Webtoons are not just providing source material for k-dramas. They are increasingly inspiring for k-movie storylines.
For example, "Tazza, The High Rollers," the 2006 gambling film was inspired by a comic created by Huh Young Man and Kim Se Young. The original film starred Jo Seung Woo and Kim Hye Soo. And the recent sequel, "Tazza: The Hidden Card," starred Kim Woo Bin, Shin Se Kyung and Lee Honey followed the story through the next generation of gamblers.
"Secretly Greatly" is one of the most successful examples of a web comic that became a film. The action comedy film starring Kim Soo Hyun, Parlk Ki Woong and Lee Hyun Woo is based on the 2010 spy webtoon series "Covetness," which received over 40 million page hits. When the film was released in 2013, it also did well. "Secretly, Greatly" broke box office records with the highest single day opening for a domestic film, the most tickets sold in one day for a domestic film, the biggest opening weekend and the highest grossing webtoon-based film. The main characters in the film are spies who have happily assimilated into South Korean life when their mission is suddenly called off and they are deemed dispensible. If you want to see what the excitement was about, you can watch the film or read the original comic at Spottoon.com.
Another webtoon-insipired film was "The Five." Kim Sun Ah played a woman who was brutally attacked and lost her family. After that she lives for revenge and enlists five people to help her. The cast included Shin Jung Geum, Jung In Ki, Park Hyo Koo, Ma Dong Suk, On joo Wan and Lee Chung Ah. The author of the must-read webtoon, Jung Yeon Shik also directed the film adaptation.
"Moss" by webtoon author Yoon Tae Ho has been called the most famous of the second generation of webtoons. The film was adapted into a film in 2010 as "Ikki." Yoon Tae Ho was also the author of the webtoon that inspired the award-winning drama "Misaeng." "Moss" starred Park Hae Il, Jung Jae Young and Yoo Jung Sang. You can read the original comic about a village with a web of dark secrets online.
It can be fun to read the original comics that inspired the films and then see the films. Or even the other way around.
