Fantasy thriller series to be rebooted in film

Choo Sang-mi in “The Seoul Guardians” (1998)

By Baek Byung-yeul

Best-selling author Lee Woo-hyuk hated "The Soul Guardians,’’ the 1998 movie that was the film adaptation of his fantasy thriller, "Toemarok.’’ It ate into his soul so much that now, 20 years after the novel’s debut, Lee is moving to reboot “Toemarok” as a movie series and plans to dictate the process himself from start to finish.

"I am not ready to talk about the specifics yet, but there has been considerable progress on filming my novels,’’ Lee said.

"I will write the draft scripts. I know there are a lot of talented screenwriters out there and I am not disrespecting any of them. But no one understands my novels better than myself.’’

It remains to be seen, however, whether film studios and investors will be eager to commit to a material dating back to the first year of the Kim Young-sam presidency. Lee is not ready to talk too much about the new movie he claims to be in the works, but says it will be a trilogy, just like the movie versions of the most famous fantasy novel of all time, "Lord of the Rings.’’

Lee started writing “Toemarok,” which revolved around ``demon repellers’’ fighting evil supernatural beings in Korea’s urban back allies, on the Internet in 1993. The series quickly gained immense readership and publishers were soon competing to massage Lee’s ego for the rights for the paperback version, which was released in 1994 and has sold nearly 10 million copies since. The four-volume series was finished in 2001, but the books were released in new designs last year.

Lee believes “The Soul Guardians” dented the legacy of the “Toemarok” series and is eager to correct that. Starring an A-list cast of Ahn Sung-ki, Choo Sang-mi and Shin Hyun-joon and a then-unprecedented budget of 2.4 billion won, the movie was a colossal flop at the box office, where it managed to sell only 400,000 tickets. Lee, who said he was at a loss for words after the screening, claims the movie was bad because he wasn’t involved in it.

"I was totally excluded from the production process from the very beginning,” said Lee, adding that the movie became a source of his nightmares for years.