Forgot password

Yeon Sang-ho’s science fiction horror series Parasyte: The Grey dropped on Netflix on April 5. Based on the Japanese manga series Parasyte (1989-1994) by Hitoshi Iwaaki, it centers on a parasitic organism that target humans as hosts transforming them into dangerous creatures killing other humans.

Science fiction as a genre has been more challenging for Korean filmmakers to make for Korean audiences compared to other genres. Partly this is because of budgetary reasons, but it’s also a genre that has in the past been more difficult to localize in comparison to genres such as thrillers or action films. 

Still, it’s a genre that many Korean directors including Bong Joon Ho and Yeon Sang-ho have sought to tackle and the creature has a long history in Korean cinema dating back to the 1960s, which is more surprising given how the South Korean Film industry was still very young. Today, Netflix, seeing the potential for science fiction and dystopian content on its service to lure subscribers has continued to finance shows that even a decade ago would have been unimaginable.

This week we examine how creatures have evolved in Korean content; from the first Korean monster film Bulgasari (1962) to the more recent Netflix dramas including the colonial period mini-series Gyeongseong Creature (2023). 

Bulgasari (1962)

Influenced like so many monster films by the seminal Godzilla feature (1954), it was not only Korea’s first monster film but also one of the first films to incorporate special effects making it a historic film even though it wasn’t warmly received by critics at the time and was pulled from screens shortly after release in 1962. 

Nevertheless, owing to its place in the history of Korean cinema and because the prints were lost, it remains a feature that is eagerly sought after – old prints can eventually get discovered.  

The film was directed by Kim Myeong-je and stars Choi Moo-ryong and Um Aing-ran about a martial artist who is murdered and then resurrected as an iron-eating monster and inflicts revenge on those who killed him. 

It was remade by Shin Sang-ok in 1985 in North Korea after he was kidnapped by North Korean agents in Hong Kong in the late 1970s. 

The Big Monster Wangmagwi (1967)

Released in 1967, The Big Monster Wangmagwi, aliens send a “gamma-star” monster to Seoul to investigate humans. An Air Force Major (Namkoong Won) is assigned to a unit to exterminate a gigantic creature that has appeared while his fiancée is kidnapped by the monster at the wedding hall echoing the classic King Kong. 

Directed by Gwon Hyeok-jin, unlike Bulgasari, a print of the film exists making it the oldest surviving Korean monster film. It is also notable for using Korean technology to construct the special effects making it the first fully South Korean science fiction film.  It garnered attention for how the monster goes on a rampage in Seoul destroying much of the city – such scenes of destruction commonly appear in science fiction films to this day. 

The film screened at the Korean Film Archive in 2023 as part of its Science Fiction Films Special Exhibition.

Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967)

Helmed by one of the most successful directors of the 1960s, Kim Ki-duk, Yongary, Monster from the Deep is significant for being an international co-production between South Korea and Japan. It brought together the special effects director of Godzilla, Masao Yagi, Toei Company and the Korean studio Keukdong Film. Unsurprisingly, therefore, visually it mimics Godzilla and other Kaiju films using similar techniques in creating the monster through miniature sets and pyrotechnics. Some critics and academics noted, however, Yongary is more comic than the Japanese predecessor. 

The film centers on a humungous reptilian creature laying waste to Seoul after it was awakened by an earthquake triggered by a nuclear test. It was released theatrically in Korea in 1969 and went directly to television in the United States through American International Pictures where the film was dubbed in English – the only existing version that survived after the original Korean prints were lost. 

Yonggary (1999)

A reimagining of Yongary by Shim Hyung-rae hit screens in South Korea in the summer of 1999, which was not only the most expensive Korean film at the time, but it also featured a cast of Western actors making it one of the industry’s first English-language productions. With its focus on spectacle when a 200-million-year-old monster is awakened by an alien ship, it’s an early example of a Korean blockbuster with truly global ambitions and financed by local investment firms including Hyundai Capital.  

Whereas the earlier examples of creature films saw Seoul at the center of destruction, Yonggary sees Los Angeles getting attacked with an array of special effects deployed to depict the city under siege.  

The film has two versions: the original one that was released in 1999 and an updated special effects version with an altered story titled Yonggary: 2002 Upgrade Edition and called Reptilian in North America that proved far less successful.

The Host (2006)

By some margin, the most successful Korean film featuring a monster is Bong Joon Ho’s The Host that sold over 13 million tickets in the summer of 2006. Hugely ambitious, it follows a family who come up against a beast that emerges from the river Han after the US military dump Formaldehyde into the water. The monster has taken a young girl (Go Ah-sung) and her father (Song Kang-Ho), grandfather (Byun Hee-bong), uncle (Park Hae-il) and aunt (Bae Doona) attempt to rescue her as the Korean and US authorities further hinder their search efforts. 

Like many films involving creatures, it features social and political commentary – characteristic of the work of Bong Joon Ho – that has been written extensively about in reviews and essays by academics often commenting how it explores the relationship between the US and Korea and also the US and Korean blockbuster subverting audiences expectations. For instance, the monster appears in full hanging off a Seoul bridge in the eleventh minute – in films like Jaws and Alien, the shark/alien isn’t fully visible until much later in the film. 

D-War (2007)

Equally ambitious was Shin Hyung-rae’s D-War that once again surprised his critics accumulating $75m globally and pulling in 8.4 million viewers in Korea alone in 2007 when the industry was in the midst of a significant downturn. 

