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Fashion King, a new film directed by OH Ki-hwan, who scored a megahit in China last year with the Korea`-China co-production A Wedding Invitation, has been released. The film is drawing the attention of moviegoers for the fact that today’s hottest young stars in Korea like JOO Won and Sulli are starring in it. A more interesting fact is that it is based on a webtoon.

A webtoon, as the name implies, is a cartoon published on the web. While comics and graphic novels are printed, published and sold offline, webtoons meet readers on Internet portal sites through computers or mobile phones. Since the IT industry is highly developed in South Korea, the idea to show cartoons on the Internet stirred interest, and the market ripple effects were much stronger than at first expected. The number of Webtoon fans increased and this growth only accelerated as smartphones became popular. Webtoon artists display production capabilities nearly as creative as filmmakers, using different devices such as scrolling, sound effects, animated pictures and Flash. This is why filmmakers see cinematic possibilities in webtoons.

Another advantage of webtoons is that most of them are free. In Korea, portal sites pioneered the system by helping webtoonists to grow. The sites pay them for their webtoons, and readers can enjoy their work for free. It is a perfect system to attract Korean teenagers and people in their 20s. Even those who cannot afford cultural activities can access webtoons easily. Accordingly, it gradually became established as a cultural product shared by everyone. It was a strong point that earned popularity from the public.

 

To date, many webtoons have been adapted for the cinema. From big hit films like Moss directed by KANG Woo-suk and Secretly Greatly starring KIM Soo-hyun, to thriller films based on KANG Full’s webtoons like A.P.T and The Neighbors, or melodramas also derived from KANG Full’s work such as Crush on You and Ba:Bo, Korean webtoons have already played the role of a weighty source of ideas for the film industry of Korea.

Besides Fashion King, many other films based on webtoons are coming up. The original author of Moss YUN Tae-ho’s webtoon Insiders (Naebujadeul) is being made into a film and is expected to be a hit in 2015. This film, which began shooting in October and is currently in post production, deals in depth with the mechanism of corruption and graft in Korean society. Top actors LEE Byung-hun, CHO Seung-woo and BAEK Yoon-shik are featured. Mogyogui-sin (literally, “The God of the Bath”) directed by LEE Jeong-sub and starring KIM Young-kwang is scheduled to open shooting within the second half of this year. It is about a young man who is chased by creditors and hides out in a bathhouse, where he newly finds his talent as a scrubber. It is a comedy film containing the very typical Korean cultural codes of the bathhouse. It is produced by MoonWatcher and is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2015. KIM Yong-hwa, who directed Take Off and Mr. Go is working on a fantasy webtoon titled Singwa-hamkke (literally, “With the God”). It centers around an Asian theory about life after death and considers the meaning of life in a serious manner. REALies Pictures, which produced Masquerade acted fast together with CJ to purchase rights early on, and they have been developing and producing the film. Gosami Jib-nagatta (“A High School Senior Has Run Away from Home”), a webtoon by HONG Sun-pyo about a third-year student at a high school who leaves home, will be adapted by YOU Sun-dong, who directed Death Bell 2: Bloody Camp. Trace, a webtoon about psychics, and Jomyeong-gage (“Lighting Fixture Store”), a mystery-psychological comedy by KANG Full, are scheduled to be directed by HAN Jae-rim of The Face Reader and BYUN Young-joo of Helpless respectively. HWANG Mi-na’s Botox, a love story between a woman in her 40s and a young man in his 20s, and Nalmi-saneun-iyagi (“A Story about How Nam Lives”) are also in line to be adapted.

 

In fact, not all webtoon-based films that have been made to date have been successful. Just a handful such as Moss, Secretly Greatly and 26 Years achieved significant results. Nevertheless, the film community has maintained a constant interest in webtoons. Moreover, films adapted from webtoons are usually shot on a large scale. Webtoons seem to be taking root as a key source material for Korean films. It is because webtoons display the widest spectrum in terms of variety of materials and genres, target audience and popularity. However, filmmakers know very well that such a film cannot find success merely from the popularity of the original webtoon. They already have an experience of failure from simply adapting popular webtoons without reinterpretation. Therefore, directors have recently started reinterpreting webtoons in their own styles. JOO Won, the leading actor of Fashion King said in an interview, “The director stressed the fact that we are not here to re-create the original story. He is going to borrow the basic elements, but we have to come up with a new creation, not a re-creation.” BYUN Young-joo, who is preparing to cinematize Jomyeong-gage (“Lighting Fixture Store”) said, “our protagonist is going to be totally different from the one in the original webtoon.” There is much attention about how it is going to work as filmmakers adopt a new strategy to take advantage of the popularity of webtoons, but creatively reinterpret them.