A classic Korean film depicting poverty in the aftermath of the Korean War has been digitally restored for the first time.

The restored version of  “O Bal Tan (The Aimless Bullet)” was screened for the press on Thursday as part of the opening event for the Paju Conservation Center, a center established by the Korean Film Archive for the preservation and restoration of old films. 

“O Bal Tan (The Aimless Bullet)” is a 1961 film directed by the late director Yu Hyun-mok. It was screened at the seventh San Francisco International Film Festival in 1963 and has since been lauded as a masterpiece of early Korean cinema. 

The film, whose original reel is lost, was restored from a copy that screened at the San Francsisco festival and transferred to a digital file through an “incredibly difficult two-year process” utilizing a “digital overlapping method that has never been attempted before,” said Cho So-youn, head of the center, which undertook the project.

“Though we had plans to restore the film early on, we could not easily attempt it because of the state of the film. It was severely damaged and English subtitles covered large portions of the screen,” said Cho. “(The film) was covered in dust, scratches and light flashes, and the screen shook heavily. We attempted it in 2014, only after restoring 15 classic films over seven years and accumulating the necessary know-how.”

Park Geun-ja, director Yu’s widow who attended the press conference, donated a tattered copy of the film’s original script to the Korean Film Archive, professing how moved she was at the high quality restoration of the film. 

The opening of the Paju Conservation Center comes amid a dearth in space dedicated to preserving video archives and a need to restore damaged old films that have significantly contributed to Korean film history.

“The Korean Film Archive has strived to preserve Korean films since its founding in 1974. We have now created a space where we can preserve all video files produced in Korea,” said the center’s director Ryu Jae-ryong at the opening ceremony, where Paju Mayor Lee Jae-hong and actor Ahn Sung-ki were also present.

Prior to this, the Korea Film Archives had stored a limited number of film reels at a space rented from the National Archives of Korea’s Seongnam facilities.

The Paju center is also equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities such as color and sound reproduction rooms for the digital restoration of old films. It operates Korea’s only film laboratory, where filmmakers are able to develop and print material on different film formats, for analog film restoration.

“Archives gain life when they are seen again by the public. We hope to digitize old films to make them fit for the current high-resolution video environment, and provide them to the public.”

The center has also opened a cinema library and a theater for public screenings of restored films.

“We hope the center becomes a must-visit space in Paju,” said Ryu.

By Rumy Doo (doo@heraldcorp.com)