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Taekwon V Movie Restoration And Plagiarism Claims Date: 10/13/2005 |
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Debuting in 1976, creator / director Cheong-gi Kim's Taekwon V was the first full length animated feature to be released in South Korea. It enjoyed wide commerical success and is seen today as a classic and masterpiece. Original prints of the film were thought to have all but rotted away and vanished. Seven sequels spun off, running through the early 1990's. The work has come to the news forefront in Korea and Japan recently due to a miraculous find a few years ago by the Korean Film Council. What they discovered was an original 35mm reel containing the '76 feature. In 2002, Cheong-gi Kim commented to Korea Today regarding the find: "When I heard the film had been found, I felt as if a long lost child had returned to me." which was very popular in the Korean television. In September of 2005 the KOFIC announced the completion of a two-year effort to restore the film from various sources, including the newly discovered print. Transferred to digital format and restored by a team of 72 people, the effortcost a total of one billion won (US$1 million). Employing color correction, reducing grain, erasing the effects of dirt and scratches and providing a new 5.1ch Dolby soundtrack in addition to the restored original soundtrack, the team worked on every one of the film's 108,852 frames, one-by-one. The restored film first screened during the Pusan International Film Festival held October 9-11. A future commercial release is also under consideration. The work has long been compared to the Japanese animation Mazinger Z. Some have said the content is a little too similar the Go Nagai anime. Mazinger enjoyed incredible success on South Korean TV when it first appeared, and Kim admits when coming up with Taekwon V, "I wanted give Korean children another hero". In a September 22nd interview conducted by the Kuki News, Kim, now 65, addressed recent claims appearing on Japanese internet message boards, blogs and forums that the content was copied from similar Japanese animation works. "I grow melancholic every time the story of plagiarism is heard" he said. "It is true that Magengar Z had existed previously with the concept of a super-humanoid robot". The creator uses the metaphor of a car in relation to the debate. "Imagine the way a car looks in your head. If seen from a long distance, all basically have 4 tires and a body." "If seen up close, each design can appear unique." "To tell the truth, people in Japan have mimicked German car designs." He adds that in the strictest sense the story conatined in Mazinger Z was not of 100% original composition, when Mazinger first appeared in 1972 cartoons featuring giant robots had existed as many as 20 years beforehand. A bit of a sidenote, the "Japan VS Taekwon V" row has escalated as of this week. The fight itself has litteraly been manifested in animation form with the TV broadcast of a new CG spot featuring the giant robot staving off apparent Japanese attackers at sea. You can watch the short in Windows Media Player format here. |
| Source: Anime News Service |
