[The Legend of Shin Film] begins with Shin Sang-ok saying,“ I’ve never considered film as an art form. Film is an industry. Film is both a social medium and a form of entertainment…” This movie follows his life and the history of Shin Film, beginning with a Korean film industry devastated by war and division and its growth in the 1950s. At the time of Park Jung-hee’s amendment of Motion Pictures Act, Shin Film, established in 1961, had taken the lead in the industrialization and commercialization of Korean filmmaking. The film is the first installment of a two-part series and focuses on this period?the years before Shin’s founding, revocation of its business license in 1975, and the kidnapping of Shin’s professional and personal partner Choi Eun-hee. Skillfully weaving together interviews with the late director and Choi, the people who worked for him, new archives, and academic commentaries, an enlightening story unfolds. Looking at the rise and fall of Shin Film, the words of his last interview seem prescient: “Only absolute freedom can make good movies.”(PARK Sun Young)