"We Are Absorbed In This Movie"

The Internet is a medium through which moviegoers who cannot forget the strong impression of a movie could relive the impression.

They have regular meetings in a cyber club, in which they exchange opinions and information on movies. Sometimes they themselves promote specific movies.

Among a lot of movie clubs on the Internet, cyber clubs for "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," which opens on the 13 and the 19, respectively, are showing a lot of activities. About 1,000 clubs for Harry Pare are set up on Daum Communications, Korea`s No. 1 Internet portal site. A Letter from Hogwarts (café.daum.net/harrypotterclub) boasts its 35,000 members. Wearing the same clothes as Harry Potter film characters` these club members gave a performance at the Busan International Film Festival held last month.

The leader of this on-line club, Chae Yun-hui, a senior student at Yeonsu junior high school in Incheon, is a Harry Potter maniac. Indeed, he is operating six clubs for the Harry Potter movies. Those clubs organize various events such as writing movie reviews. Seo Gyeon-eun of the public relations company of "Harry Potter" says that even they get ideas from audio-visual images illegally posted on websites.

Online clubs made by fans of "Lord of the Rings" are focused on research. Loorien`s Lortlab (Fan.theonering.net/lotrlab), a self-styled Lord of the Rings research center, is a website equipped with an enormous amount of information on the novel and film.

The self-styled research center in Korea was authorized by Onering.com (www.theonering.net), which is an international online club comprised of various sub clubs around the world. Loorien`s Lotrlab posts reviews and information on the Internet and sometimes it analyzes the language of the elf, which was created by JRR Tolkien, and rectifies false translation.

Yun Seong-uk, member of the online research center says, "Lord of the Rings shows another perfect world other than this one. As I become lost in the movie, I am surprised at how deep the writer`s thought was. A lot of online clubs for Lord of the Rings on Daum Communications are promoting group viewing of the sequel and hold regular debate meetings.

Soo-Kyung Kim skkim@donga.com