Walking through Sinchon Rotary today I stopped at a street DVD vendor (they are absolutely everywhere in the city) because I was surprised to see not just the expected new releases like Bourne Ultimatum and Spiderman III but also small independent American movies like "SherryBaby".

That caught my eye because my good friend's wife wrote it and directed it. I wouldn't have expected to see it on the street in Seoul. It seemed somehow significant. Being an object of piracy means you made it, in a way.

These movies sell for 2000 Won, which is about 2 bucks. They are not the low quality pirate DVDs that some dude made by sitting in the theatre training a video camera on the screen. They are completely professional affairs, including chapter headings, language selections, very high picture quality. Pretty amazing.

Not that I would ever purchase such a thing, these are copyright violations....

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