Directed by: Jo Sung-hee Starring: Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu, Yoo Hae-jin, Richard Armitage Release Date: February 5th, 2021 (Netflix)
After the recent worldwide successes of K-Pop and films like Bong Joon-ho’s critically acclaimed masterwork PARASITE (2019) placing South Korea at the center stage of global pop culture, it seems appropriate for 2021 to finally be the year that takes Korean cinema off-world and into the stars for its first ever space opera with SPACE SWEEPERS. With a ‘who’s who’ history of box-office disasters in the Sci-Fi department, there was an appropriate level of nervousness surrounding the release of SPACE SWEEPERS as fans of the genre as well as its hugely popular stars Song Joong-ki (A Werewolf Boy) and Kim Tae-ri (The Handmaiden) anxiously prayed for it to succeed where others had failed.
With it releasing to a worldwide audience on Netflix, SPACE SWEEPERS came primed to reaffirm South Korea’s ever-growing dominant presence in the global entertainment industry. But despite SPACE SWEEPERS boasting some of the best visual effects we’ve ever seen in a Korean film, audiences will be left thinking ‘what could have been’ as SPACE SWEEPERS takes a generic and general entertainment approach as it fails to improve upon the industry’s imitative tendencies when it comes to big-budgeted sci-fi.
In a distant future when Earth is dying, a private corporation named UTS builds a habitable paradise in space for a select number of individuals. While the future of Earth’s inhabitants remains uncertain, those capable move their lives and work to various space stations orbiting Earth belonging to UTS. One such potentially lucrative occupation exists where rag-tag teams of space pirates compete amongst themselves to collecting valuable space junk and debris that can be recycled for hard cash. Among these ‘space sweepers,’ a notorious all-Korean crew of four ride aboard the fastest and most agile ship dubbed “Victory” that tends to scoop up the hottest finds of space garbage before others. But due to a combination of the crew’s individual vices and sheer bad luck, they find themselves caught in an endless cycle of debt despite their deep rooted desires for money.
One day, the crew learns that their cargo contains the missing UTS android girl named Dorothy, who is reportedly to be outfitted with a nuclear bomb by the terrorist organization Black Fox. With the crew’s last hopes of wiping their away their debt having gone bust, they make the drastic decision to set up a trade between the Black Foxes for the payday of a lifetime. But when UTS sniffs out their plan, the crew of Victory get unexpectedly get caught between a shadow war for the future of humanity.
SPACE SWEEPERS is not the space opera that so many of us were hoping for. This is largely due to its inability to establish an authentic voice of its own despite its best efforts. Immediately upon opening, SPACE SWEEPERS screams Blade Runner 2049 (2017) with the visual style of its futuristic cityscape featuring flying cars and looming black towers blanketed in a heavily polluted orange haze. And the opening titles establish a social dilemma much the same as the film Elysium (2013) does with its premise of humanity divided among the privileged living in an orbiting space station and the poor masses living on a dying earth. Not one part of SPACE SWEEPERS feels authentic at this point.
And although based off a webtoon of its own, SPACE SWEEPERS is styled after a Guardians of the Galaxy type self-deprecating humor as the crew members’ larger than life personalities clash and erupt into clumsy infighting, bickering and fart jokes. In this way, very little of the overall vision comes across as authentic. In imitating so much that we’ve seen before, SPACE SWEEPERS feels like a knock-off movie desperate to please on every level. This further piles on to its overall generic tone as it plays everything safe and by the book.
As far as visuals go, SPACE SWEEPERS puts the six figure budgets of Hollywood to shame. All fears of Korean budgets being unable to produce convincing sci-fi effects should now be put to rest. The film sees several dazzling Star Wars esque space chases and dog fights that have a kind of rebel vs imperial component to them. It all looks spectacular for its intended style, spare for a few awkward action moments of seemingly casual cargo exchange between ships as they accelerate through space. One scene in particular near the end has the crew send the young android girl, Kot-nim, from one ship to the other via zip-line had me wincing uncontrollably in confusion as to the physics of the situation (even after having checked all proper notions of physics at the door).
