Wonderful Days (film)

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Wonderful Days
Wonderful Days movie poster.jpg
Movie poster for Wonderful Days
Hangul 원더풀 데이즈
Revised Romanization Wondeopul deijeu
McCune–Reischauer Wŏndŏp‘ul teijŭ
Directed by Kim Moon-saeng
Produced byHwang K. S.
Kyeong Hag Lee
Written byKim Moon-saeng
Park Jun-Yong
StarringKorean
Ji Hoon Choi
Yeong Seon Eun
In Seong O
Kim Jong-kook
English
Marc Worden
Cathy Cavadini
Kirk Thornton
David Naughton
Music byWon II
Production
company
Endgame Productions Inc.
Masquerade Films
Maxmedia
Tin House Productions
Distributed by Palisades Tartan (English releases)
Gainax (Japan)
Pathé (France)
Release date
  • July 17, 2003 (2003-07-17)
Running time
86 Min (Original Release)
95 Min (Director's Cut)
CountrySouth Korea
Language Korean
English

Wonderful Days (also known as Sky Blue) is a South Korean animated science fiction film, released in 2003, written and directed by Kim Moon-saeng. It features backdrops rendered using photo-realistic computer-generated imagery, comparable to those in the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within , along with the use of highly detailed models for some of the backdrops into which the cel animated characters were then animated. However, convincing CGI animation of humans (especially human movement) was not attempted. The backgrounds in the film were shot with traditional motion control techniques, then processed to look like CG. The vehicles were all rendered, and the characters were cel animated.

South Korea Republic in East Asia

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and lying to the east of the Asian mainland. The name Korea is derived from Goguryeo which was one of the great powers in East Asia during its time, ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria, parts of the Russian Far East and Inner Mongolia, under Gwanggaeto the Great. South Korea lies in the north temperate zone and has a predominantly mountainous terrain. It comprises an estimated 51.4 million residents distributed over 100,363 km2 (38,750 sq mi). Its capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of around 10 million.

Animation Method of creating moving pictures

Animation is a method in which pictures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets or clay figures.

Science fiction film film genre

Science-fiction film is a genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception and time travel, along with futuristic elements such as spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar travel or other technologies. Science-fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. In many cases, tropes derived from written science fiction may be used by filmmakers ignorant of or at best indifferent to the standards of scientific plausibility and plot logic to which written science fiction is traditionally held.

Contents

Plot

Wonderful Days is set in 2142. Environmental pollution has led to a breakdown of human civilization. A technologically advanced city named Ecoban was built and it harvests energy from the DELOS System, which uses pollution in a carbonite catalyzed reaction to generate power. Carbonite extraction is carried out by people who live outside the city in the surrounding wasteland. Among them is an enigmatic young man known as Shua (Marc Worden). He ends up in a love triangle with his childhood friend, Jay (Cathy Cavadini), and her superior, Ecoban security commander Cade (Kirk Thornton).

David Marc Worden is a Canadian-American actor and voice actor.

Cathy Cavadini Voice actress, singer

Catherine Janet Cavadini is an American actress, voice actress, comedian and singer. Most well known as the original voice of Blossom on Cartoon Network's animated television series The Powerpuff Girls and Tanya Mousekewitz in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West and in the subsequent TV series, Fievel's American Tails. In 2003, Catherine was honored with a White House Project Epic Award for her work in The Powerpuff Girls Movie as Blossom.

Kirk Thornton American actor

Kirk Thornton is an American voice actor, director and script writer working mainly with English-language versions of Japanese anime shows. His major roles include Brandon Heat in Gungrave, Hotohori in Fushigi Yūgi, Jin in Samurai Champloo, Hajime Saito in Rurouni Kenshin, Jet Link in Cyborg 009, Don Patch in Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Ensign Nogami in The Cockpit, and numerous Digimon. Additionally, Kirk co-directed for the popular anime series Bleach alongside Wendee Lee, and also serves as the narrator. In video games, he voices Number VII Organization XIII member Saïx in the Kingdom Hearts series and Shadow the Hedgehog in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

The film deals with environmental destruction, pollution and class struggle.

Pollution introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution. In 2015, pollution killed 9 million people in the world.

Class conflict tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests

Class conflict is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society consequent to socio-economic competition among the social classes. As a means of effecting radical social and political changes for the social majority, class struggle is a central tenet of the philosophic works of Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin.

Production

Along with CG effects, a set of miniatures for buildings, mechanics, and characters were built and filmed with HDW-F900 which was co-developed by Sony and Lucasfilm and one of two prototype Frazier lens (the other was used for Star Wars by Lucasfilm).

