Series: SF in South Korea

초능력자

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This entry is part 41 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Tonight I saw 초능력자 (Choneungryeokja, which you could translate as “Psychic” or “Person with Supernatural Powers”1) with Miss Jiwaku, and I have to say that it actually pretty much was what one of my students described: …pretty good for the first hour or so, and then ramps up an exponential curve of silliness until it hits infinite silliness at the end. That said, the film seems to have been received rather well by the Korean public, and some people are praising it. My experience is that films that are very highly praised in Korea are sometimes good, but often don’t …

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More About Korean SF, and Some Dougal Dixon Links

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This entry is part 42 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

You might think that I’ve given up on the topic, but I haven’t. In fact, I’ve been working on a few papers on the subject. I don’t know if they’ll ever see the light of day, but I’m sending them out, slowly. In the meantime, I’ve had a few discussions with Anselmo Quemot, a blogger over at Acheron LV-426. You can see the discussions in the comment threads to these two posts: Placing the Future in South Korea? An open letter to Gord Sellar about South Korean sci fi Acheron LV-426 is full of other interesting stuff, too; it was …

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Forthcoming Papers on Korean SF, “Good Night,” and a Summary of “Another Undiscovered Country”

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This entry is part 43 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Well, I have submitted the final corrected version of my paper on Korean SF films in the 21st century to Acta Koreana: it’s been approved for publication, pending those edits, so I figure that’s one more paper in the can, to bring my current total of pending academic publications to two: “Politics, Ecology on the Korean Left: Anti-Americanism and Environmental Dystopia in The Host” supposedly forthcoming in the Arena Journal. “Another Undiscovered Country: Culture and the Reception and Adoption of the Science Fiction Genre in 21st-Century South Korean Cinema,” which if all goes well should be appearing in Acta Koreana sometime …

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Vampires, Confucianism, Christianity’s Latent Monarchism, and the Translation of Sociohorror

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Seriously, now...
This entry is part 44 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

(Note: I’m filing this under Korean SF, though it only fits there if we define SF as “speculative fiction”: still, I think this post does appeal to a crucial question at the heart of the reception of SF and other fantastical genres in cultures foreign to the culture of a given work’s original production. So there.) So I’ll admit it now: I’ve been watching True Blood. Yes, yes, it’s trashy. But as someone who is not very plot-minded, I have to say, it does a particular trick with a knife that I, too, am learning to do. I’m close to …

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천군 (Heaven’s Soldiers) revisited: Hanmura Ryō’s Sengoku Jieitai (戦国自衛隊), 독재자 (Dictator), and more Korean SF News

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This entry is part 45 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Long ago, I posted briefly about the monstrosity that is Heaven’s Soldiers (천군) a while back (and discussed it in an interview, too), but this is a point that is sure to interest those who, like me, have no access to Korean SF except through film and that small cache of English translations online linked in my sidebar (okay, here you go). As you may recall, Heaven’s Soldiers is a South Korean SF film about North and South Korean soldiers cooperating on the construction of nuclear weapons with which to apparently meet the threat of foreign hegemonic domination or invasion or …

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7광구 (Sector 7) — Setting Korean SF Back Decades

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This entry is part 46 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

If you want the short version of my reaction: skip this movie, pretend it was never made, save yourself some money and some disappointment — that is, if you have a half a brain and actually like SF. Sector 7 is shot amateurishly, it is badly acted by almost the whole cast — and since at least some of the cast can act, I suspect it’s badly edited and badly directed; the budget was mostly used creating CG for a rather unimaginative monster; it was derivative of The Host (괴물), the Alien series (especially Aliens; it was badly written; it had …

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Some Notes For Korean Film Companies Considering an SF Film Project

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This entry is part 47 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

After the debacle that is 7광구, which I discussed here, I figured I might write up a few suggestions for Korean film companies considering undertaking an SF project. After all, I’m someone who has studied Korean SF films carefully, picked out their pitfalls and how and why they failed — either domestically, or internationally — and I have a few thoughts based on my own frustration with the way Korean SF film has gone, and is going. I think there are a few very simple things that production companies in Korea need to realize, if they want to start putting …

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Coming Soon: “Invasion of Alien Bikini”

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This entry is part 48 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Well, Miss Jiwaku just surprised me with the trailer a few days ago (when we were booking tickets for Cowboys and Aliens; the trailer was for what appears to be a Korean SF sex-comedy to be released toward the end of this month: Apparently, a guy steps in and saves a woman from some thugs, only to discover that she is in fact a lovely little sex-hungry alien. She wants to rob him of his virginity, and for some strange reason, he refuses… so she tortures him. No matter how cheaply done, no matter how confusing, this is definitely bound …

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Gunpla Advertisement Analysis, and 우뢰매!

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This entry is part 49 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Gunpla Ad Analysis: While it’s a side of SF fandom that, like filk, I just don’t quite “get” — mostly just because I know so little about Japanese anime SF, I suppose — Gundam fandom is something that is, at least, visible here. Gundam merchandise in shops is, in fact, more common here than RPG game products ever were in shops in the North American cities I’ve lived in, and there’s definitely some serious interest in anime here. (Indeed, Korea’s Robo-Taekwon V was quite obviously a response to Japanese battlebot-suit anime frnachises like Mobile Suit Gundam; see here for more …

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Invasion of Alien Bikini, or, I Feel Sick

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This entry is part 50 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

So, I mentioned the Korean SF film Invasion of Alien Bikini a few weeks ago. Miss Jiwaku and I saw it tonight, and, well, to say it ruined out evening would be an understatement. I am going to tell you the whole plot here, so that you don’t have to see it, and know why you should not, in fact, spend a single won on it. The thing is, the film really didn’t have to suck. The opening section was actually really interesting: I felt like I was seeing Seoul represented in a film in a way I’d never seen …

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