Last Updated on July 23, 2021
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PLOT: A South Korean anthology of sci-fi tales. The first, finds a gawky military researcher exposed to some bad beef, which quickly unleashes a zombie plague of apocalyptic proportions on Seoul. In the second, a repairman for a company that makes robots finds himself defending a company drone that was assigned to a Buddhist temple, and subsequently attained nirvana, and is now slated to be taken offline by the manufacturer. Finally, after a young girl accidently destroys her uncle’s magic 8-ball, she orders him a new one online- only to find, two years later that the delivery is coming to Earth in the form of a twenty-mile long 8-ball asteroid that threatens to destroy civilization as we know it.
REVIEW: An anthology film is always a tricky thing. Even if one part of the film is great, there’s usually at least one weak link, even as proved by the relatively solid V/H/S- which also happens to be playing at this year’s edition of Fantasia. The South Koreans seem to have a particularly affinity for them, as I’ve seen a few such films play the festival over the years- but in a tribute to how distinctly unmemorable they were, and I can’t remember their names.
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As such, DOOMSDAY BOOK is an uneven film. Of the three stories, I’d say only one was really good, while the other two both have their moments, but tried my patience a bit as an audience member. The first story features a distinctly South Korean take on the zombie genre. I happen to love cinema from this region, and I’m certain they’ve got an awesome zombie flick up their sleeves, even if this isn’t quite it. Yip Pil-sung’s film starts off great. I loved the fact that the plague is the result of a “mad-cow” style disease- with this being the result of some REALLY mad cows, complete with a brutal look at cow being butchered for food- which suggests that the director must be a vegetarian from the disgust he shows at the consummation of meat. Sadly, the story quickly peters out once the zombie plague begins, although I appreciated the comical way Yip depicts the invasion, complete with a funny televised debate, where the various political parties argue like children, and, as the apocalypse nears, put aside their differences to play a little music to usher in the apocalypse.
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The second story- which is the lone installment directed by Kim Ji-woon, the director of the amazing I SAW THE DEVIL, THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE WEIRD- along with the upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger comeback flick THE LAST STAND (Kim actually recorded a greeting for the Fantasia crowd from the lab where he’s cutting the film). This part plays out a lot like Issac Asimov’s story I. ROBOT (far, far different from the Will Smith vehicle) – minus the murder. It poses some interesting questions about what really makes a man- suggesting that the soul isn’t something necessarily limited to the living. It’s the most interesting, and consequently my favorite of the stories, even if it does get bogged down a bit by a climatic debate that goes on a little long. The acting in this one is great, and the robot design, while low-tech, is solid.
The final and goofiest of the three involves the killer 8-ball, and if you take this as a comedy, it’s actually pretty diverting. Yip Pil-sung’s second contribution to the film, this one again features some phony newscasts leading up to the end, and here- Yip shows the anchorman and woman having complete nervous breakdowns on the air. This part of the film is really funny, even if the A-story of the film, involving the young girl and her family is a little weak.
All in all, I didn’t totally love, or totally dislike any of the films in the anthology, but on the whole it’s not a bad watch. While it probably helps if you’re a South Korean film fan, the mix of sci-fi, with quirky comedy makes this a diverting, if not entirely memorable watch.
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