''Wonderful Days'' (also known as ''Sky Blue'') is a South Korean

animated Animation is a method by which still figures 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 anim ...

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

, released in 2003, written and directed by Kim Moon-saeng. It features backdrops rendered using photo-realistic

computer-generated imagery Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...

(CGI), 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 Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation. Proce ...

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

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

. The vehicles were all rendered, and the characters were cel animated.

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. He ends up in a love triangle with his childhood friend, Jay, and her superior, Ecoban security commander Cade. The film deals with environmental destruction,

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

and

class struggle Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The forms ...

Voice Cast

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 , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...

and one of two prototype

Frazier lens The Frazier lens is a special camera lens designed by Australian photographer Jim Frazier. The Frazier lens provides an appearance of a massive depth of field, allowing the foreground and background of an image to be in focus. Frazier's lens ...

(the other was used for ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' by Lucasfilm).

Micah Wright Micah Ian War Dog Wright (born 1969) is an American writer who has worked in film, television, animation, video games and comic books. He is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Early life Wright was born in Lubbock, Texas. He gradu ...

and

Jay Lender Jay Lender (born June 14, 1969 in New Haven, Connecticut, United States) is an American television writer, storyboard artist and director. He is a former writer and storyboard director for ''SpongeBob SquarePants''. Previous to his work on ''Spon ...

contributed to the script of the film, although they have not been credited in the final film.

Releases

The film has been released in numerous Western countries such as the US and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

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 France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

have kept its original title—which is a

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...

transliteration of the English phrase "Wonderful Days" (it would be rendered in

Revised Romanization Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...

as ""). 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 The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

of 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 rescheduled for June 23, 2009, however, the financial situation of

Palisades Tartan Palisades Tartan is a British/American film distribution company, founded by US-based Palisades Media Group to take over the film library of film distributor Tartan Films after it folded in the summer of 2008. History Tartan Films, established i ...

in America has thrown a US domestic release into doubt. In

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, the film was adapted by

Gainax Gainax Co., Ltd. (stylized as GAINAX; ja, 株式会社ガイナックス, Hepburn romanization, Hepburn: ) is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'', ''Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Roya ...

. According to adaptation director Hiroshi Yamaga, Gainax changed the direction of the film to make the dialogue less "alien" to Japanese viewers. The film was released on DVD in

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

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 A director's cut is an edited version of a film (or video game, television episode, music video, or commercial) that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit in contrast to the theatrical release. "Cut" explicitly refers to the ...

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.

Festivals

''Wonderful Days'' was screened at the following film festivals: * Sitges International Film Festival, 2003; * San Sebastian International Film Festival, 2003; * Cannes Film Festival, 2003; * Sundance Film Festival, 2004; * Brussels Fantasy Film Festival, 2004; *

Annecy International Animation Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (french: Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of J ...

, 2004; * Venice Film Festival, 2004; * Tokyo Film Festival, 2004; * London Film Festival, 2004; * Holland Animation Film Festival, 2004; * San Francisco Film Festival, 2004; * Grand Prix Anim'arts, Gérardmer, 2004;

References

External links

* * * * {{KMDb film, 05930
Review at CyberPunkReview
2000s action adventure films 2003 science fiction action films 2003 films 2003 animated films Science fiction anime and manga 2000s fantasy adventure films South Korean animated science fiction films South Korean animated fantasy films American animated science fiction films 2000s Korean-language films South Korean science fiction action films Animated post-apocalyptic films Environmental films Films set in the 2140s 2000s American films 2000s South Korean films