SPACE SWEEPERS puts together an impressive multinational cast that should be commended for its effort. But having hired mostly from a very limited pool of cheaply available domestic talent, the results feel very B grade. So aside from the leader of the UTC Corp. played by Richard Armitage, there is a strong sense that many of the actors showed up for a day job and have little investment in the film. Because of this, SPACE SWEEPERS is missing that special harmony among the cast and crew when they interact with the foreign talent like props. This way, the non-Korean actors come across as very one-dimensional and Alien-like which runs counterproductive to the global appeal the films is striving for. SPACE SWEEPERS would have worked better and been more forgiving if the multinational cast actually were full-blown aliens considering their overall portrayal in the film is so inhuman.
SPACE SWEEPERS was written and directed by Jo Sung-hee (A Werewolf Boy). Actor Song Joong-ki (A Battleship Island) joins the director again after having starred in one of his previous films, A Werewolf Boy (2012), to play the space pirate piolet Tae-ho. His character is somewhat interesting with his fall from grace as a former elite solider of utopia now living in exile. He also has a mission of his own to reunite with an adopted daughter he lost in an accident. It makes for great incentive for him to be so money hungry but the film makes it difficult to sympathize with his situation due to a number of questionable decisions he makes.
I was most interested to see how rising star Kim Tae-ri (1987: When the Day Comes, The Handmaiden) would fare in this Sci-Fi outing after having adored her diverse work in film thus far. Her character, Captain Jang, is super cool and I loved how she was styled especially with those aviator sunglasses making her look so badass. But her character’s mannerisms come across as a bit overplayed for my taste. Also, her backstory having been a genius who mastered several weapon systems and fully re-equipped with several body modifications that allow for special audio and visual detection come far too late. There are hints of her enhancements earlier, but SPACE SWEEPERS would have been much more fun if all the characters utilized their special quirks and abilities more often in their pursuit to intercept and protect the precious cargo.
That special cargo being Kot-nim, a.k.a. ‘Dorothy’ the android equipped with a nuclear device installed inside, a cute little girl whom the crew grows fond of after trying to intitially sell her to terrorists. This aspect of the story created an odd balance between the deadly gunfire and gambling addicted foul-mouthed pirates willing to do anything for a dollar. Like last year’s Peninsula (2020), toilet humor and warm fuzzies with the child actors may be cute, but its the last thing I want with my zombie apocalypse or in this case operatic space drama to save humanity.
SPACE SWEEPERS also comes equipped with a cool android called Bubs voiced by the unmistakable Yoo Hae-jin (Intimate Strangers, A Taxi Driver). Overall the robot had a great presence among the core Korean team and his super human abilities were awesome to see being put to use in securing their space garbage. But sometimes Bubs’s strength seemed easily toppled so his specific abilities were not well defined. There’s also an unexpected transgender notion the robot plays into that sees him fantasize about getting skin grafts from a beautiful woman. Although this was a bit of an odd development in the film and I’m not sure how it will play to those sensitive to the topic, but it’s an interesting (a first?) concept I suppose for an artificial being to be experiencing.
With SPACE SWEEPERS set to make Korean cinema history as its first ever space opera, I spent the better part of my film viewing hours last month revisiting the various Korean sci-fi hits and (mostly) misses released over the past two decades in Korea. Everything from time travel (AM 11:00), monsters (Sector 7), aliens (Save the Green Planet!), advanced technology (Fabricated City) and robots (Natural City), to alternate realities (2009: Lost Memories) and virtual worlds (Resurrection of the Little Match Girl) have entered the Korean sci-fi landscape. But for the most part, these box-office disasters have deterred South Korean filmmakers from taking big Sci-Fi chances over the years.
My goal in revisiting so many Korean sci-fi movies recently was to try and reexamine just where and how previous efforts failed to stir hearts and ignite the imaginations of moviegoers in ways that excellent sci-fi films for the ages like Star Wars (1977) and Blade Runner (1982) have. I’ve somewhat concluded that even when Korean sci-fi like SPACE SWEEPERS excels visually in ways that rival Hollywood blockbusters despite their ridiculously low budgets in comparison, the Korean product fails to take bold steps towards carving out an identity of its own on the sci-fi landscape. Unlike the way Korean films have carved out their own signature blend of thrillers, comedies, and dramas, Korean sci-fi tends to imitate Western Sci-Fi in almost every way imaginable. Until this can be remedied, Sci-Fi will unfortunately continue to remain Korean film’s weakest genre.
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