For me, writing a book is akin to watching a film – albeit exceptionally slowly, over the course of several months to a year. Visualizing characters, their setting, costumes. Imagining embellishments such as the texture of a hanbok, the way Rui’s hair might flutter in a stray wind, the glitter of many moons in a velvet sky. Honing in on the beats within a scene – the reactions between the interactions, the expressions flitting over a visage. Listening to music to capture atmosphere as my fingers fly over the keyboards.
It’s therefore easy for me to imagine what LAST OF THE TALONS might be like as a motion picture. Everything from the visuals to the soundtrack has lived within my head since I first began scribbling out Shin Lina’s story.
In honor of TALONS’ release week, I invite you to visualize the novel as a movie with me.
Cold Open
FADE IN:
INT. THE TALONS’ PALACE – NIGHT
Blood is dripping onto a tile floor. A dangling hand trickles with thick, red liquid. Unseeing eyes – some green. Some brown. Some hazel. Suddenly: a door slams open.
And somebody begins to scream.
The Opening Scene
EXT. KINGDOM OF SUNPO – NIGHT
A lithe, shadowy figure darts across sloping tiled rooves. Faster. Faster. Her breathing is uneven. The moon shines brightly above. In an incredible feat of acrobatics, SHIN LINA leaps to stand atop a higher rooftop, overlooking a gleaming SCARLET PAGODA.
The Soundtrack
Opening Scene – Chainsaw Symphony by 2WEI
Meeting the Dokkaebi – IDOL by Kairos Covers
Kalmin’s Disappearance – Desolation by Adam Hurst
Deal with the Dokkaebi – Ddaeng by MDP & Clara Melody
You Can Change the Sky? – Lovely by ItsAMoney
The Nightmare – Midnight by Lorenzo Ferrara
The Ballroom Scene – Black Swan (Violin) by Joel Sunny
Swim, Swim, Swim – Not Today by MDP
The Kiss in the Sea – Middle of the Night (Violin) by Joel Sunny
Leave Me – Arcade by Nasif Francis
The Final Flashback – Experience by Ludovico Einaudi, Daniel Hope, I Virtuosi Italiani
Dark Woods – Death Waltz by Adam S. Hurst & Adam Hurst
The Underworld – True Love’s Last Kiss by Eternal Eclipse
The Library – Pied Piper (Piano Version) by Pianella Piano
The Final Fight – The Game is Afoot by Eternal Eclipse
Reunited – River Flows in You (Orchestral) by Yiruma
Casting Shin Lina & Haneul Rui
A full, hypothetical cast list is the one thing I don’t have in mind at the moment – except for the 2 actors who I would swoon to see play Shin Lina and Haneul Rui…
Shin Lina: Lee Ji-eun (IU).
Haneul Rui: Kwak Dong-yeon.
Thank you so much for imagining TALONS as a movie with me. Although chances of the novel becoming a movie are extraordinarily small (miniscule, really), the book releases September 27th.
Happy release week to LAST OF THE TALONS!
Sophie Kim
(www.sophiekimwrites.com, @sophiekimwrites on Instagram & Twitter)
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“Last of the Talons is a stunning blend of dark romance and Korean mythology. Sophie Kim writes enemies to lovers with heart-pounding intensity, blurring the line between love and hate. Bloodthirsty, addictive, and searingly romantic.” —Axie Oh, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
After the destruction of her entire Talon gang, eighteen-year-old Shin Lina—the Reaper of Sunpo—is forced to become a living, breathing weapon for the kingdom’s most-feared crime lord. All that keeps her from turning on her ruthless master is the life of her beloved little sister hanging in the balance. But the order to steal a priceless tapestry from a Dokkaebi temple incites not only the wrath of a legendary immortal, but the beginning of an unwinnable game…
Suddenly Lina finds herself in the dreamlike realm of the Dokkaebi, her fate in the hands of its cruel and captivating emperor. But she can win her life—if she kills him first.
Now a terrible game of life and death has begun, and even Lina’s swift, precise blade is no match for the magnetic Haneul Rui. Lina will have to use every weapon in her arsenal if she wants to outplay this cunning king and save her sister…all before the final grain of sand leaks out of the hourglass.
Because one way or another, she’ll take Rui’s heart.
Even if it means giving up her own.
Sophie Kim spends her days both studying at her university and writing her novels, which are strongly influenced by her firm belief that diversity and non-stereotypical representation in literature are vastly important. Blessed (or cursed) with a voracious appetite for all things bookish, Sophie can often be found wandering the aisles of a library or curled up with a precariously balancing stack of stories. Last of the Talons is her first novel. sophiekimwrites.com
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