Age of Peace

i found an h.o.t fan talking about the movie on tumblr that seemed to have extra info so i asked them about it and here was their reponse.

"modernmalls asked:

haiiiii i'm trying to search for the age of peace movie and u mentioned in a blog post about the movie that all the film reels were destroyed and i was wondering how u know about that bc i couldn't find anywhere else that mentioned that? sry 2 bother i'm trying to explore every lead lol"

"high-five-of-teenager-trashblog answered you:

Howdy. I like talking about researching H.O.T, so this is no bother.

So, to answer your questions, there’s a lot to explain. Idk how familiar you are with me, H.O.T, or the H.O.T Project, so I’m going to over-explain.

First, that post was written after I returned from Korea, but before I started accumulating resources for the H.O.T Project. So, it’s quite a bit out of date from my current knowledge.

Originally, for the Discography Discussions I just looked at the music and focused on that. I’ve been an H.O.T fan since 2008 (JTL/S/Heejun fan since 2003), but a lot what I knew came from older fans who spoke English.

When I was in Korea, I tried tracking down info and speaking with fans. A few of my co-workers were OG fans, and one of them went hunting for Age of Peace with her husband (also an H.O.T fan). They were unsuccessful with finding a copy even on Korean torrent sites, and explained that it wasn’t online, and had heard that it was likely copies had been destroyed. I heard that echoed with other older fans, and I took their word for it because they were the most reliable sources I knew at the time. None of them had been able to see the film themselves, though, due to its short release period.

After making the Age of Peace post, I haven’t really looked into it much on purpose. For the last year, I’ve been going tracking down and confirming/discrediting various tales I’ve heard in the fandom. I’m currently on the book, but I’m also working on pinning down the ouija board story. I got up to 1998, but then got a better scan of H.O.T’s autobiography, so I’m several months out from looking in-depth at Age of Peace again.

The sources I listed in the post you saw were what I had at the time (back in 2020). Since then, I’ve connected with other fans who do research, my Korean has improved, and I’ve gained more resources. At this point, I’m skeptical of info spread about H.O.T in English as their Wikipedia page is riddled with misinformation from K-Pop academia and it’s been gutted more than once in recent years. Now, I look for interviews, articles, blogs, etc in Korean to back up whatever I’m hunting for.

So, now that you’re caught up with what’s going on, here’s some updated info.

1. The smashing of reels is possible because allegedly SM did that before with Hyun Jinyoung’s albums after his 2nd arrest, so there is precedent. With Hyun Jinyoung, I’ve also heard that his music was required to be turned over to authorities, but it’s possible that both happened. (I might be doing a deepdive on him next year, so I’ll know for sure if I do.) Either way, if it happened, it wouldn’t be too strange considering what else happened at SM back in the 90s. Age of Peace had a limited run because it was only in theaters that had 3-D (at the time, it was the first Korean 3-D movie, but others have claimed to be first since :/). So, there weren’t that many reels out there. I don’t think they were all smashed, it’s more likely that they were recalled or something and are in some storage area gathering dust. However, it’s also possible that there were some copies later destroyed cuz Sooman was so embarrassed after he saw it and doesn’t exactly take steps to preserve history he’s upset about (at least not stuff that is publicly known).

2. It never made it to home video, but I’ve seen Korean netizens claim it used to be available for online purchase – I haven’t seen a source for it yet, so take this with a grain of salt.

3. If I’m remembering correctly, most if not all of the script is out there. I know a person who’s translating it (I think to English??), but I haven’t asked her about it in a long time because she’s busy. Projects like that have started gaining steam over the last two years with foreign fans, so I think we’ll see more stuff surface in the coming years as fans revisit these topics and try to contact people involved.

4. Scans of physical copies of the Age of Peace OST are floating around, but I haven’t looked too much into it so idk what they contain.

5. It was also released in theaters in Japan, but I haven’t seen anyone claim it was available for purchase there either, let alone more info than the dets of its registration in Japan.

6. I have no idea if you know Korean or if so how much, but with 1st gen (especially H.O.T), it’s better to hunt for info on Korean sites. I’ve learned loads in the past year because of it. Some of it I’m still hunting for another source besides a blog post, but a lot of these posts have pictures included which makes them a bit more credible.
There was something else I learned, but I forgot what it was. As of right now, that’s a summary of the info I’ve got. However, as I continue to dig, I’ll probably find out more and this will become outdated as well.

But that’s just the gist for right now. Until the H.O.T Project is done, I’m going to keep looking for info. Feel free to ask more questions and check in to see if I’ve learned anything else. I know a lot, but don’t know how much context you already have. Cheers."

looks like finding this movie is gonna be way harder than i thought lol

i'm assuming ur joking but no not to my knowledge lol

there’s an ebay listing for a photo album with screencaps of the movie so if anyone has $1000 to spare…