Ahn Seok Young (Seok Ju)
"Volunteer" (1941)
I literally CANNOT believe it, but my grandfather Ahn, Seok Young's film was discovered in China and was released on 4 disc DVD set by the Korean Film Archive, along with 3 other treasures, "Homeless Angels" (1941) by Choi, In-Kyu, "Spring of Korean Peninsula" (1941) by Lee Byeong-Il, and "Straits of Chosun" (1943) by Park, Ki-Chae.
I found a wonderful blog post on this subject (with full commentary and many pictures) by Matt from South Korea:
http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2007/11/1941s-volunteer.html
Korean Film Archive: http://www.koreafilm.org/publica/dvds.asp
These films were made during the last years of Japanese Occupation in Korea and they obviously contain Pro-Japanese sentiments and propaganda, but they are extremely important historical and artistic documents.
My grandfather's birth name was Ahn, Seok Ju, and Seok Young was his artistic name. He was a poet, script writer, illustrator, artist, musician and art/film critic, and in 1937 made his directorial debut with the motion picture "Story of Sim Chung", based on a famous Korean folk tale. He is the author of the famous Korean lyric poem "Our Hope", originally "Our Hope is Independence", later becoming "Our Hope is Unification" after the Korean War, 1950-53. His eldest son and my uncle, Ahn, Byong Won, composed music to this lyric and now along with "Arirang", it's one of very few songs sung by both North and South Koreas.
I also found a web address introducing my grandfather, the illustrator:
http://lambiek.net/artists/a/ahn-seok-ju.htm
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