The Korean Film Council recently publicised on its website the new “Book to Film” initiative aimed at bringing together the film and the publishing industries.
Of course, the practice adapting a book for the big screen is almost as old as the movie industry itself, and some of South Korea’s most successful movies have been adaptations of everything from serious novels to internet stories. A list of such films would go on for rather too long. This post is designed to list out some of those films where the original novel is available in an English translation.
With Korean cultural contents, consumers in the west are more likely to come across a work of Korean literature through film rather than through reading the book in translation. But seeing the film can often make you want to read the book. And while Korean translated literature is by no means mainstream, it can be found, with more becoming available all the time.
Over the years, I’ve been jotting down all the films where I’m aware that the screenplay is based on a Korean (or sometimes Japanese) novel which is available in an English translation. I recently lost those notes, and am now painfully reconstructing them. But here’s a start, in the hope that others will contribute. I know I’ve probably missed some really obvious ones. I’ll certainly add to the list below as I come across new examples or if ever I find my notes.
Links relating to film titles in the table below take you to an LKL review of the movie. Links on book titles take to to the book’s entry in the LKL Korea Book Database, where you can find publisher details and links to online stores.
In no particular order:
| Director | Film title | Author | English title of book / story |
| Choo Chang-min | Seven Years of Night (2016) | Jeong You-jeong | Seven Years of Darkness | LKL Review |
| E J-yong | My Brilliant Life (2014) | Kim Aeran | My Brilliant Life |
| Kim Do-young | Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 (2019) | Cho Nam-joo | Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 | LKL Review |
| Won Shin-yeon | Memoir of a Murderer | Kim Young-ha | Diary of a Murderer | LKL Review |
| Song Hae-sung | Boomerang Family | Cheon Myung-kwan | Modern Family | LKL Review |
| Lim Woo-seong | Vegetarian | Han Kang | The Vegetarian | LKL Review |
| Im Kwon-taek | Seopyeonje | Lee Cheong-jun | Seopyeonje – the Southerners’ Songs |
| Im Kwon-taek | Beyond the Years | Lee Cheong-jun | Seopyeonje – the Southerners’ Songs |
| Im Kwon-taek | Taebaek Mountains | Jo Jung-rae | Taebaek Mountains (Forthcoming) |
| Im Kwon-taek | Mandala (1981) | Kim Seong-dong | Mandala (1978) | LKL review |
| Im Kwon-taek | Genealogy (Jokbo, 1979) | Kajiyama Toshiyuki | The Clan Records | LKL review |
| Im Kwon-taek | Village in the Mist (1983) | Yi Mun-yol | An Anonymous Island (available in New Yorker Magazine) | LKL review |
| Im Kwon-taek | Hwajang / Revivre (2014) | Kim Hoon | From Powder to Powder (2004) | LKL review |
| Shin Sang-ok | My Mother and Her Guest (1961) | Chu Yo-seop | Mama and the Boarder (1935) |
| Im Sang-soo | The Old Garden | Hwang Sok-yong | The Old Garden | LKL review |
| Jeong Ji-yeong | White Badge | Ahn Jung-hyo | White Badge | LKL Review |
| Jang Sun-woo | Petal | Choe Yun | There a Petal Silently Falls | LKL essays |
| Yu Hyun-mok | Aimless Bullet (1960) | Lee Beomseon | A Stray Bullet (1959) |
| Yu Hyun-mok | Kim’s Daughters | Park Kyung-ni | The Curse of Kim’s Daughters (1962) | LKL Review |
| Yu Hyun-mok | Martyrs (1965) | Richard E Kim | The Martyred (1964) | LKL review |
| Yu Hyun-mok | Descendants of Cain (1968) | Hwang Sun-won | Descendants of Cain (1954) | LKL Review |
| Jeon Soo-il | My Right to Ravage Myself (2003) | Kim Young-ha | I have a right to destroy myself | LKL Review |
| Byun Hyuk | The Scarlet Letter | Kim Young-ha | Photoshop Murder (and Meditation on Mirror – not yet translated) |
| Yu Hyun-mok | Son of Man (1980) | Yi Mun-yol | Son of Man |
| Jang Yoon-hyeon | Hwang Jin-yi | Hong Seok-jung | Hwang Jin-yi (excerpt published in Literature from the “Axis of Evil”) available from Amazon |
| Lee Man-hee | The Road to Sampo | Hwang Sok-yong | The Road to Sampo (1973) |
| Kim Soo-yong | The Seashore Village (1965) | O Yong-su | Seaside Village (1953) |
| Kim Soo-yong | Mist (1967) | Kim Seung-ok | Record of a Journey to Mujin (1964) |
| Kim Soo-yong | Night Journey (19y7) | Kim Seung-ok | The Night Outing (1969) |
| Ko Young-nam | The Shower | Hwang Sun-won | The Shower (1953) |
| Han Hye-jin and An Jae-hoon | Leafie, a Hen into the Wild (2010) | Hwang Sun-Mi | The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly | LKL Review |
| Song Hae-sung | Maundy Thursday (2006) | Gong Ji-young | Our Happy Time | LKL Review |
| Choi Ha-won | Trees on a Slope (1968) | Hwang Sun-won | Trees on a Slope (1960) | LKL Review |
| Kim Ho-Seon | Yeong-Ja’s Heydays (1975) | Cho Seon-jak | Young-ja’s Heyday (1973) |
| Park Chong-won | Our Twisted Hero (1992) | Yi Mun-yol | Our Twisted Hero (1987) | LKL review |
You have listed White Badge, and there are two other novels by Ahn Jung-hyo, written in both Korean and English by the author, that have been filmed. The first to be filmed was Silver Stallion (1991), directed by Chang Kil-soo, and the third, which I haven’t seen, was Llife and Death of the Hollywood Kid (Chung Ji-young, 1994).
