Based off the eponymous hit webtoon, Moving is Korea’s answer to the superhero boom. Showcasing a star-studded cast and an incredible team behind the scenes, there are many deciding factors for the show’s success, but I believe its greatest asset is writer and original author Kang Full.
At the start, the show had a different screenwriter working on the project, but as with many Kang Full adaptations, the people translating his work to a different medium hit a roadblock. Given the opportunity to write the script himself, Kang Full agreed on a number of conditions—one being the fact that the episode count increase to twenty. In this current environment of shorter lengths and fast-paced stories, Kang Full knew what the merit of his original was, and with that confidence, he was able to push for a drama that stayed true to the webtoon’s core theme while also adding new layers that enhanced it.
As with any good adaptation, a one-to-one copy never works, which means Kang Full made quite the few adjustments and additions to the drama. Though anyone can enjoy the show without any prior knowledge of the source material, I find it fun to compare and see how the different mediums portray the same story. Thus, let’s dig deeper into what Kang Full changed and how it impacted the drama.
Note: Part 1 will cover episodes 1-7 in the drama and episodes 1-15 in the webtoon (a.k.a., the first act).
FRANK AND THE SECOND-STRINGS
The biggest and most obvious deviation from the original webtoon is the addition of Frank (Ryu Seung-bum). As a child, Frank was forcibly adopted to the US where the government raised him as a hunting dog, and in the present, he returns to his birthplace on a new mission: to terminate retired supers. Author Kang Full said that he wrote the part with Ryu Seung-bum in mind and reached out to him personally to play the part.
While the character’s history and the overarching implications of his presence are underdeveloped, the addition of a new minor villain to the first act was a smart choice. As Kang Full intended, Frank added tension to the show while the main story focused on the students, and for fans expecting to watch an action-packed superhero drama, Frank and his storyline delivered.
Since Frank is a drama-original character, the show needed to introduce another batch of opponents for him to fight, which leads us to the new supers. The idea behind these characters is that they are all “second-strings,” and as such, their roles are to set up the tone for the show rather than steal the limelight. All three actors (Baek Hyun-jin, Choi Duk-moon, and Kim Guk-hee, in order of appearance) were great, though I found Naju’s fight the most entertaining and visually intense.
Along with Frank and the three retired agents, this storyline introduces Jeon Gye-do, a.k.a., Bungaeman (Cha Tae-hyun). He embodies a sort of “forgotten” generation, and on paper, I think the concept Kang Full was going for him sounds interesting. Since Kang Full had more room to develop ideas he could not in the webtoon, he created an in-between character—a “what if” that lingers between the two main generations of supers in the show. Alas, I think his impact in the first act was weak, but I’ll save off on my comments until part three.
MI-HYUN’S RESTAURANT
While there are plenty of minor differences between the source material and the drama, the one I want to highlight is Mi-hyun’s (Han Hyo-joo) restaurant. In the webtoon, she owns a soup place called “Bongseok Loach Soup” which is changed to a tonkatsu restaurant in the drama named “Namsan Tonkatsu.” Though this change seems insignificant, the drama version of the restaurant actually holds a lot of meaning.
Many of the small changes Kang Full makes in the drama reflect other bigger changes in the show, and Mi-hyun’s restaurant is a prime example. In the webtoon, Mi-hyun opens a restaurant because this was a dream she shared with Kim Doo-shik (Jo In-sung). The motivation remains the same in both stories, but in the drama, the parents’ love story is given more room to breathe. As a result, the restaurant in the drama acts as her beacon of love.
The webtoon version has Bongseok’s name plastered on the front so her husband can find them, but in the drama, this secondary purpose is more subtle. She opens a restaurant that is deeply tied to their past and then paints the roof purple because it signifies their connection. Purple is how he found her the first time, so she hopes that it will bring him back to them again. She also runs a late-night store so he can find them even in the dark. It’s these tiny details that make Kang Full’s writing shine, and I doubt anyone else would have given so much loving attention to his characters in the way he did for this drama.
THE REVEAL OF BONG-SEOK’S SECRET
If Mi-hyun’s restaurant is a type of change that sticks to the original intent, the scene where Kim Bong-seok (Lee Jeong-ha) reveals his secret to Jang Hee-soo (Go Yoon-jung) could be seen as a shift. The webtoon focuses more on Bong-seok’s desire to impress the girl he likes in this scene whereas in the drama, the reveal is used to highlight their budding romance.
In the webtoon, Hee-soo waits outside his house for an hour in the rain, hoping to catch him use his powers, but when Bong-seok comes by, he makes a leap and falls down. Hee-soo laughs, partly at herself for how ridiculous she is acting, but in Bong-seok’s eyes, she is laughing at how uncool he just looked. Keeping in line with these emotions, Bong-seok displays his powers and actively reveals his secret to Hee-soo. He wants to impress her, and this depiction of Bong-seok emphasizes his desire to be seen as more than a friend.
In contrast, the drama starts off similarly with Hee-soo finding the gap between muddy footprints, but instead of changing locations, the show stays in the school and continues the scene. Hee-soo finds Bong-seok in the hall holding his shoes, and this time, Bong-seok is the one laughing and denying her claims. Because the drama stresses Mi-hyun’s overprotectiveness, this version of Bong-seok is more conscious of hiding his abilities. (It also makes the confrontation between him and his mom later in episode seven that much more explosive.) No matter how much he likes Hee-soo, it wouldn’t make sense for Bong-seok to show off his skills.
However, when Hee-soo leans over and fixes his bandage (a scene from the webtoon), Bong-seok can’t help but float. Not only is Bong-seok’s secret revealed, so are his feelings towards Hee-soo. The agency also shifts in this scene, and Hee-soo puts herself in danger to help him. By making this change, the drama uses this moment to also reveal Hee-soo’s secret: she can’t get hurt, and she likes him back.
There’s also the added tension of the security cameras having caught them, and the show conveys a multitude of emotions and plotlines in this one scene. What makes this change work, though, is that Kang Full created a new scene by stitching together bits of the original. Hence, even if the tone shifted, the overarching characterizations remained the same.
TRANSITIONING TO PART 2
One of the challenges of adapting a story is that the plot is available for everyone to access. Thus, twists are harder to hide unless the new story diverges heavily from the original. While the webtoon was able to hide the parents’ backstories and have the idea of inherited powers come out as a shock between arcs, the drama does not have the luxury to do that.
Not only is the original story already finished, promotions for the show also heavily relied on this concept. As a result, the drama had to take a different approach, and the parents’ powers are revealed relatively early. Thankfully, the story does not hinge on this twist, and instead, to transition from the first part to the next, the creators used something only the drama had to its advantage: the star power of its actors.
This is tied to another change in the story about Bong-seok’s memory and his dad. The webtoon version has Bong-seok recall a sweet moment where he floats with his mom, and his dad comes flying to save them. This visual is, instead, used later on, and the memory is changed to one of just Bong-seok and Doo-shik. To signal the transition to the parents’ story, the show reveals Jo In-sung and confirms that he is Bong-seok’s dad. However, the biggest reason this transition worked is because of the release schedule. Dropping the first arc in its entirety was nothing short of a stroke of genius, and because of that, the transition to part two happened naturally.
Read the other parts here: Moving: Drama vs Webtoon Part 2, Part 3
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