Rice
(Ssal)

With the war over, the discharged soldier Cha Yong returns to his village, where his father is seriously ill. After his father’s death, to rise out of poverty, Cha Yong mounts a project to mobilise the villagers on building a tunnel that would allow irrigation of fields that have always been too dry to grow rice. His project comes up against many resistances, notably from Song, the province’s main dignitary and father of Jung-hee (Choi Eun-hee), whom Cha Yong was hoping to marry before his departure. Rice was one of Korea’s box-office sensations in 1963. Long disdained by Korean film critics and historians, who persisted in seeing it as nothing more than a propaganda film, Rice, its star-studded cast and high technical standards for the time was fervently acclaimed by popular audiences. JB