Hollywood interested in Park Yong-ha's "Comrades" TV remake

Korean TV series "Love Song," an upcoming small screen remake of legendary Hong Kong pic "Comrades, Almost a Love Story" starring Park Yong-ha, has a major Hollywood studio interested in acquiring its rights although the show has yet to go into production.

According to the show's producer Verdi Media on Friday, Warner Brothers, which owns the rights to the original film, has offered to buy the broadcasting rights of "Song" for the U.S. and Greater China region.

"If this deal goes through, it will be the first time that a Korean drama will go beyond Asia and be broadcast worldwide," an official at Verdi was quoted as saying.

It will also be the first time that a Korean drama has received such an offer from a major Hollywood distributor based on the news alone that it is a remake of a famous film.

"Comrades," which starred top Hong Kong movie stars Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai, was the top-grossing foreign film when it was released in Korea in 1997. The film is an epic love story between two Chinese mainlanders who first meet and fall in love in Hong Kong and later re-unite in New York.

The local TV version -- to be set in China, Korea and Japan -- will go into shoot around late July and air in Korea at the end of the year.

The series will be directed by TV producer Ji Young-soo ("Oh! Pil-seung Bong Soon-yeong", "My Fair Lady") and written by Oh Soo-yeon who penned smash hits dramas "Winter Sonata" (KBS2, 2002) and "Autumn Tale" (KBS2, 2000).

"Song" will star Korean actor Park Yong-ha as the male lead while producers are still looking for an actress to plan the main female character.

Park, 32, gained popularity throughout Asia after appearing in "Winter Sonata", a drama that first started the Hallyu craze, alongside top actors Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo.

Reporter : Ko Kyoung-seok kave@
Editor : Lynn Kim lynn2878@