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Sweet Dream (미몽) (1936)
Director: Yang Jun Nam
Runtime: 46 minutes
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean with English subtitles
Rating: PG

The Widow (미망인) (1955)
Director: Park Nam Ok
Runtime: 75 minutes
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean with English subtitles
Rating: PG

Sweet Dream (1936)
Uninterested in playing housewife to her husband and daughter, Ae-sun is seduced by the promise of happiness supplied by Seoul’s consumer paradise. While on a spree in the city, Ae-sun meets and begins an affair with a rich businessman. Fed up with her familial neglect, Ae-sun’s husband kicks her out. Ae-sun embraces her newfound freedom, but soon discovers there may be consequences to her behavior. One of the earliest surviving Korean films, Sweet Dream reflects the anxieties of 1930s Korea toward the emerging “New Woman” and takes the argument for the confines of traditional gender roles. Yet, the film remains an important, early attempt at depicting the struggles of modern femininity in Korean cinema through a female central character.

The Widow (1955)
Shin-ja, a widow who lost her husband in the Korean War, is much indebted to her late husband’s friend Seong Jin but resists his romantic advances. She copes with her role as the sole caretaker of her young daughter and her desire to love Taek, a man who is involved in an affair with Seong Jin’s jealous wife. The Widow is the first and only film by Korea’s first female director Park Nam-ok. Controversial during its time, the film sets a precedent in Korean cinema for more nuanced and true-to-life representations of modern womanhood.