01. The Tiger Moth ( Bulnabi ) Jo Hae-won, 1965
It was not only auteurism cannons that represent the 1960s, the golden age of Korean films. Commercial films of Korea could have grown both outwards and inwards only with the strict genre directors who strived in their focus on the essence of genre films. <A TIGER MOTH> by Dir. Jo Hae-won is indeed the most characteristic among them. He used to be an actor who had acted for <THE FLOWER IN HELL> (Shin Sang-ok, 1958), but later moved on for his career as a producer, worked long as an assistant director, and finally made his debut with this film. Kim Jimi acted a perfect Korean femme fatale, Genre variation reaching from Film Noire, Mystery Thriller, and to Action, a great plot twist and the fascinating cross-editing of the last scene. The film is a living witness of a certain limit where 60’s Korean film could reach. If you are a fan of Korean pop music–as different from K-pop, of course-, you will never want to miss the scene when title song ‘The Love of a Tiger Moth’ by Kim Gang-seop comes out. (Jung Jong-hwa, Leader of Korean Film Institute, Korean Film Archive)