CineAlta

CineAlta cameras are a series of professional digital movie cameras produced by Sony that replicate many of the same features of 35mm film motion picture cameras.

Sony Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation

Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified business includes consumer and professional electronics, gaming, entertainment and financial services. The company owns the largest music entertainment business in the world, the largest video game console business and one of the largest video game publishing businesses, and is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets, and a leading player in the film and television entertainment industry. Sony was ranked 97th on the 2018 Fortune Global 500 list.

Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company based in the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, California. The studio is best known for creating and producing the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as its leadership in developing special effects, sound and computer animation for film. Lucasfilm was founded by filmmaker George Lucas in 1971 in San Rafael, California; most of the company's operations were moved to San Francisco in 2005. The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in October 2012 for $2.2 billion in cash and $1.855 billion in stock.

Releases

The film has been released in numerous Western countries such as the US and Great Britain under the title Sky Blue. These versions have been slightly distorted, with the loss of two minutes of the running time compared to the original Korean cut. Other Western countries such as France and Finland have kept its original title—which is a Hangul transliteration of the English phrase "Wonderful Days" (it would be rendered in Revised Romanization as "Wondeopul Deijeu"). An All-Region 2-Disc Collector's Edition DVD to the dubbed version of the film was released in the UK on November 14, 2005. A Blu-ray to the film was eventually released in the UK on June 8, 2008. The film was scheduled for release in the US on Blu-ray disc on June 28, 2008. As that date neared, it was re-scheduled for June 23, 2009, however, the financial situation of Palisades Tartan in America has thrown a US domestic release into doubt.

United States Federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Great Britain island in the North Atlantic off the north-west coast of continental Europe

Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world. In 2011, Great Britain had a population of about 61 million people, making it the world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of Great Britain, and together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands, form the British Isles archipelago.

France Republic with mainland in Europe and numerous oversea territories

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

In Japan, the film was adapted by Gainax. According to adaptation director Hiroshi Yamaga, Gainax changed the direction of the film to make the dialogue less "alien" to Japanese viewers. [1]

Japan Constitutional monarchy in East Asia

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.

GAINAX Co., Ltd. is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Royal Space Force, Gunbuster, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Kare Kano, FLCL, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, and Gurren Lagann, which have garnered critical acclaim and been commercially successful. Evangelion has reportedly grossed over 150 billion yen, or approximately 1.2 billion USD. In a discussion at the 2006 Tekkoshocon, Matt Greenfield claimed Evangelion had grossed over 2 billion USD; Takeda reiterated in 2002 that "It sold record numbers of laserdiscs in Japan, and the DVD is still selling well today,", as well as for their association with award-winning anime director and studio co-founder Hideaki Anno. The company is headquartered in Koganei, Tokyo.

The film was released on DVD in Korea on September 6, 2003. On May 27, 2004, the film was re-released on a 3-Disc Limited Original Edition DVD in Korea that features a Director's Cut of the film. This version includes 9 minutes of additional footage that wasn't present in the original cut plus a few changes to the dialogue. On May 15, 2013 the Director's Cut was released on Blu-ray, but uses the bonus material from the DVD to the Theatrical cut. [2]

Voice Cast

CharacterKorean voice actorEnglish voice actor
ShuaChoi Ji Hoon
Maeng Se Chang (Young)
Marc Worden
Cathy Cavadini (Young)
JayEun Yeong Seon
Kim Hee-jung (Young)
Cathy Cavadini
Rebecca Wink (Young)
Cade/SimonOh In Seong Kirk Thornton
Commander LockeTak Won-Je (Theatrical Cut)
Yu In-chon (Director's Cut)
David Naughton
Dr. NoahKim Byung-kwan (Theatrical Cut)
Giri-Bong (Director's Cut)
WoodyKim Sung MinRebecca Wink
CheyenneTBA Cathy Cavadini
Goliath/Cheol-han (철한)Si Yeong-joon Bob Papenbrook
Zed/DavidAhn Yong WookAndrew Ableson
Moe/JoePark Ji Hoon Karl Wiedergott
MayaTBASunmin Park
GovernorKim Myung-kook Bob Papenbrook
TyponKim Soo-jung
DispatcherTBAJamie Simone
SentryTBAMark Lindsay
Digger LeaderTBAAndrew Ableson
Digger ForemanTBA Karl Wiedergott
Trooper(s)TBAJeffrey Winter
Marc Scarpa
Mark Lindsay

Festivals

Wonderful Days was screened at the following film festivals:

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References

  1. "Gainax to Adapt Wonderful Days". Anime News Network. 2004-11-05. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  2. "Extended Wonderful Days Blu-ray for purchase". YesAsia. 2013-05-15. Retrieved 2017-06-02.