[2] It was translated into English by Chi-young Kim for Penguin Books under the title The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, and the 144-page novel was published on November 26, 2013.

[3][4][5][6][7] Leafie (잎싹, leaf (잎) + sprout (싹)) lives on a chicken farm with many other egg-laying hens that are in battery cages.

Wanderer decides to let Leafie look after the egg for a few days, meaning to exact revenge on One-Eye and ensure their protection.

Wanderer instructs Leafie to take his unborn child to the Everglades, telling her she will understand why in time before he leaves her to find the weasel.

A flock of ducks soon comes during the autumn season, and Leafie realizes what Wanderer meant when he instructed her to take his egg to the everglades.

Leafie gives Greenie her support and reassures him to participate in the contest after taking a portion of the human string from his leg just in time.

Greenie returns to the flock and announced that he wants to be in the contest as well, quickly forming a rivalry with another duck named Red Head.

Otter after escaping from the farm, Greenie tries to find Leafie to say his goodbyes but comes across One-Eye once again and saves a female duck from the hungry carnivore.

Their brief scuffle lands them in front of Leafie and the nest of baby weasels, and One-Eye pins down Greenie, preparing to kill him.

Before they leave, Leafie sees how One-Eye, who is malnourished due to the rough winter season, is unable to produce milk to feed her offspring.

"Most of my staff and I majored in painting, and we chose to make the film two-dimensional, so that the entire product looks like a beautiful picture," Oh said.

Though the sharply drawn foreground characters have an international look, the gentler backgrounds seem typically Korean in their use of landscape and flora (with the Upo wetlands in the south of the country inspiring the everglades in which much of the action takes place).

Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks often hire small- and medium-sized Korean animation studios to work on their illustrations.

This prolonged slump is evidenced by My Beautiful Girl, Mari (2001), Wonderful Days (2003), Oseam (2003), Aachi & Ssipak (2005), and Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox (2006) which all performed dismally at the box office.

[11][15][16] Undaunted by the knowingly discouraging prognoses from industry insiders, Leafie went on to rake in more than 2.2 million tickets, while recouping its production budget in just four weeks.

It has become South Korea's most successful animated film since the country's first feature-length cartoon, A Story of Hong Gildong (1967).

It has so far secured deals for 46 countries around Asia, Europe and the Middle East after going on sale at Busan's Asian Film Market, Cannes's MIPCOM and Rome's Business Street.

[25] It became the first Korean animated film to play at Chinese theaters, opening at 3,000 screens, which is over one-third of the country's total.

Clearly elated at the film's warm reception by the Chinese media, director Oh said he hoped this breaks new ground as investors traditionally judge projects based on their appeal to viewers in English-speaking countries.

"[26] A stage play based on the book and film ran from June 22 to September 2, 2012 at the COEX Art Hall in Seoul.