Reading The Host in Context, Part 1

This entry is part 10 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Well, here I go. This is my attempt to provide a reading of the 2006 blockbuster Korean film The Host in context — that is , not only a Korean cultural and historical context, but also in the context of Korean Gwoesu (“Giant Monster”)  movies, and those films which influenced the development of the genre in South Korea. Disclaimer — all images not cited to an photographer at copyright their respective owners. They are used in this post for educational/critical purposes, and thus their use falls under fair use. Thank goodness, because this essay would be hard to read without …

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“the tops […] are comprised of two pieces, with a very dark grey (almost black) undershirt and the over shirt of the appropriate color, with a slight v-neck”

Remember when Thomas Disch wrote (in The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of) that in SF, about the singular importance of fashion in SFnal (and other pop entertainment) media? About the “pajamas” of Trek as singularly important to viewers, communicative of a kind of harmonious conformity that is especially resonant to those discovering Trek at an early age? I find it interesting that “spoilers” could even exist for clothing in a film, but look at this: Star Trek Movie Uniform Spoilers. And what you might not know is: I used to watch Original Series Trek as a kid in Lac …

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2008 SF&F Festival (Seoul)?

This entry is part 9 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Oh my… Well, I missed Denvention (this year’s WorldCon), but there is this, at least, to give a look-see: The 2008 SF&F Festival is going on in Seoul. It’s a two-day event with a bunch of movie screenings, along with some lectures (or maybe more like panel discussions?) I’m sure will be mostly incomprehensible. But it’s W1,000 — about a buck — to join in on the fun, it’ll be a chance to see a few films I’ve not seen, it’ll feature Korean SF geeks in their native environment, and it’s only a couple of days long… so what the …

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To Sate You For Now…

I’m working on a big post on The Host, but since people were so pleased about the (still unnamed) kitty, here are a couple more pictures.. You can click on them to see them in larger size. I’m still working on learning how to fiddle with RAW images, so some of them are a little hairy. All of them, actually. But anyway… And because I know some of you are weird enough to want to see more as they come, there’s a Flickr set here, and you can subscribe to the RSS feed from there, if you like. Weirdoes. ;)

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고양이의 이름은 아직도 몰라…

(Translation: We still don’t know what the cat’s name is….) Actually, we haven’t decided, though Lime suggested “Woolf” which appeals to me because of the obvious canine pun. Oddly, though, Lime has never yet read anything by Woolf. I wonder whether Orlando has been translated. (Or I could just as well find the movie, given the apparent quality of a certain proportion of translations from foreign languages into Korean.) Anyway, the cat has pretty much adjusted to our place. That is to say, in her kitten way, which is that she doesn’t really stray too far from the two “offices” …

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Star Wars ROK Rock

This entry is part 8 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

The stunningly knowledgeable Helikkopter (of Indieful ROK), who was kind enough to remember I’ve been trying to get a handle on the status of SF fiction and film in Korea, very kindly notified me of the fact that in March of this year… a very odd little album was released by Ruby Record. It’s called Star Wars Project Compilation. SF fans, panic not! It features not some Korean form of the filk (perish the thought) but rather original works by (seemingly) competent musicians in homage to, reference to, or all about the Star Wars movie series. I can’t get the …

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Yay for Subs!

I rarely stop writing for long. Sometimes it happens — a lot of this summer has been a dry spell for me, partly because I’ve been ridiculously busy with a bunch of other things — but usually, what does shrivel up is not the writing, but the submitting of work. It takes constant energy to do final edits and proofreads, to check where you’ve sent things and where else you could try, and to actually send them. This week I really need to print a few things and send out some print submissions, but I’ve taken advantage of places that …

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TTA Press Launches New Podcast

If you’re a listener of the Escape Pod family (including PseudoPod and PodCastle), or Starship Sofa, this is for you. My classmate and friend from Clarion West, Maura McHugh, mentioned during an email discussion that TTA Press — publishers of Interzone, Black Static, and Crimewave — has launched a fiction podcast. There’s a new story every couple of weeks, taken from one of the magazines listed above. They started with a killer story by Tim Akers titled “The Algorithm,” that is… well, some kind of bizarre clockpunk theological fantasy. Which you might not think I’d go for, but I absolutely …

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The KOFA 괴수 대백과

This entry is part 7 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch on to what was being played — or, rather, how very rarely some of it is seen — until the evening of the 3rd of August, when it was too late to see the legendary, much-sought-after first Korean monster movie, 우주괴인 왕마귀 (Giant Space Monster Wangmagwi), so I’ll have to just keep looking around and try to catch it next time around. Or, rather, get stomped by it. However, I did manage to see a few other Korean giant monster movies. I’m going to reserve comments on The Host beyond the few things that hit me …

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Starcraft Animation!

Aha, I half-remembered this when I was writing about the Starcraft Pansori recently. Here it is! (Apologies to those who don’t have enough Korean to follow, but song’s essentially a cheerful little countdown of how four Zerglings get whittled down to one little fella during the trek home after being left behind enemy lines. For those of you too young to remember the 1998 game Starcraft, I hate you. (And yes, some people are still playing that game over here. That blows my mind too.)

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