I almost didn't realize that I stared my black screen long after Seo Bok finished. Last year, when I read the news stating, "The first Korean sci-fi action film, "Seo Bok", the first human clone through stem cell cloning and genetic engineering. With Gong Yoo and Park Bo Gum as leads", I had a preconceived image about how Seo Bok would be. I thought, Korean would go all out in Hollywoodian tradition of shallow sci-fi bombastic action.
I was wrong. Though there is a bit of Hollywoodian appearance in the style, Seo Bok is still Korean at its core, with Korean / Asian values / approach that I come to love years ago when I started to be interested in Korean cinema.
Seo Bok delivers the everlasting question about live and death in an unconventional way: the meeting of two protagonists from opposite ends of the spectrum. One is dying (Ki-Hun played wonderfully by Gong Yoo). And the other one has the possibility to be immortal (Seo-Bok played by Park Bogum). I have to admit, Park Bogum gradual transformation from a curious-ordinary-innocent-kid to an intelligent-sensitive-observant creature then transformed into an angry wounded beast, is worth an Oscar. Effortless and seamless transformation just with his facial expression and his gaze.
The premise of Seo-Bok follows the path of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with more of human approach (and Asian values). Ki-Hun is afraid to die mostly because his traumatic past that led him to believe he would encounter an unimaginable terrible punishment in the other side. His buying his time out of fear. Somehow, Ki-Hun is the reincarnation of Captain Walton's Mary Shelley. And as the story progress, we have Victor Frankenstein in the form of a mother / scientist who created Seo bok with a very humanly reason: out of grief.
As every story with out-of-control human ambition, Seo-bok, which is based on fear and grief of inevitable human destiny, is a great movie that worth watches more than once.
I was wrong. Though there is a bit of Hollywoodian appearance in the style, Seo Bok is still Korean at its core, with Korean / Asian values / approach that I come to love years ago when I started to be interested in Korean cinema.
Seo Bok delivers the everlasting question about live and death in an unconventional way: the meeting of two protagonists from opposite ends of the spectrum. One is dying (Ki-Hun played wonderfully by Gong Yoo). And the other one has the possibility to be immortal (Seo-Bok played by Park Bogum). I have to admit, Park Bogum gradual transformation from a curious-ordinary-innocent-kid to an intelligent-sensitive-observant creature then transformed into an angry wounded beast, is worth an Oscar. Effortless and seamless transformation just with his facial expression and his gaze.
The premise of Seo-Bok follows the path of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with more of human approach (and Asian values). Ki-Hun is afraid to die mostly because his traumatic past that led him to believe he would encounter an unimaginable terrible punishment in the other side. His buying his time out of fear. Somehow, Ki-Hun is the reincarnation of Captain Walton's Mary Shelley. And as the story progress, we have Victor Frankenstein in the form of a mother / scientist who created Seo bok with a very humanly reason: out of grief.
As every story with out-of-control human ambition, Seo-bok, which is based on fear and grief of inevitable human destiny, is a great movie that worth watches more than once.