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Kim Un-su interviewed in Korea Times

Kim Un-su
Image source: bookdb.co.kr

Anna Jiwon Park has a good interview with Kim Un-su (author of The Plotters, among other things) in the Korea Times this week. It’s a nice leisurely two-page read for the Weekender section, clocking in at 3,000 words. Park has an engaging conversation with him, and makes an interesting observation:

His books not only have strong readability, they also create strong cinematic imagery. Many scenes are so vivid readers can easily picture a scene of a film as they read.

I remember thriller-writer Jeong You-jeong saying that similar things were said of her. If I remember right, the quote went roughly thus: that there are two types of author – those that make you think and those that make you see, and that she fell into the latter camp. This emerged as part of the discussion when she attended the screening of Choo Chang-min’s adaptation of her Seven Years of Night at the London Korean Film festival last year.

Park’s interview with Kim Un-su is well worth reading in its entirety, but three little bits of information leapt out at me:

  1. His 2016 novel, Hot Blooded, will be released as a movie in 2020, helmed by fellow author Cheon Myeong-kwan in his directorial debut.
  2. Director Hur Jin-ho is working on a project to turn The Plotters into a movie – an interesting genre shift for him.
  3. I’m in two minds about a Hollywood adaptation of the same novel: so rarely have I seen a Hollywood adaptation that I can engage with. But this one is being done by the Ink Factory, who adapted Le Carre’s Little Drummer Girl under director Park Chan-wook.

Read the interview here: Powerful storyteller Kim Un-su touches global readers, Korea Times, 26 December 2019

One thought on “Kim Un-su interviewed in Korea Times

  1. YJ Hur:

    “I see too much thinking in advance. I hope to give advice to just do it. One of the essential parts of daily practices is to give a fully focused mind and heart to something that you chose. Then all you need to do is just do it honestly. That’s all”

    There is a lot of truth in this quote ! Thanks for the share.

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