Prince Yeonsan
(Prince Yeonsan)

In 1961, Shin Films scaled up. Not only did Shin make four features that year, but his company also produced twenty other films. His adaptation of Seong Chun-yang, one of Korean literature’s great classics, was the first Korean film to be made for a wide-screen and gave him the chance to try his hand at a costume drama. At the time, the most expensive production in the history of Korean cinema, his film was a widely acclaimed response to the equally acclaimed version that Hong Seong-ji made the very same year! Sang-ok re-offended with the stormy chronicles of Prince Yeonsan. Ascending to the throne, this last one is tries to rehabilitate his unjustly deposed mother, Queen Yun. They come up against the intransigent resistance of the Grand Queen In-su, who reveals herself to be a tormented soul, exercising her authority without moderation in order to achieve her ends. JB