Shin Sang-ok's 1958 classic A Flower In Hell opens with what is basically documentary footage of daily life in postwar 1950s Seoul. Shots of U.S. soldiers in particular predominate among these images - this was an era when Korean society was desperately poor, and one of the few ways to secure a decent living was to forge some kind of relationship with the U.S. army and its soldiers, who carried hard currency.
The petty criminal Young-shik (played by Kim Hak) is one such example; he earns cash by stealing supplies from the U.S. army base and re-selling them on the black market. He lives with his girlfriend, a prostitute who calls herself Sonya and who caters especially to American soldiers. A classic femme fatale figure, Sonya is played with daring abandon by Shin Sang-ok's wife, the acclaimed actress Choi Eun-hee.
However A Flower In Hell is told primarily through the eyes of Dong-shik (Jo Hae-won), the pure-minded and naive younger brother of Young-shik who travels from the country up to Seoul in order to find his brother. Hoping to convince him to return to his hometown (and a morally upright lifestyle), Dong-shik moves in with Young-shik. Nonetheless, his entreaties fall on deaf ears, at the same time as he starts to be seduced by the worldly Sonya.
Few Korean films of this era present the hard realities of day-to-day existence with such honest force as A Flower In Hell. The focus on the lower classes, and on the sexual trade between U.S. soldiers and Korean prostitutes (such women were often derogatively referred to as "Western princesses"), makes for an eye-opening topic even today. The depiction of Sonya in particular is fascinating; she comes across as predatory and dangerous, but also self-confident, highly competent and alluring. Viewers of the day, who were used to seeing Choi Eun-hee as a pure-hearted, demure woman both on and offscreen, were reportedly shocked and uncomfortable to see her in this role.
A Flower In Hell also represents Shin Sang-ok at the top of his form as an aesthetic filmmaker, despite the technical hurdles he faced (reportedly the borrowed Arri camera kept breaking during the shoot). Although the entire film is suffused with energy and momentum, two sequences in particular stand out for their audacity. Midway through the film, Young-shik orchestrates a daring theft of materials from the U.S. army base as the soldiers are being entertained by a group of dancers. The erotically-charged performance (shot in a real life setting), intercut with shots of the theft being carried out, make for a tense and memorable scene.
Yet it is the penultimate scene, a extended life-and-death struggle that spills onto a vast field of mud, that justifiably remains the most famous. It is both a striking blend of sound and image, as the two mud-covered figures grapple in seeming slow motion, and also a suspense-filled nail-biter as we wait to see the final outcome. No other Korean film of this era contains a scene that is so viscerally striking, and which continues to feel so modern.