26 년

I haven’t seen a lot of Korean films lately, in part because not much has appealed to me. However, if you’re like me, and you like good Korean films but haven’t seen many for a while, the film you should check out is called 26 년. (Which, for those of you who speak just a little Korean, translates as “26 Years,” not “26 Bitches.”) Here’s a video on Youtube with some animations made straight from the original art:It’s the long-awaited awaited cinematic adaptation of a popular webcomic by a Korean artist called Kangfull (강풀); readers of my series on Korean …

Continue Reading

Xander and Anya, Willow and Tara, Giles and Jenny and that Woman Who’s Scared Off…

So Miss Jiwaku and I finished watching the full series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer — it was her first time all the way through, and my second — a few weeks ago. I tried to sum up the experience, but it was pretty difficult. Hundreds of hours of fairly iconic TV don’t really boil down so easily as all that. There’s a lot I could talk about, but I figure I can post a few different things as they come to me, or as they come to me.

Today, what I’m interested is “nonstandard” relationships, and how I see them explored in the show.

Continue Reading

On Modernizing/Adapting Myths, James Bond as Odysseus, and On the Undead Archetype

Sometimes, when you’re teaching, you learn things. The other day, in my Greek Mythology and Biblical Narrative course, we had a discussion interesting enough that I feel like I learned a few interesting things. Figured I’d share: On Modernizing/Adapting Myths: In class, I was discussing the idea of archetypal figures with students in my mythology course, in the context of adapting ancient Greek mythology to a modern setting. We were specifically discussing their homework from a week before, which involved writting up synopses of their own for an imaginary adaptation of The Odyssey to a modern (post-1950) Korean setting. (They’d just …

Continue Reading

Movies I’ve Seen Lately

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen a few movies I thought were pretty good, though not as good as a lot of people seem to think. Indeed, even Miss Jiwaku has been more thrilled with them than I’ve been. The three I’m thinking about were: Limitless, Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, and Cabin in the Woods. Just in case you’re scared of “spoilers” I’ll put my thoughts in the extended section.

Continue Reading

Korean “Disaster” Films: 연가시 / Deranged

This entry is part 56 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I guess I blinked a week or two ago, as I missed Cabin in the Woods’ very brief release in Korea. This suggests it was a probably a good film, since good films here are rarely shown more than a week. Resignedly, Miss Jiwaku and I schlepped it down to the local cinema to watch 연가시 (apparently known in English as Deranged, which is not the best title choice, but then, it’s not the best movie so I don’t think the foreign title’s a problem). Deranged is, just barely, Korean science fiction, so I figured I’d give it a review here. In …

Continue Reading