Three-Way Adaptation: Korea’s ‘Kim Jung-bae’s Diamond’ Traces Back to a British Original
Creatrip Team
2 months ago
A popular Korean melodrama about Lee Soo-il and Shim Sun-ae — famous for the line “Shim Sun-ae, were you so tempted by Kim Jung-bae’s diamond?” — has long been treated as a native classic. But this essay traces the story’s surprising transmission: Japanese author Ozaki Koyo’s serial Kin’iro Yasha (The Golden Demon, 1897–1902) inspired Korean writer Jo Jung-hwan’s 1913 adaptation Janghanmong (The Dream of Everlasting Regret), which became a staple of Korean theater and film. Recent research reveals an earlier source: an obscure British novel, Weaker Than a Woman by Bertha Clay, which provided characters, plot elements and even the diamond motif. Over three stages — British → Japanese → Korean — the story’s tone and ending changed dramatically: the English original presents a bold, socially upward heroine who ultimately secures wealth and status, while the Japanese and Korean versions emphasize moral conflict and restore a reconciliatory, sentimental ending. The piece highlights how transnational adaptations reshaped character motivations and cultural values, and how a scene now criticized as dating violence (the male lead kicking the clinging heroine) entered the narrative in Japan and was reproduced in Korea. (Janghanmong: a Korean title based on an ancient Chinese poem; Kin’iro Yasha: Japanese title; Weaker Than a Woman: original British novel)
