Devotion of Hyunwoo Thomas Kim!

Back in 2014 when South Koreanborn Americaneducated producer Hyunwoo Thomas Kim Thomas had shifted his film firm Kross Pictures from LA to Seoul hersquod regularly receive emails from one ldquoBalajirdquo in MumbaiAssuming some sorta spam still doubting Thomas once opened the mail from this company called Balaji It looked legit Thomas holds global filming rights to Keigo Higashinorsquos Japanese bestseller The Devotion of Suspect X DevotionKorean Japanese Chinese film adaptations of which have all topped national boxoffice charts Blokes at Balaji wished to acquire it for a Hindi remakeThe way it works for Thomas as producer who buys rights of filmsseriesbooksIPs puts together projects ismdashforemost he wishes to know whorsquos gonna direct before he gets onboardThe director attached to Devotion was Sujoy Ghosh Thomas watched Ghoshrsquos Kahaani 2012 was suitably impressed Hence he came down to Mumbai ldquofirst time in Indiardquo to meet with the director and execsWhat he saw he tells me left him amazed ldquoFor one everyone speaks English which meant itrsquos easy to do business Koreans in general donrsquot know anything about India How many of them do you see walking around here as tourists NonerdquoStills from Jaane Jaan starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Te3n starring Amitabh BachchanThe second thing he wouldrsquove noticed is the sheer number of Korean films that continue to be inspiredcopied into Hindi mdash ever since in particular Park Chanwookrsquos Oldboy 2003 as Sanjay Guptarsquos Zinda 2006 mdash that the Seoul film industry still simply doesnrsquot knowcare aboutThomas set up an office in Mumbai in 2015 based on a hypothesis he tells me in the conference room of his companyrsquos SV Road Bandra offshootldquoI figured India has a huge market great directors actorshellip What it lacks are writers of the calibre in Korea There was a gap to fill Initially people thought I was crazy to spend so much timemoney in Mumbai Or that I had a girlfriend in IndiaI donrsquotrdquoOver the past decade Thomas has produced six feature films in India in Hindi Tamil Telugu based on Korean filmsscripts starring the likes of Sonam Kapoor Samantha Ruth Prabhu besides dubbing Korean Web Toons and a slate of reality shows coming up one of which based on cricketHis Bollywood films have been headlined by Amitabh Bachchan Ribhu Dasguptarsquos Te3n based on Jeong KeunSeobrsquos The Montage and Kareena Kapoor Khan that is Ghoshrsquos Jaane Jaan Netflix Indiarsquos toptitle of 2023It was based on Higashinorsquos Devotion which is how Thomasrsquos India story began The short answer to why it took him eight long years to complete that circle is Jeethu Josephrsquos Drishyam 2013 already inspiredby DevotionThomas considered suing Drishyamrsquos producers but ldquoBalajirsquos Ekta Kapoor backed offrdquoThomas has since sued and won thrice over unauthorised copies of material he owns rights tomdashsuch as Lee Hwankyungrsquos Miracle in Cell No 7 2013 which released as a Kannada hit Pushpaka Vimana 2017Court ordered injunction against it after theatrical run Thomas smiles ldquoI realised the Indian judicial system is fair Now I announce once I acquire rights of Korean contentrdquoThe global Korean Spring visagravevis films is in fact part of a wider Hallyu or Kwave that includes Kpop Kdramas Kbeautyfashion KeverythingMy reading of it based on Euny Yongrsquos brilliant book The Birth of Korean Cool 2014 is it got initiated by the Korean government mdash directly investing in films bands etc with softpower export as instrument of state policy mdash after the 1997 EastAsian financial crisisThomas asks me instead ldquoHave you seen Korean films from before 2000 Theyrsquore terriblerdquoTherersquos that one blockbuster he recalls KangJekyursquos espionage thriller Shiri 1999 that blew open the Korean film industry ldquoBest minds from multiple fields felt there was money to be made from movies As did major corporationsrdquoThis included screenwriters who became ldquorespected namesrdquo The outcome is 80 per cent of Korean content gets consumed globallyThomas says ldquoUnlike India where there hasnrsquot been a superhit global title like Squid Games or Parasite because the raw writing talent is not of global standards But things are changingrdquoOver the years Thomas groans hersquos rounded up some of Indian cinemarsquos best writers to localise Korean scripts ldquoI give them Mercedes Benz Theyrsquore used to Mahindra No knock on Mahindra But the calibre is different It hasnrsquot been easy to execute once they adaptrdquoCan you merely throw money at that problem and even reverse the KoreaIndia screen tradeTo be fair as Irsquove observed with Bollywood it takes a second to strike off an idea mdash the effort is in the building of it Also original writing is such a laboriously personalsolitary pursuit even meditative that canrsquot be mediated by endless feedbackmeetings that corporates and honchoes of all hives love mainly to feel selfimportantSpeaking of which Thomas is obviously the oddball at movie meetings in Mumbai the sole rep from Seoul But he gets taken seriously ldquoIrsquove met with everyone including Shah Rukh Khan who first messaged me about a scriptrdquoLikewise he adds ldquoJust yesterday I texted Akshay Kumar whorsquos in London asking him to watch a particular film that everyone in the industry knows about Sujoy Ghosh has already worked on its draft If Akshay agrees we have a projectrdquoThatrsquod be daebak or jackpot as the Koreans sayMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper