Comic book writer accuses 'You Who Came From the Stars' of plagiarism + production team strongly denies accusations
Comic book writer Kang Kyung Ok shared through her blog on the 20th, "Honestly, I don't keep up with dramas well so I didn't have any thoughts. But a reader commented that the drama 'You Who Came From the Stars' is similar in setup to 'Sul Hee' so I wondered what it was referring to and looked up the articles."
"Based on the [UFO] incident mentioned in the records of Gwanghaegun 400 years ago, Sul Hee receives a remedy from an alien and lives for over 400 years without aging. She moves to Korea in search of the lead character who helped her during her childhood and has the same face as the man who helped her several hundred years ago in her past life . The man who she met during her childhood in the States becomes a worldwide movie star and they start dating... To put it simply, although it is true that anyone can use the Gwanhaegun records, the part detailing the life of a person who lives for 400 years without aging is original to 'Sul Hee'."
The writer also comments that although there are differences and that the drama is only two episodes in, the foundation of the story is the writer's original idea."Although the drama has switched up the atmosphere and the roles of the man and the woman and the sequence of events, the foundation of the story is too similar. It's not a matter of how the story can be unfolded a different way or that the small details are different,"she said.
The drama's production companyHB Entertainmentrep strongly denied the allegations."It's nonsense. After confirming with our writerPark Ji Eun, we heard that she has never heard of the comic series' content... We are currently even considering taking legal action for defamation."
Another rep also further added,"We didn't even know a project like 'Sul Hee' existed, and it's definitely not a work we looked to as the story's motive.. If it was even mentioned once during our production process, then we could say that we used 'Sul Hee' as our theme, but that never even happened... We cannot get into contact with writer Kang. We want to discuss with the writer and resolve the misunderstanding. We hope that we can resolve this through peaceful discussion. [If not] we will think about legal action."
HB Entertainment also stated, "'You Who Came From the Stars' began when our writer thought of a line she used when she used to write for a variety show. Afterwards, we held meetings about it and we have all the records. If people ask us to reveal the records, we are willing to do so."
What are your thoughts?