'Padak': Korean animation coming a new way

Padak, a 2012 South Korean CGI feature, is coming to America – but not to theaters. EigoMANGA, a San Francisco-based media publisher, has announced that it has been acquired from Lionsgate to be distributed beginning on June 6 on Linux, Mac, SteamOS, Windows, and all other online Steam-supported platforms.

The 78-minute feature, directed and written by Lee Dae-Hee and produced by the E-DEHI studio, will be released with the original Korean voice actors including Kim Hyeon-ji, Si-Yeong-joon, Ahn Yeong-mi-l, Hyeon Kyeong-soo, and Ho-san Lee, and subtitled in English. It was first shown at the Jeonju International Film Festival on July 25, 2012, and has also been shown at international film festivals in Warsaw, Dallas, Melbourne, Vladivostok, Seoul, and other cities, winning awards at many of them.

Padak has never gotten a general release, not even in South Korea. The trailer suggests why. It’s about the live fish in an aquarium in a Korean waterfront sushi restaurant, and it’s no Finding Nemo. The fish are aware that they’re on display for the diners’ selection to be eaten, and they’re terrified; desperate to escape, especially Padak, a female Mackerel. “Why bother?” a resigned flatfish asks. “Whether we’re eaten by humans in this restaurant, or by bigger fish in the sea, we’ll be eaten. It’s the law of nature.”

Judging by this trailer, Padak is excellently made but too grim for most audiences. It will show you more than you want to know about what happens to the fish in a seafood sushi restaurant.

Padak is the name of a Korean popular dish, usually fried chicken, served “topped with a heaping mound of thinly sliced spring onion and a healthy drizzling of a sweet soy-mustard sauce”, according to the “Cooking With Yoon” online recipe site.