This trailer is a lot wackier than one we saw earlier this year (also in Korean):

And here's an inexplicably long English-language explanation of the film.

Yes, it's your classic researcher-vs-giant-pig movie.

Pretty cool, but but this pig will never be as scary as the wormy megapig spirit from Princess Mononoke!

via Undead Backbrain (Thanks, Avery "Mondo Kaiju" Guerra!)

According to Plastic Pals:

The Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST) held an open house Technology Exhibit, where some of their latest research and development projects were showcased . . . Mahru III, a humanoid robot co-developed by KIST and Samsung, copies the movements of a human wearing a special suit which senses muscle movements.

via Plastic Pals

The Busan, South Korea film festival featured a retrospective on Asian superheros that included Super Inframan, a 1975 feature from China. Today it plays like Power Rangers, but the set design is tremendous:

In the eighties, the Asian superhero in cinema included a superheroine for the first time, Darna, and Mr. India did the Invisible Man trick.

Superheroes increasingly came from working class backgrounds, surpassing whatever caste system kept them in place, and soaring above. (This year's Phillippines series Captain Barbell has that market cornered.) The 1980s also gave us the legendary double agent, magician/crossbow crimefighter, Toofan (right). Somewhere along the way Asian writers began to look back to older characters, including Kamen Rider, who made it the big screen in 2005 as the Masked Rider:

2006's Mercury Man was a more Western take, with a hero overtly modeled after Spiderman. Mercury Man is a Thai fighting Afghan terrorists for America, a concept that continues to make our brain explode. The Mumbai-born director Rakesh Roshan's Krrish project brought Bollywood and Superman together this year. Krrish is already the second sequel in the series, after Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai and the E.T.-inspired Koi… Mil Gaya. It's doubtful this Superman-ripoff would have much crossover appeal, but perhaps the world is ready for a non-white The Tick who sings?

While 2006's Krrish was something of an artistic success and definitely scored with audiences, 2008's Drona (which opened wide at the beginning of October), is by all accounts a dreadful superhero "epic," one described as Harry Potter meets Indiana Jones. Yikes. Better films are in sight, starting with the Cicak Man sequel, Cicakman 2: Planet Hitam, where the heroine's lizard powers will battle the Ginger Boys in a film with the original's comedic tone.

The biggest project in Korea is Jeon Woo Chi. Director Dong-hun Choi helms this sci-fi fantasy epic that includes wizards. The film takes advantage of its setting's rich history — the story stretches all the way back to 1509. We were sold when we heard the protagonist referred to as "an undisciplined womanizing Taoist." A Harry Potter that does wire-fighting probably isn't the worst idea if you're a fan of making money.

The Deepak Chopra superhero is coming as well: Ramayan 3392 A.D. is in development from Master and Commander scribe and 300 producer Mark Canton.

Liquid, Mandalay team for 'Ramayan' [Hollywood Reporter]

There will be a Chinese sequel to the movie which is completely separate from the Korean one, and the filmmakers are calling it a "localized" version. The already-announced Korean The Host 2 seems to be stalling out, but attempts to open up the Chinese market to the franchise are zooming — despite the politically-critical nature of the original film.

According to the president of Korean production house Chungeorahm, Choi Yong-bae:

Chinese film markets are driven by blockbusters with themes of epic drama and martial arts. It's time to provide more varied types of commercial films... When 'The Host' topped the Chinese box office in March last year, I was reassured that a sequel for Chinese audience would be possible.

The movie will be half-funded by Chungeorahm, and half by Chinese production house Stone Man Films; with production aimed at a 2009 start date, expect a release date sometime in 2010. Though the Chinese sequel has a director and cast, the Korean sequel remains in purgatory. No director or cast announcements have been made. At this rate, the Chinese sequel may become the sequel to The Host.