Ahn Jung-hyo translated Kim Sung-dong’s novel Mandala, which was filmed by Im Kwon-taek, with Ahn Sung-ki, in 1981.
http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Stallion-A-Novel-Korea/dp/1569470030
http://variety.com/1994/film/reviews/life-and-death-of-the-hollywood-kid-1200409159/
http://filmnomenon2.blogspot.sg/2013/07/mandala-1981.html
Many thanks for the info Michael. I’ll update the list accordingly
I can’t believe I missed Mandala off the list, given that I have both read the book and seen the film 🙁
Now updated for Mandala, Aimless Bullet, Seven Years of Darkness, My Brilliant Life, Kim Ji-young Born 1982, Memoir of a Murderer, Night Journey. Still need to update the list for the Studio MWP animations.
On second thoughts, I suspect there’s no English edition of “Hollywood Kid”. Certainly I’ve never seen a copy, and I can’t find any reference to one on the internet. I have read Silver Stallion in English, and I see it’s on Amazon.
Thanks for compiling this list. I wish more of the films were available in the U.S. but this is valuable to me as I’m starting to teach more and more literature in translation and global literature adapted to film. It’s a difficult subject to research, as Americans aren’t typically eager to embrace subtitled films, to say nothing of foreign literature. I was particularly bummed that I was unable to find the film version of The Vegetarian, which I taught last semester.
If you have any ideas about really good films adapted from literature (any genre) I’d be extremely happy to hear them. Thanks again for your work.
Hi Steve, thanks for visiting. The list needs a bit of updating both for new movies and new translations. Off the top of my head there’s My Brilliant Life, Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 and Seven Years of Darkness but come back in a couple of weeks and I’m sure I’ll have thought of more!
Thank you. I’ll check back regularly. Can I ask you the name of the story collection that includes “The Abject”? Is it The Prophet and Other Stories? I intend to find Secret Sunshine if it costs me my kneecaps.
It’s this one, published by Merwin Asia. But buy The Prophet too, because that’s a great collection.
I just ordered a dozen Korean books based on your reviews and recommendations. I trust you, sir.
I’ve seen Secret Sunshine 3 times, including a screening attended by Lee Chang-dong and Jeon Do-yeon at a Bifan festival, but I wasn’t aware until now that it was based on a novel. The author, Lee Chung-Joon, also wrote some other books that were filmed, going back to Kim Ki-young’s Iodo, but as far as I know, none of them have been translated into English. Am I wrong?
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0497043/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
Now having read the posts properly, as I should have done, I see that the source novel, The Abject, is in translation, as well as others of his stories.
Hi Michael
Here’s a list of Yi Cheong-jun’s / Lee Chung-Joon’s stories in translation:
https://londonkoreanlinks.net/authors/yi-cheong-jun/
Click on the titles Seopyeonje, the Southerners’ Songs and The Prophet and Other Stories to be taken to a contents listing for those collections.
Philip
A couple of additions:
Rainy Days (Jangma) (dir. Yoo Hyun-mok). The Rainy Spell by Yoon Heung-gil (in The Rainy Spell and Other Korean Stories. Translated by Suh Ji-moon. I’ve just found it’s age-restricted on Youtube, and I don’t know how to get around that just now.
The Room in the Forest (dir. Oh Byungchul). The story (A Room in the Woods) is by Gang Seok-gyeong. It’s in Words of Farewell: Stories by Korean Women Writers, translated by the Fultons. (The author’s name appears in MR in the book). The film doesn’t appear to be on YouTube, but I did find this Arirang TV introduction (which contains spoilers).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSBCkQLSNZw
I saw the films and read the stories many years ago, and I’ll re-read them now. The latter film was a bit hard to track down. It’s not listed on Imdb, though it is in the Wikipedia entry of its star, Choi Jin-shil, who tragically committed suicide in 2008. I see the director also died young, of throat cancer, in 2005.
Thanks for these Michael. Room in the Forest is even more interesting because according to KMDB the script was written by Gong Ji-young https://www.kmdb.or.kr/eng/db/kor/detail/movie/K/04537 based on that Kang Seok-gyeong story. Definitely one to track down.
And I notice that Silver Stallion (1991, director Chang Kil-soo, author Ahn Jung-hyo) isn’t on the list.