“Hellbound” is such an interesting meditation on good and evil. However, the webtoons started to on the platform when I was actually shooting the film “Peninsula.” Before that, we had just been talking about, but after began on the platform, Netflix and I began to discuss creating it into a live series. During the process of planning and creating the cartoon for “Hellbound,” we did talk about wanting to create a live-action series. The short animation was in 2002, and then the webtoon actually began about two years ago on Naver, with co-creator and cartoon artist Choi Kyu-Seok. In an interview with Variety, working with a translator provided by Netflix, Yeon discusses the origins of “Hellbound,” plans for season 2 and teases a potential third installment in his zombie trilogy that falls somewhere between “Train to Busan” and “Peninsula.” Tell me a bit about the process of adapting the animated film and webtoon into the live-action show.
#WAY OF THE CROSS MALAYALAM LYRICS IN ENGLISH SERIES#
The show is currently the streamer’s top non-English language series globally, just ahead of that other Korean TV sensation “Squid Game” in third place. The latter provided a handy proof of concept for a live-action series that was ultimately commissioned by Netflix. Similarly, “Hellbound” began life as a two-part animated film before being extended into a webtoon for Korean digital platform Naver. The former live-action film - starring Gong Yoo as a father shepherding his daughter to safety amid a zombie apocalypse - was preceded by animated prequel “Seoul Station” released the same year. “Hellbound” creator Yeon Sang-ho is perhaps best known internationally to date for acclaimed zombie thrillers “Train to Busan” (2016) and “Peninsula” (2020). In their orbit is The New Truth, a cult-like group of individuals that supports the supernatural arbiters of justice, led by insidious grandmaster Jeong Jin-soo. When the time comes, demons barrel onto Earth to mete out a grisly death sentence. The show is set in an alternate reality in which angels appear before individuals who have committed some wrongdoing to tell them of their impending demise.
In the first minutes of the pilot, giant, billowing demons - think The Hulk meets an evil Michelin Man - erupt into the heart of Seoul to torture and scorch to death one of the damned members of the public. Netflix’s latest genre offering from Korea, dark sci-fi thriller “Hellbound,” doesn’t waste any time in getting straight to the action. So this would be specifically “Train to Busan” or a film within the “Train to Busan” and “Peninsula” universe?.What about a TV adaptation for something like “Train to Busan”? Is that in the cards at all?.Do you have any plans for a third live-action zombie installment to make it a trilogy? “Peninsula” was a hit last year in Korea and in international markets.Could that be with Netflix in the future? What are your plans for season 2 of “Hellbound”? You’ve talked about wanting to expand your storytelling into a “Yeoniverse”-type world.What do you think is the impetus behind this drive towards genre programming? We have seen some high-level genre TV projects out of Korea really hitting a nerve internationally in the last year.What do you make of the comparisons to “Squid Game,” however misguided they may be? Both shows came out within months of each other and, I suppose loosely, touch on morality in an interesting way.There are a number of protagonists in the show, and halfway through there is a significant jump in time as well, where we then follow a different protagonist.
Is there any sort of local, societal commentary being made here? What was the personal resonance to you?