Korea/China take on 'Host' sequel [Variety]

This is Rome. Lee screen prints these images onto materials like textile, paper, and wood using bright colors and great attention to detail. Most art depicting a certain locale becomes dated almost immediately, but Lee's art transcends time — in his work, you can see how Paris looked at any point throughout the last several hundred years. Images by Lee Jang Sub

Complexcity main page via MoCo Loco

Unlike Park's previous mega-hits, like Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Cyborg didn't become a giant box office hit in Korea. But it's doing pretty well in the film festival circuit overseas — it won an award in Berlin, and opened the festival in Hong Kong. It plays next at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival on March 15th and 16th. Here's a quick analysis of what I felt were the most unique aspects of this movie:

Characters:
Beginning with overly imaginative, schizophrenic Il-Sun — played by pop heartthrob Rain — the story includes some unforgettable characters you learn to love. There's an elder woman with myth-o-mania, a guy who sewed up his own butt, a guy who fell in platonic love with a calf he was raising, a woman who's obsessed with her skin and her flying socks, and a girl whose dream is to join the Edelweiss Choir. And then there's Young-goon, who is convinced she is a cyborg with a mission to obliterate all "white coats" but isn't quite sure how she's supposed to recharge her batteries (instead of eating lunch, she has a lunch box full of alkaline cells that she sticks in her mouth at mealtimes). "I didn't come with an instruction manual," she says.

Emotional baggage:
Humans have a lot of emotional baggage. Perhaps one of the reasons Young-goon decided she was a cyborg was because she stopped feeling things — or she felt too much and inadvertently turned it all off. We get glimpses of her past, which include a grandmother who was convinced her offspring were all mice and a mother who avoided her child's existential questions by turning to radish. Later, when she finds the secret cyborg manifesto while staying at the hospital, it stipulates that the seven deadly sins for cyborgs are sympathy, thankfulness, hesitation, daydreaming, being sad, restlessness, and feeling guilty. In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Il-sun performs a virtual operation on Young-goon, taking away her sympathy and allowing her to attain a full charge and become the killing machine that she was destined to be. It's interesting that this seemingly heartless act is really driven by a very human emotion, vengeance. Meanwhile, Il-sun takes pride in his stealing skills — his parents ignored him so much when he was a kid that he believes he is sometimes invisible.

Seeking comfort in machinery:
Since Young-goon can't relate to other humans, she seeks solace in her conversations with the vending machine and the pay phone, and she takes orders from the mysterious voice coming out of her radio. The nurses can't get her to eat, so at one point in the film, they decide to give her shock therapy. Lying there with hundreds of wires sticking out of the treatment cell they put her in, Young-goon feels right at home. She reveals that she was raised by electrical wires in an incubator. "I feel like I've been born again," she says as the session ends and her toes light up. She walks off her wheelchair, goes upstairs, loads up her ammo, and goes on a full-scale massacre of the evil white coats, storing cartridges in her mouth and dispatching bullets machine gun-style from her dainty fingers.

Here's the totally pop-y trailer:

The nearby metonymic Dongdaemun World Design Park will open in 2010. It's designed by Zaha Hadid. Images by the Seoul Metropolitan Government

Seoul Metropolitan Government via Designboom

The entire time I was reading this story, I had the most powerful feelings of deja vu. I eventually figured out why. "Korea of Space" is remarkably similar in plot to the original Star Trek series episode "Space Seed," only heavier on the Red Scare agitprop and tragically devoid of an over-the-top fight scene featuring William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban.

To set the scene, 22nd century cop Jon Jarl has discovered a satellite full of frozen North Korean soldiers embedded in an asteroid, and upon defrosting them with his "Atomic Heat Lamp," sets about giving them a history lesson:

"You lie!" snarled Yong, giving out a string of Oriental oaths. "How could the bloated, decadent, capitalistic world win out against the mighty red star coalition of nations?"

"You can cut out all the ideological rubbish," Jon drawled bitingly. Already he hated these men who had followed that ancient evil code of human slavery. "You and all your misguided Red allies got a thumping licking by the United Nations. If you don't believe me, it's all down in black-and-white in the history books. Deny that if you can!"

Jon shook his head. "You can't fool me," he spat back. "You Reds understand only one thing - a good licking! What I want is unconditional surrender!"

Historical inevitability versus laser beams [Armagideon Time]

Korean scientists have developed a new telescope which takes thousands of frames in a few seconds, using Micro-Electrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology. The ability to machine small pieces of equipment, and silicon chips, allows researchers to create micro-shutters and micro-optical devices. The MEMS telescope's high quantity of images will allow scientists to study mega lightning in detail for the first time. Ko San blasts off April 6 from Kazakhstan. Mega-lightning image from NOAA's Severe Storms Laboratory. [Yonhap News]