to play the role impressively. Heo debuted in film in 1954 and acted in hundreds of productions, including ”Piagol” (1955), ”A Bonanza” (1961), ”The Daughters of Kim’s Pharmacy” (1963), ”Horse-Year Bride” (1966), ”Confession of an Actress” (1967), and in “Miryang Arirang” (1961) which was his second and last collaboration with director Yang Ju-nam following “The Bell Tower”. His final films were in 1975 in which he starred in a total of 10 features that year. As for actress Mun Jeong-suk, those are not typos above - the one actress played three different parts in the film - the young woman who was Seok-sung’s first love, the widow that he married later, and the woman listening to the elderly Seok-sung. In the Alfred Hitchcock film “Vertigo” which was released in the same year, Kim Novak played multiple roles but it was revealed to be the same person in disguise. (Apology for the spoiler but I assume that all film lovers should have watched “Vertigo” by now.) In ”The Bell Tower” these are differing characters in differing periods of time. Possibly due to her performances, she played each role ever so different making it seem like three different actresses were playing the three differing roles. Mun was also a recognizable face in Korean cinema with over 200 credited roles including ”Holiday in Seoul” (1956), ”Drifting Island” (1960), “Aimless Bullet” (1961), ”Black Hair” (1964), ”Homebound” (1967), and “Mother Earth” (1960) reuniting with ”The Bell Tower” director Yang Ju-nam. She continued acting in film well into the 1990s. Director Yang Ju-nam started back in the 1930s in the film industry and continued until the late 1960s. He made his directorial debut in 1936 with “Sweet Dream” which was one of the earliest Korean talkie films and currently is the oldest full length Korean film that survives in complete form. If you look at his directing filmography, it is very short - as he only directed six feature films, with “Sweet Dream” in 1936, followed by “The Exorcism of Bae-Baeng-yi” (1957), ”The Bell Tower” (1958), “A Mother’s Love” (1958), “Mother Earth” (1960), and “Miryang Arirang” (1961). Yang’s credits are much longer in other departments - particularly as an editor of films, with about 60 credits including ”Straits of Chosun” (1943), ”Hurrah for Freedom” (1946), ”A Hometown in Heart” (1949), ”Piagol” (1955), ”Rhee Syngman and the Independence Movement” (1959), as well as editing the films he directed. In addition, Yang also was the sound engineer for films such as ”Tuition” (1940) and ”Angels on the Streets” (1941). Born in 1912, Yang was 54 when he retired from the film industry and was particularly a forgotten figure in the world of cinema. It also didn’t help that for a long time his directorial films were incredibly difficult to see. In 1998 when the Korean Film Archive tracked him down to do interviews about his career, only one of his films - ”The Bell Tower” was in the archive. All other films were considered lost. In the following years, a few more have been recovered. “Sweet Dream” was recovered in 2006 from a Chinese film archive and prints of “A Mother’s Love” and “Miryang Arirang” were also later found. Only two more of his films are still missing but hopefully they will be rediscovered soon to complete his collection of work behind the cameras. Note this is a region 0 NTSC DVD which can be played back on any DVD or Blu-ray player worldwide
Video
The Korean Film Archive / Blue Kino presents the film in the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (non-anamorphic) in the NTSC format. Unfortunately the transfer and source are not ideal. Transferred from a theatrical film print, there are a lot of troubling issues such as scratches and specs throughout, fluctuating black and white levels, and the print lacking clarity making much of the picture look a soft and unclear. The transfer seems to have been done in standard definition and not particularly well with chroma noise visible throughout so borders have a greenish tint. In a positive note, the scratches and specs are not very distracting and damage is the least of the problems. Considering that the Korean Film Archive currently has the original negative and a duplicate negative in their vaults, it’s a shame that the transfer for ”The Bell Tower” on DVD comes from an older inferior source. The film runs uncut with a runtime of (95:46). 
Audio
Korean Dolby Digital 2.0 mono The original Korean audio is presented in its original mono form. Considering the problems with the image, the audio fares better. Korean films for the most part at the time was post-synched in studio with no location audio used. The remastered audio track has hisses and pops removed for the most part but there are some minor muted sounding pops occasionally heard. Dialogue is fine but as for fidelity issues, sounds of “S”, “P”, or “K” sound distorted. As for the beautiful bell sound? The mono track just can’t do it real justice. There are optional English, Japanese, and Korean subtitles available in a white font. The poetic dialogue is translated well but there are one or two spelling errors spotted in the English. All three are in a legible white font though they are not selectable on the fly and must be selected via subtitle menu and not the remote button.
Extras
"Filmmakers: Forgotten Master Director Yang Ju-nam" documentary (52:36) In this Korean Film Archive produced documentary directed by Song Gil-han, the crew go to the home of director Yang Ju-nam for a series of interviews about his film career. He has slight Alzheimer’s and states that he has trouble remembering much of the details of the films, but is quite talkative once his memories return. Everything from his early days in the Japanese colonial period, the early days of working in film are covered, but there are some periods were Yang goes completely silent as his memories were drifting away. He frequently asks the film crew “Was the doorman surprised when you told him I was a filmmaker?” and “Were you here interviewing me before?” Also interviewed separately to talk about Yang are director Kim Soo-yong who was an assistant, actor Lee Eun-gwan, ”The Bell Tower” editor Kim Hee-su, and film critic Chung Sung-il. in 1.33:1, in Korean Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional English and Korean subtitles Image Gallery This manual gallery includes one film poster and a short series of on-set photographs. 36 Page Booklet As with all Korean Film Archive releases, there is a bilingual Korean and English booklet for the set. There are photos, a cast and crew listing, a synopsis of the film, as well as two essays: ”Director Yang Ju-nam Who Led the Second Generation of Korean Cinema Technology - From the age of Kyeongseong Studio through to around the time of The Bell Tower” by film critic Kim Jong-won and ”The Bell Tower, or Missing Another Dawn” by film critic Chung Sung-il who appeared in the documentary championing the film. In the booklet it is mentioned that it is mentioned that ”It is not known exactly when [Yang Ju-nam] died”. I thought this was quite a strange comment, considering that the Korean Film Archive did in fact visit him for an interview in 1998 so there was contact with his family including his then-78 year old wife who was in the documentary. I contacted KOFA about why they didn’t have any information and they stated that “[We] asked Mr. Song Kil-han, who worked for the documentary if he might have any information of Director Yang, but unfortunately he said no, Mr. Kim Jong-won, film critic, usually knows whereabouts of old Korean film people, but as he wrote in his article, he even doesn't know it.” Yang in the documentary stated many times that people from the film industry don’t visit him and people around him didn’t know that he worked in the film industry. Most likely moved to a nursing home or died sometime and since his name was not well known enough to be newsworthy, passed away with no one noticing. One could hope to say he is still alive in 2016 at 10 years old but with his deteriorating health in the 1998 footage, most likely not…
Packaging
The disc is packaged in a clear keep case with artwork on both the inner and outer inlay. (The inner portion does contain a scene from the ending which is slightly a spoiler. The keep case and the booklet are housed in a slipcase with alternate artwork.
Overall
“The Bell Tower” is another important work of Korean cinema by a forgotten film director. The KOFA/Blue Kino DVD could have been better if a new transfer had been done, but the audio quality is good and the documentary is very fascinating. For people curious but not sure about a purchase, the film is also available to see for free on The Korean Film Archive YouTube Channel with optional English subtitles.
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