Shin Kyeong-gyun's 1951 drama A Bouquet of Thirty Million People is not your typical silent movie because it was recorded with spoken dialogue then the soundtrack got lost. How that happened I'm not sure since I always thought the two parts were wedded together but what history has bequeathed us is a 48-minute flick — scratched and patched — in which you can make out a general plot despite the complete absence of audio: A young man (Choe Hyeon) is drafted into the military, loses his sight in battle, then regains his vision when his mother donates her own eyes. Are we expected to rejoice or recoil? I'm not totally sure without indicative music. And this movie has lots of music: Army brass, a USO-style concert, a duet between the two romantic leads, and a dance sequence in which little girls dressed like fairies cavort (one assumes to a lovely song).
Hey, maybe it's a musical! After all, like many musicals, the movie also has a central love triangle — this time involving a blinded soldier, his small-town sweetheart, and a military nurse (Hwang Yui-hui). But which woman captures his heart remains a mystery. And let's be honest here: If your mother sacrifices her eyes for you, you're always gonna be a momma's boy. Should a film preservation society eventually hire some talented lip readers to fill in the details, we may eventually learn what he has to say about this...via subtitles.
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