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Changing gears a bit from the folklore creatures and mythical beasts that are born out of ancient myths, the next non-human characters we’d like to discuss has a much shorter history; They have only come about by human imagination in the last 100 years or so.
Alien
Aliens, also known as extraterritorial life, is a general term used to describe life that does not originate from Earth. They first became a popularized concept thank to a HG Wells’ 1897 novel The War Of The Worlds during the Victorian era. But in studying the history of science fiction cinema, you can see that it took over 50 years for aliens to then take off in mainstream movies.
Before the 1950s, sci-fi cinema was dominated by mad scientists and monsters on the rampage. But thanks to post WWII nuclear bomb paranoia, anti-communist anxiety during the Cold War, and advancement in special effects technologies, the 50s became a prolific and well-received era for alien movies. Though the 60s had few notable pieces, the 70s saw some of the most influential sci-fi movies yet including the global hit franchise Star Wars, Star Trek, and Aliens. While the 80s continued the horror undertone for the most part, the 90s experimented more with comedic portrayals of aliens such as seen in the Man in Black series. By the 2000s, aliens have became such an accepted, and often humanized, character type that even animated films for kids began to include them in adorable forms.
Nonetheless, while aliens are making frequent appearances on the big screen, they’re far from becoming a staple character type in Kdramas. Partly due to the fact that Kdramas lag in the special effects department (and budget) compared to movies, and partly because the essential element of Kdrama, romance, is difficult to package between a human and a bizarre looking thing. Therefore, the only alien characters we’ve witnessed in Kdramas thus far inevitably resemble human in form. Now, let’s take a look at Korean drama’s extraterritorial beings.
Alien Sam (2006)
Perhaps the first drama including alien characters (of what I can find at least), Alien Sam is a story about a reptilian prince from another planet who flees to Earth with his servant due to a coup. He disguises himself as a human named Bong Sam and works as a teacher at a middle school while waiting for the rebellion to be over before returning.
My Love From the Star (2013)
The most famous alien of the Kdrama world is from this popular rom-com series. It’s about an alien who landed on Earth in the Joseon era. He misses his trip back to his planet and is stranded on Earth for the next four centuries. He possesses supernatural powers like hyper speed, ability to stop time, and he never ages. 400 years later, with only three months left before his long-awaited departure back to his plant, he meets a famous Hallyu actress who suddenly becomes his next-door neighbor. Soon, they began to develop feelings for each other and fall in love.
Robot
On a similar note, other popular non-human sci-fi character types such as robots, cyborgs, and AIs (artificial intelligence) have long penetrated the big screen and even anime, but yet to leave their marks in Korean drama. Though there have been a couple exploratory web drama series dedicated to robots in the last 12 months, they haven’t hit critical mass as of yet. Nonetheless, it’s comforting to hear recent announcements of an upcoming full-length drama titled Dual that’ll feature a human clone.
Bong Soon – A Cyborg in Love (2016)
A beautiful, intelligent and nearly perfect cyborg named Bong Soon falls in love with a talented computer programmer. But the hurdle they must overcome is Bong Soon’s peculiar fail-safe built into her system, where her would shut down as soon as love stirs in her cybernetic heart. But despite this design flaw, our hero sets out to write the ultimate code for romance.
109 Strange Things (2017)
KDI-109 is a male robot from the future. He comes to live with a girl who is studying in the philosophy department and suddenly love fills the air.
I for one, would love to see a bit more aliens and machinery in the land of Korean dramas since there’s so much room for creativity. What do you think? Share you thoughts with us in the comments section below. Coming up next is our recap of Kdrama ghosts, read all about it here.
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