The film and television road of Japanese and Korean suspense novels

Source: Global Times

Chen Shangwen, a reporter of this newspaper, chen Yang, a special correspondent of this newspaper

Adapting excellent, popular crime mystery novels into film and television works can be said to be a major tradition in Japan. For example, this year, the crime suspense novel "The Legacy of euthanasia Doctor" by popular Japanese writer Shichiari Nakayama was adapted into a movie, and "Northern Lights" by the famous Japanese suspense novelist Hideo Yokoyama was adapted into a series. As for whether crime suspense novels should be adapted into film and television works, posts on the Japanese Internet that "crime suspense novels that cannot be filmed and television" will appear from time to time. The reason for thinking that it cannot be filmed is that the adaptation of the novel into a film and television work will limit the reader's imagination, especially after the actor's interpretation, the reader's cognition of the protagonist of the novel will become single and rigid. However, some netizens with different opinions believe that the depiction of the details of the novel in film and television works helps to deepen the overall understanding of the original novel.

As a Successful Adaptation of a Novel, the Japanese Film and Television Works have to mention the novel "Inuyasha Family" created by the famous Japanese mystery writer Masashi Yokomizu. In Japan, this crime mystery novel has been adapted into a film and television series second only to "Eight Tombs Village", especially the 1976 version of the film directed by the well-known Japanese director Ichikawa Kun, which has been called "the pyramid of Japanese cinema" by the Japanese media. In addition, novels such as Keigo Higashino's "The Dedication of Suspect X" and "Wings of the Kirin", as well as Japanese mystery and suspense novelist Mimata Yoshinagi's "Confession", have also received wide acclaim after being converted into film and television dramas. Of course, there are also some film adaptations of crime suspense novels that are not very successful. For example, released in 2005, "The Summer of the Birds" was adapted from the best-selling mystery novel of Natsuhiko Kyogoku, chairman of the Japan Mystery Writers Association, and the film did not achieve the expected results after its release, and many Japanese readers criticized that the film did not shoot the essence of the original work, the character setting was unreasonable, and the plot was too jumpy.

If you want to talk about the suspense classic in the minds of Koreans, "The Memory Law of the Murderer" is a rare work of mutual achievement between the film and the original novel. Released in 2017, the film is adapted from the novel of the same name by the famous Korean writer Kim Young-ha, which has been distributed in 130,000 copies from July 2014 to the release of the film, which is a good result in South Korea; then with the help of the film, 145,000 copies were printed, which is the first time that the original novel made into a film has won the first place in the comprehensive category of Korean best-selling books after Kong Zhiyong's "The Melting Pot" in 2011. This phenomenon is known in South Korea as a "screen bestseller". The phenomenon of "bestsellers on screen" has brought a new landscape to the Korean publishing industry, and novels whose film rights are sold are additionally costly.

In recent years, with the continuous expansion of the influence of Korean online comics and the scale of the industrial market, the film and television of popular suspense online comic works has also become a hot spot. The 2010 Korean thriller suspense film Moss was adapted from the webcomic of the same name by cartoonist Yoon Tae-ho, which received 36 million hits in 2007 and won the "2007 Korea Manga Awards Excellence Award". In order to bring the 70-chapter comic to the screen, director Kang Youshuo even thought of making the film the first part of The Korean film to be the first episode. From comics to movies, Walking with God is undoubtedly a phenomenon in South Korea. The work is a popular manga created by Korean cartoonist Cho Ho-min, which was divided into three seasons and ended on August 29, 2012. The original manga won numerous awards in South Korea, and the film "Walking with God: Crime and Punishment", adapted from the first season of the manga, won the highest box office award at the 39th Blue Dragon Film Awards in South Korea. Now that the web comic has ended, and the movie is still continuing, whether the suspenseful and magical plot in the comic is reflected in the movie, exploring the difference between the two has become a common passion for fans and fans.