'Beauty Water' becomes 1st Korean animated film to win award at Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival

Animated film "Beauty Water" / Courtesy of Triple Pictures

By Dong Sun-hwa

Horror-thriller "Beauty Water" has become the first Korean animated movie to win the best animated feature award at the 46th Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, its production team said Tuesday.

The festival, which was held Feb. 10-15, is the oldest independent genre film festival in the United States. Every year, it showcases more than 100 science fiction features and short films from around the world.

This year, the best animated feature award went to "Beauty Water," directed by Cho Kyung-hun. It is the story of a makeup artist named Yeji, whose life takes a drastic turn after she comes across a mysterious liquid "beauty water" that turns her into a perfect beauty. The animated film was an adaptation of a popular web comic "Tales of the Unusual" by Oh Seong-dae.

"It seems women are more likely than men to fall victim to 'lookism,'" director Cho said in a media interview last year, referring to the discriminatory treatment of people based on physical appearance. "Even having an attractive face can inflict damage on some people ― we tried to focus on these points."

"Beauty Water" was also invited to the 44th Annecy International Film Festival and the 39th Vancouver International Film Festival, among many others.

Despite being a homegrown animated movie ― which usually sell fewer tickets than mainstream films ― "Beauty Water" attracted more than 100,000 moviegoers in Korea upon its release last September. It was also screened in many other countries, including Singapore and New Zealand.

Earlier in February, another homegrown animated flick "Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs" became the first Korean animated movie to be included in a preliminary list of nominations for best animated feature film at the 93rd Academy Awards.

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