Originally published January 28, 2008—I was digging through newspapers today from 1977 I came across this ad for the Korean made film The Six Million Dollar Man directed by Kim Shi-hyeon and released  on July 24.  The following week, the ad appeared again with a significant change.  No–it is not the way the number is written–that is the same difference as writing 6 million as 6,000,000. The major difference is that the title changed–the first ad reads ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’. The way it appears in that first ad is the way tv schedules at the time had written the name of the tv show starring Lee Majors which was airing at that time in Korea. The second ad deletes the word ‘Man’ altogether. It simply reads ‘Six Million Dollars’.  Interestingly, this latter style is the way it is recorded in the Korean Film Archives as well.  What was the reason for this? Were there complaints from people going to the theater expecting to see their television hero only to find themselves watching a knock-off starring someone else. They should have expected that..the first ad plainly states that this Six Million Dollar Man ‘can’t be seen on television.’  Was there a sudden fear of a lawsuit on the part of the producers.

Who starred in this movie is actually in question. The ads above list Bionic Man as being played by David William.  That is what I will eventually go by when I start typing up the cast list for this movie. However, the Korean Film Archive lists the main actor as a man named John K. Justice–though they do list a co-star as Nick Williams.  A book I have which was published in 1986 states the Bionic Man was played by John K. Jullus (the spelling is an approximation as the credits in the book are in Korean).  One of the co-stars in the film is Joan Wells–according to the ads above. However, the Korean Film Archives  lists her as Kelly Wells.

I guess this is going to be a mystery until I can actually see the credits for the film–which fortunately is housed at KoFa