Series: SF in South Korea

Korean “Disaster” Films: 연가시 / Deranged

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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 …

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Seoul Cthulhu Festival of Film: 28 Feb 2012

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This entry is part 57 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

UPDATE (8 March 2013): This event was a huge success, selling out all the seats in the cinema to a very appreciative audience. We’re happy it was so well-received, and hope that it will inspire the organization of similar such events in future! I’ll post photos when I get the chance… ORIGINAL POST: Fans of H.P. Lovecraft in Seoul will not want to miss the upcoming Cthulhu Festival of Film in Seoul. The evening will feature three film adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories: one Korean, one German, and one American. There will be subtitles for all films, to accommodate both Korean-speakers …

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사이코메트리 [Psychometry] — The Gifted Hands (2013)

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This entry is part 58 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

There is now a stereotype for psychics in Korean cinema. (Assuming there wasn’t already one, that is.) Psychics are tall and pale as Snow White. They are skinny and their eyes do weird, sparkly blue things. Even if they’re from a poor background or living in poverty, they are obviously plastic-surgeried, and they look as if they belong in the back line of the photographs of a Korean boy band. Also, when they do something psychic, they look kind of crazy, and their eyes get really big too. To be fair, it’s probably as much the investors pressuring the director …

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Seoul Comics World Convention #114 (December 2012)

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This entry is part 59 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Note: This is a post from late December. I was too busy to finish writing it, so I’m posting it a bit late.  Those following my SF in South Korea series have no doubt been wondering why I haven’t posted anything new in a long time. The fact is, not much has happened as far as I’ve heard about. I do have some reviews of older SF movies that Miss Jiwaku and I have dug into–specifically, Half-Moon Mask (Mask Bandal) and Wooraemae–but I’d rather talk about those once I’ve seen the whole series, and in both cases, that’s a lot of …

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Korea in English-Language SF

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This entry is part 60 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Over at Gusts of Popular Feeling, everyone’s favorite archives-trawler Matt has a post about about “the first SF story involving Korea” and a few other such tales from the Galaxy/Amazing Stories era. I’ve left a comment clarifying that “the first SF story” should be qualified as “the first English-language SF story” and also noting that depending on how you define “SF,” one might consider Jack London’s Star Rover the first in the English language. As for the first Korean-language SF story, I don’t know what it was, though I’d argue that the amount of remixing that seems to have gone …

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