| Moon Ye-bong | |
| Native Name: | 문예봉/文藝峰 |
| Native Name Lang: | ko |
| Birth Date: | 3 January 1917 |
| Birth Place: | Hamhung, Korea |
| Occupation: | Actress |
Moon Ye-bong (; January 3, 1917 – March 26, 1999) was a North Korean actress.
Her career began on the stage as an early teen, and by the early 1930s, she appeared in her first film: A Ferry Boat That Has No Owner (1932).[1] :352 Moon Ye-Bong was widely seen as representative of the "New Woman," or of modern Korean women.[2] By the 1930s and 1940s, she was one of the most popular actresses in Korea.[3]
She starred in many pro-Japanese films during the Japanese occupation of Korea. In 1941, she starred in the Korean-made, Korean-language film Angels without a Home, which was about Korean street children; despite the fact that the Japanese occupiers had outlawed as a language of instruction except in primary schools, was supported by the Japanese Ministry of Education and shown widely in Japan.[4]
She migrated to North Korea in 1948.:349 Moon Ye-Bong was in the second film ever made in North Korea, The Blast Furnace.[5] She starred in the 1954 film A Partisan Maiden as a communist guerilla fighting the Americans during the Korean War.:350
While she received awards from the North Korean government during the 1950s, she fell victim to the political purges of 1969; in 1980, she was rehabilitated and named a "people's actress.":352