Busan Revisits THE HOST 3D and 1967 YONGARY

Primary Korean Film Festival Puts Two Monster Movies on This Year`s List Author: Kim Song-ho Source: Busan International Film Festival The 3D version of Bong Joon-ho`s THE HOST (?? / Gwoemul, 2006) and Kim Ki-duk`s classic YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP (??? ??? / Daegoesu Yonggary, 1967) will be shown at this year`s Busan* International Film Festival (BIFF, October 6~14). The event is known to be one of the most prosperous Asian film festivals in the world, first launched in 1996. THE HOST 3D is a surprise entry, as its existence was not known by the majority of Korean filmgoers or press before the festival announcement on September 8. Because the movie was produced before the 3D boom caused by James Cameron`s AVATAR (2009), it was post-converted from 2D. Production studio Chungeorahm Films had previously announced that the sequel (which has been in development for years) might be produced in 3D, and a short 3D prototype clip was actually shown at the World IT Show this past May. A direct connection between the 3D version of the original movie and the upcoming sequel has not been confirmed, but the conversion work might have been an experiment for the sequel`s visual effects.

When it was opened in 2006, THE HOST became the highest-grossing movie at the all-time Korean box office chart, with more than 13 million admissions. Director Bong`s next project is a live action adaptation of LE TRANSPERCENEIGE, a French comic book series by Jean-Marc Rochette. Fellow Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (of OLD BOY fame) is attached to produce. THE HOST 3D will makes its world premiere as an entry in the Gala Presentation category of BIFF. Meanwhile, YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP was chosen as one of nine movies for the festival`s Korean Cinema Retrospective category. This year, the classic films of YONGARY director Kim Ki-duk and KINSHIP director Kim Soo-yong will be presented to a contemporary audience, and Kim Ki-duk is expected to have major reappraisal as eight of his movies will be shown at the event. As many regular readers of SciFi Japan already know, the original Korean language negatives of YONGARY was lost, and the English-dubbed version is the only complete version available today. The BIFF official website lists the running time of the movie as 80 minutes, so it is safe to assume that the English-dubbed version will be shown. Recently, YONGARY made a much-belated domestic TV debut. Korean channel EBS aired the movie on June 19 in HD for the first time in Korea. * Note: Busan (??) was previously known as Pusan in English. In 2000, the Korean government revised the laws regarding romanizing the Korean language, so it became Busan, much faithful to the original pronunciation. However, the official name of the festival, Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) remained unchanged until 2011.

For more information on THE HOST, THE HOST 2, the Chinese sequel, and the American THE HOST remake, please see the previous coverage here on SciFi Japan:

And for more on YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP, including its production history and restoration process for the DVD, please see the following articles: