First Adult Film.

A friend was telling me yesterday about an image from the 'First Adult Film' to ever be filmed in the Korean peninsular...

...around the year 1900...

This image is supposedly on display at 헤이리 박물관 Haeri Museum in Paju 파주...

... a small village not far from the North Korean border...

It is believed that the movie was made shortly after the year 1900...

...but the controversy surrounding the film is that the time period may have coincided with the time of the Japanese colonial period in Korea. 

...Some historians and critics have stated that the Japanese colonial forces forced Koreans to perform obscene acts to degrade Korean culture and depict Koreans as uncivilized savages...

The validity and purpose of the film is still being debated...

...but pornography has never been a strong industry in Korea, compared to Japan, the US, or Europe... which have very advanced pornography styles and industries...

...It is also a very sensitive issue in Korea because Korea is heavy on sex-censorship,

...and Korea is also very conservative on all issues relating to the depiction of sexuality.

In the above pictures, the male appears to have a 양반 Yangban (high bun) hairstyle, which was the representative style for males of the high-scholarly class in Korea 100 years ago...

...however,

...it has been suggested that the man may have adopted this style as a form of mockery or jest for the depiction of the film...