Japan to Korea: You stole your monster from us!

Reader Comments

1. Eight Rooks 09/03/2006 @ 6:05pm

   “Don’t link to them if you don’t want to know too much about Gwoemul’s appearance”? Uh, haven’t you just given away a whopping amount yourself with those screens? I’m not too miffed myself, though I was hoping for it to be something of a surprise, but some people who really love their monster flicks might be…

2. Todd Brown 09/03/2006 @ 6:38pm

   The conceptual art linked here actually shows a fair bit less than some of the posters do. I did remove the death spoiler, though ... naughty boy, Mack.

3. Eight Rooks 09/03/2006 @ 7:07pm

   Oh, I just meant the pictures above, seeing as how some sites - Grady’s and Twitch, I think - were making a little bit of fuss about “don’t look at these links if you don’t want to know what the monster looks like!” and, well, you’ve just shown us. XD But eh, I’m not too bothered.

   Although heh, I’m glad I didn’t read those four points too closely!

4. Mack 09/03/2006 @ 7:29pm

   Yes, in hindsight the warning is still redundant. Thank you, Eight Rooks. Duly noted and removed. And the death thing? Good call. But Todd’s misspelling of the word ‘power’ has been changed too. Naughty Todd.

5. David 09/03/2006 @ 11:23pm

   Hmm.. strange that they’d steal a monster from such a crappy movie. Everything else Patlabor rocks, though.

6. axleu 09/04/2006 @ 1:04am

   I think the third Patlabor movie is a little underrated, IMHO. Just don’t jump on this “occasion” to bash this movie…

7. Elusive 09/04/2006 @ 3:30am

   Anti-Korean sentiments or not, they are pretty similar. It wasn’t really the pictures though, but more the conceptual comparisons that swayed me.

   BTW, I just noticed the “digg this” links. Very cool, and I’ll be sure to digg an article if I feel it would be a hit with the community.

   I think I’ve considered posting a Twitch article on digg before, but decided against it when I imagined what the digg effect might do to your server!

8. Esh 09/04/2006 @ 6:43am

   I’m not really going to complain about monsters being so similar to each other, it’s happened so many times before, and the Host is so damn good.

   Bias? Hell yes. :(

9. Toros 09/04/2006 @ 7:16am

   the similarity between “three” monsters is beyond doubt but this doesn’t stop me anticipating “The Host”

10. Peter Sung 09/04/2006 @ 9:26pm

    Similarity? Are you serious? You could say the same damn thing about almost every monster in any monster movie you’ve seen. It’s always a copy of something else, with a different twist to it.

    Also to equate a anime rendered monster to a fully CGI one is more stupid. There are sites FX and Orphanage sites that describe the specific processes used to create the monster in “The Host”. Here are some links:

    http://www.vfxworld.com/?sa=adv&code;=319b255d&atype;=articles&id;=2963

    and

    http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3678

    I hardly call that copying, especially when that process is waaaay more detailed than no 2D animated drawing from a bad movie.

    Im sure there are similarities, which may have resulted in the creators borrowing from other monsters (and no its not THIS Japanese one either) but its not no “copy”. Read the links above, that will tell you “how” they created the monster.

11. arsonist 09/04/2006 @ 11:01pm

    hey Peter, thanks for the links. really interesting details!

12. bertol 09/05/2006 @ 3:24pm

    A look at the yahoo Japan movie comments page, man were they nasty. Rip-off asides, the general consensus seems to be that this is just a mediocre b movie. Seen-it-all, done-it before. The special effects weren’t particularly impressive, acting were awkward, so they can’t fathom how this ‘crap’ (their word) could wow Cannes audience, and question korean people’s taste and if this can make a big fuss, or is it because Korean people rarely see monster movies or what not. (because as we all know Japanese people get attack by giant monsters all the time...)

13. TiGrBaLm 09/05/2006 @ 9:16pm

    You think if the movie wasn’t so darned popular and smashing records that the Japanese would be making such a fuss? I never heard a peep out of them when Ring Virus was released.

14. Gaijin 09/07/2006 @ 6:42pm

    Popular?

    Smashing records?

    Japanese theatres showing “The Host” are already near empty.

    Considering the massive advertising campaign,

    the film is a dismal failure.

    TiGrBaLm, please stop pulling facts from your arse.

15. ShazBo 10/01/2006 @ 6:21am

    He’s not wrong. It is popular… in the country it was made. South Korea 12.3 million tickets sold. I just saw it today at an international film festival (the director was there too) and I personally thought it was pretty good. The people who wrote that review up top probably didnt see the movie because the CGi looked fantastic compared to anything I’ve seen in all of Asia. Plus if it was a B Movie then the Patlabor movie would be considered a B-Movie as well. The fanboyism from Japan is expected. Patlabor Mobile Police is a popular series in Japan. People will defend it even if the series creators don’t care. Much like Cantonese who love Infernal Affairs are against The Departed (like myself) even though the creators sold the script to Hollywood.

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17. audi tt 01/30/2007 @ 2:29pm

    Good site. Thanks.

18. achronimus 09/22/2007 @ 10:01am

    Ok dudes, I had to put some comments to make the situation clear.
    Similarity? No doubt about it. As someone said, many famous movies have some similarities to other sources, although they made the difference… why not admit that most of successful productions were inspired by previous ideas?
    For the pride of japanese fellows it is a big chance to point some other country’s product as a copy of their own made one (which is a habit that japanese know very well). So their interest is just to discredit the korean made stuff.
    Failure or success? It depends on audience point of view. Maybe for the people from western countries is no matter either the movie is korean or vietnamies, if it’s well made then big surprise!
    Actually I am european and I work in CG, well guys,I have to say that I was really stunned when I first saw the teaser. I love this movie, except for the (people who didn’t see it yet do not read the next quote) “we did all we could do but we couldn’t save her..” typical asiatic drama ending. And I am not against japanese or korean as well.
    But here in Asia where I live, it is closely connected to the relationship between one country to another if they watch a movie with some prejudice. You may know that relationships between asian countries are not so friendly.
    So this is the explaination for the Cannes wowing at it and the japanese theaters empty.
    Like general Kenobi would say “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view”

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