You’ve seen the film, now read the book

16 thoughts on “You’ve seen the film, now read the book”

1. 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

2. Many thanks for the info Michael. I’ll update the list accordingly

3. I can’t believe I missed Mandala off the list, given that I have both read the book and seen the film 🙁

   1. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

   1. 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!

      1. 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.

      2. It’s this one, published by Merwin Asia. But buy The Prophet too, because that’s a great collection.

      3. I just ordered a dozen Korean books based on your reviews and recommendations. I trust you, sir.

6. 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

7. 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.

   1. 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

8. 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.

   1. 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.

9. And I notice that Silver Stallion (1991, director Chang Kil-soo, author Ahn Jung-hyo) isn’t on the list.

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