Starring Kang Soo-yeon, Kim Hyun-joo and Ryu Kyung-soo

Written & Directed by Yeon Sang-ho

In a post-apocalyptic future, a researcher at an AI lab leads the effort to end a civil war by cloning the brain of a heroic soldier – her mother.

There is quite a lot wrong with Netflix’s new Korean Sci-Fi, Jung_E.

For a start, the premise, as outlined in its own publicity, is all over the place. The movie takes a while to explain (twice, and lengthily!) that we’re in a flooded post-apocalyptic world, and there are massive orbital platforms where humanity is taking refuge, and there’s some kind of endless rebellion going on, blah blah blah… It all feels terribly familiar, so it isn’t a spoiler – indeed it’s doing the film a favour – to say that none of that is important. It takes about half an hour, after a video game style action intro, to realise exactly what kind of film this is, ultimately turning out to be rather thoughtful and heartfelt, and nothing to do with civil wars, apocalypses or orbital platforms at all.

There’s also some weirdly terrible sub-comic acting, which seems to belong to an entirely different movie altogether, but there’s also some rather wonderful acting, notably from its two female leads Kang Soo-yeon (who tragically died shortly after the film was shot) as a grieving research scientist, and Kim Hyun-joo as an endlessly reconstructed AI combat drone.

There are some annoyingly derivative moments (at least one shamelessly ripped off from Will Smith’s I, Robot) not to mention a good few implausible plot holes which get in the way of other moments of startling and satisfying originality, cleverly flipping familiar tropes on their head.

So, if you’re prepared to hang on while it finds its narrative feet, Jung_E, written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho (who also helmed the brilliant Train to Busan) turns out to be a worthy addition to the well-trodden canon of sci-fi exploring Artificial Intelligence, consciousness and mortality, weaving its way through some surprising and invigoratingly fresh narrative turns.

Verdict: It would be easy to lose patience with Jung_E, but stick with it for an ultimately admirable and affecting ride. 8/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com