Similar to Shin’s Yonggary, it was an expensive blockbuster with a budget of $32m making it then the highest-budgeted Korean film while it also featured a cast of American actors including Jason Behr, Elizabeth Pena, Amanda Brooks and Robert Forster. In the film, Behr plays Ethan who is struck by a light from an old chest that carries the spirit of a warrior from 16th Century Korea who fought dragons. When he is later working as a reporter in Los Angeles, dragons descend on the city looking for the souls of a pair of ancient lovers.

Coming a year after the success of The Host, with its non-Korean cast and story based on a Korean legend about a large Korean snake-like beast, it predated other global projects financed in Korea like Snowpiercer (2013) and content produced by the streamers that has sought to attract viewers from across the globe turning Korea into a cultural powerhouse. 

Premiering in Cannes Directors fortnight it remains not only one of the most notable Korean films of the 2000s but is among the most significant Korean films to breakthrough internationally having been theatrically released in the UK and US where it attracted critical acclaim cementing Bong Joon Ho’s status as a leading Korean film auteur. 

Chaw (2009)

In Shin Jung-won’s Chaw when a man-eating boar causes havoc in a village, a team of villagers that includes a former hunter (Jang Hang-sun), police officer (Uhm Tae-woong) and researcher (Jung Yu-mi) attempt to catch it. Less focused on Korean legends and city landscapes, it stands out for its rural setting located near Mount Jiri – Korea’s second biggest mountain.  It’s also less influenced by films like Godzilla and its anti-nuclear themes but rather by Hollywood horror films such as Anaconda. 

It’s not the first film to feature a wild boar, there is also a famous scene in Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005), but it is the first Korean film where a real-life creature (as opposed to the monsters in films like The Host, D-War) goes on rampage killing humans.  The film was released in a number of countries including the U.S. and Japan.

Sector 7 (2011)

Kim Ji-hoon’s Sector 7 starring Ha Ji-won and Ahn Sung-ki is unusual for its setting on an oil rig off the coast of Jeju Island where an underwater monster is lurking and comes aboard killing the crew members. Unlike many tentpoles features in Korea, it doesn’t delve heavily into local themes, which could explain why the film struggled to perform after a strong opening weekend in August 2011. It sold 2.2 million tickets with over half its total tally coming in the first four days of release. Budgeted at 130 billion won, its performance was widely seen as a disappointment.

Still, its size reflected the industry’s growing ambitions to compete against Hollywood blockbusters with CGI required for almost all of the film’s shots. It also had a sizable rollout in 3D in 40 percent of the total screens making it the first Korean monster film to exploit the premium format, while it was also sold to 47 countries spanning territories in Europe, the Middle East and Asia illustrating the appetite for Korean genre fare internationally.

Monstrum (2018)

Coming a few months before Kingdom dropped on Netflix that would become its first hit Korean series, Monstrum entertained audiences with a not too dissimilar period setting combined with palace intrigue and a mysterious plague that is causing problems for the King. But what differentiates it from Kingdom is that it’s not zombies but a giant monster that attacks people threatening the king’s rule making it the industry’s first period creature film. The monarch (Park Hee-soon) assigns a former general (Kim Myung-min) to investigate what’s happening as those around the king seek to undermine him. Its backdrop, therefore, was uniquely Korean bringing together tropes from the period genre and those associated with the thrills of a monster movie. 

Directed and written by Huh Jong-ho, also starring Choi Woo-shik, Kim In-kwon and Lee Hye-ri and released in September 2018, it was invited to SITGES in Catalonia where it won the Audience Award in the Panorama Fantastic Section.

OTT Series - Sweet Home, Gyeongseong Creature 

Netflix has seen extraordinary success in financing genre-driven series that has put it in a leading position in the industry. Not just Squid Game, but Kingdom, All of Us are Dead, Sweet Home and others. The streamer’s focus on Korean dystopia is striking, which is very much on display in Sweet Home that spans two seasons. 

Starring Song Kang, Lee Jin-wook and Lee Si-young, it is based on the enormously popular webtoon of the same name by Kim Carnby and Hwang Youngchan in which humans turn into deadly creatures. One teenager (Song Kang) together with the residents of an apartment complex come together in a fight for survival. In the second season, the survivors venture outside into the apocalyptic world. 

Such dystopian content, which could also include Squid Game and Train to Busan sees humans having to fight or compete with each other in a battle to survive. 

The backdrop in Gyeongseong Creature is quite different set in the Japanese colonial period.  Taking place in 1945, it follows the owner of a pawnshop (Park Seo-joon) who develops a relationship with a young sleuth (Han So-hee) looking for her mother. Their search takes them to a hospital where the Japanese military are conducting cruel experiments on Korean prisoners that leads to the creation of a monster. 

Korean Films dealing with the colonial period connected with audiences in the 2010s with features such as Assassination (2015) and The Age of Shadows (2016) using big budgets, impressive set-pieces and compelling narratives. The influx of investment from streaming platforms has not only enabled the industry to incorporate some of what was seen in feature films and apply it to the mini-series format but it has also produced content with an even greater emphasis on genre thrills that’s also evident in Parasyte: The Grey capitalizing on the global demand for K-content. 

Edited by Shim Eunha

Written by Jason Bechervaise