Lisa See’s ‘The Island Of Sea Women’ Is Set To Become A K-Drama

As soon as producer Joseph Jang read Lisa See’s novel The Island of Sea Women, he thought it deserved a screen adaptation.

“I fell in love with the book right away,” said Jang, a producer with the Seoul-based production company IMTV. “I knew this was a story that we had to develop and make a screen adaptation because it had to be shown.” After Jang, an LA native, read the novel in English, he bought a Korean translation for his CEO Lee Young-sook. “She fell in love with it and we reached out to Lisa right away.

See is the American author of On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. Her 2019 novel The Island of Sea Women is a story about the friendship between two haenyeo—female divers—on Jeju Island before, during and after the Korean War.

Such drivers traditionally began underwater training at a young age, learning to dive up to 65 feet deep and to hold their breath for over three minutes without diving equipment. They also learn not to inhale sea water or let themselves get entangled underwater, as such mistakes are often fatal. After the Korean War, when it was easier for girls to attend school, fewer women chose the arduous and dangerous life of a haenyeo. As a result, today, most of these divers are elderly and many work in the tourist industry, showing visitors what haenyeo used to do.

“I know there are not many haenyeos left who actually do free diving for a living,” said Jang. “So that entire lineage and heritage is unfortunately slowly dying out. I think in that respect, just talking about haenyeos and letting the world know about this incredible society that existed on this beautiful island deserves to be shared on screen,”

According to See, UNESCO listed the haenyeo as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016, but it’s anticipated that the culture will disappear within a decade.

“How wonderful it would be if this television series could bring the unique culture of the haenyeo to the world,” she said. “With what I think is a great story of friendship, of love found, lost, and found again, with what will be exciting—and sometimes scary—scenes underwater as well as on land.”

See’s critically acclaimed book also touches on the painful history of the 4.3 Incident, an incident in which protesters attacked Jeju police stations and in retaliation thousands of islanders were killed and many villages burned. No one was allowed to speak about the incident for years.

“Unless you’re studying Korean history you don’t really know about that,” said Jang. “So, when I was reading it in the book it was shocking to me—as a Korean American—that these atrocities happened. Then to see it in this fictional world, with these characters and to see the impact it had on their lives, it made even more of a vivid impression.”

The Island of Sea Women is not the first English language novel with Korean characters to be adapted for the small screen. Earlier this year AppleAAPL
TV launched a series based on the novel Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It was an international production set in New York, Tokyo and Busan. Jang sees the production of The Island of Sea Women as taking a more k-drama-centric approach.

“I love Pachinko,” said Jang. “It was a great show, but we kind of felt like it was Korean but not Korean. We really want to make our series very Korean drama-esque. We will have Korean writers write it in Korean. Korean dramas are extremely emotional, very human-drama related and focused and character driven. Lisa has done such a tremendous job of building these characters that are so passionate and so emotional and we want to preserve that and maintain that in our story.”

The show will differ from the usual one-season k-drama format. It’s being planned as a multi-season series set on Jeju Island.

‘We don’t feel that one season will be enough to tell all of the stories involved in the book, as far as developing the characters,” said Jang. “Obviously, when you have a novel as opposed to a series, it’s a totally different way of storytelling, so we’re working on seasonal and episodic breakdowns in our treatment.”

During her first meeting with Jang, See was struck by his connection to the history and matrifocal culture of the haenyeo.

“When I met with IMTV’s Young Sook Lee and Joseph on Zoom, I saw that the haenyeo have inspired them in the same way that they’ve inspired me,” said See. “The divers have incredible physical and psychological bravery, courage, persistence, and endurance. These characteristics not only help them confront the dangers of the sea, but have also gotten them through Japanese occupation, war, and other upheavals. Our world has been shaken by many upheavals these past couple of years. I hope the qualities that the haenyeo have shown in their lives on Jeju island can be an inspiration to people around the world.”

The increasingly global popularity of k-dramas offers new opportunities for Korean storytelling and for IMTV, an independent production company that works with major Korean networks such as KBS, SBS, MBC.

“This year IMTV shot a show with Netflix
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that is in post production now,” said Jang. “Our show was the second biggest budgeted show from Netflix Korea, so that was a really big deal. With Korean dramas becoming a global trend it’s given IMTV an opportunity to place ourselves on the global radar.”

The Island of Sea Women has so far been translated into 16 languages.