Director: Jo Sung-Hee
Cast: Song Joong-Ki, Kim Tae-Ri, Jin Sun-Kyu, Yu Hae-Jin, Park Ye-Rin, Richard Armitage, Kim Moo-Yul, Oh Ji-Yul, Kim Hyang-Gi, Nas Brown, John D. Michaels
Running Time: 136 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The marketing material for Space Sweepers proudly boasted the production to be “Korea’s first sci-fi film project”, a claim which does somewhat of a disservice to the film industries frequent dabbling with the genre during the early days of the Korean Wave. 2001’s 2009 Lost Memories, 2002’s Yesterday, and 2003’s Natural City were all flawed but ambitious attempts at sci-fi world building, but for whatever reason it’s never been a genre thats stuck. It’s never entriely disappeared though, with more recent offerings going down the dystopian route thanks to the likes of 2018’s Illang: The Wolf Brigade, and 2020’s double offering of Peninsula and Time to Hunt. So while billing director Jo Sung-hee’s latest as Korea’s first foray into sci-fi isn’t quite the case, it is at least the countrys first foray into sci-fi that takes place in space, and the associated tropes that go along with it.
As a director Sung-hee has been one of the most consistently original voices in Korean cinema over the last decade, even if it feels like he flies somewhat under the radar. His debut, 2010’s End of Animal, was an impressively atmospheric piece of filmmaking (and made it into Our Top 15 Watched Movies of 2015), which was followed up in 2012 with his breakthrough sophomore feature A Werewolf Boy. Since then, Sung-hee helmed the comic book noir Phantom Detective in 2016, and with Space Sweepers he once again switches up genres, working with his biggest Continue reading
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