Illyumyeolmangbogoseo

Part of the appeal of movies is the chance to see other cultures. Doomsday Book starts off with a great view of Korea, not so unlike here in Australia, which was refreshing. I hadn't read anything about this movie before I watched it and was disappointed when the first of three stories descended into rather ordinary zombie fare. For me, it was kept afloat by my unfamiliarity with the country and its customs, but that was all. The next story, concerning robotics, is a quantum leap better, well directed, acted and edited, showing some class. The final idea, concerning a meteorite, had some of the sparkle I last enjoyed watching The Host, with a similar family dynamic. It wasn't as well thought through as the former idea however, and was confusing for the first half. When I got it though, it was a good idea, if a tad on the weird side. There was a welcome scattering of sci-fi visuals throughout the three stories. As a trilogy of shorts I feel this endeavour could have been better served with a more original idea for the first part.

I sat down to watch "Doomsday Book" without having a single clue what it was about, and decided to give it a go simply because it was a Korean movie. And now having seen this movie, I will have to say that this was a different experience in many ways.

First of all, this is not a single movie, but a movie comprised of three different short stories, that are independent upon one another, and dealing with very different subjects.

The first segment, titled "A Brave New World" (8 out of 10 rating) was without a doubt the best of the three segments (in my personal opinion). Both story-wise and also entertainment-wise. It is about a man who contracts a strange disease from eating tainted meat, and ends up turning into a zombie. It was a different approach to the zombie genre, but all together a very good one. I thoroughly enjoyed this segment, because it was nicely made, a fresh new take of the zombie genre, and also proved to be the better of the three segments. Great make-up and great effects, a well worthy Korean addition to the zombie vault.

Segment two, titled "The Heavenly Creature" (5 out of 10 rating) is about robots having a major part in the life of humans, to the extend where they are so much integrated part of life and structure that they might start to become a threat to mankind. In a Buddhist monastery, an older robot model have found spiritual and religious enlightenment. Well, I will say that the director here had come up with an interesting concept. However, this particular segment turned out to be a little bit too heavy on the ethics and morals, compared to the other two segments. And as such, it turned out to be somewhat of a hard pill to swallow. Aside from that, then the segment was well constructed and nicely filmed, and the robots were quite amazing.

The third and final segment, titled "Happy Birthday" (4 out of 10 rating) was without a doubt the most odd and bizarre of the three segments. It is about a young girl who orders an 8-ball on the Internet for her father, but as luck would have it a 10 kilometer wide meteor is heading towards Earth, threatening to end life as we know it. It turns out that the meteor is the 8-ball ordered by the girl. Yeah, odd story, isn't it? The segment itself was nicely edited and nicely filmed, but the story was just too strange to fully wrap your head around and embrace it for what it was. It sort of felt a little bit out of place in the segments.

I suppose there is a little bit of something for everybody in these three segments, and we would all individually have our different favorite and least favorite of the segments. However, they all do bring something unique and outstanding to the enjoyment of the movie.

For an Asian movie, then "Doomsday Book" was a bit out of the ordinary. As a collective rating, then I would rate the entire movie a 6 out of 10 stars.

We waited 6 years for this?

Doomsday Book is a 3 part Korean anthology film about the future of mankind. Its 3 separate story lines are basically broken down as follows: 1. Zombie Apocalypse, 2. Robot Enlightenment, and 3. Alien/Asteroid destruction. Each of the stories is independent from one another and all are acted, written, and directed by various teams.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

While not terrible, this movie does have some problems, and it seems strangely out dated (despite its futuristic themes). This film debuted earlier this year (2012), and therein lies the bulk of its problems; this production originally began back in 2006, but funding problems and other delays hampered its release and it was shelved for quite a while. As a result, some stories were wrapped up years ago, one never got made, another was added on post haste to finally get the film out the door, etc...The end result is an uneven amalgam of flavors and styles and eras that doesn't quite come together as a whole as was hoped for.

Story 1. "Brave New World" (i.e. "the Zombie" story). Easily my least favorite of the 3 works, and the one that suffers the most from the production delays. This story has 2006 written all over it, and revolves around the world's population de-evolving into zombie like creatures as a result of a virus born of tainted meat processing procedures. This would have been right proper back in '06, but, how many stories about contaminated mass food production, end of world viruses, etc, have been made since then?... And, we've got zombies! Sorry, but it's almost 2013 now, so enough with the freakin zombies already unless you have a more original idea to implement them! This story is ultimately not worth investing in (primarily because it was so overdone by the time it was released). There's also no zombie "love story" angle as suggested that I can recall, unless there is some extended version I haven't seen. Basically, guy goes on a date, guy runs into date later on during the wash, and, everybody is now a zombie or will soon become one!

Summary: Somewhat OK (I guess)!

Story 2. "Creation of Heaven" (i.e. the "Robot with a soul" story). Probably the best of the 3 stories, and easily the most philosophical & cerebral. Fairly interesting and well done story overall. It's basically your human created machine gains intelligence, sentience, thought, free will, etc. Then, various humans with differing opinions and motives on the subject must decide what to do with it. This story would perhaps have been better suited to be a full feature movie on its own. It does work pretty well as a short, but I could easily see it being successfully expanded into a longer production (similar to what was done with the "Dumplings" portion of the "3 Extremes" anthology).

Summary: Not bad at all!

Story 3. "Happy Birthday" (i.e. the "We need to tack on another 30-40 minute tale 6 years later to finally release this film" story). I like the somewhat odd premise of this segment, but unfortunately, it just doesn't work that well overall. This is the story that has the young girl trying to replace her dad's missing 8-ball via the internet. The internet is a magical place indeed, but I think we're still a long way away from alien races fulfilling Amazon.com orders through space and time via giant asteroids. This episode felt a bit rushed, and, I think would have been far better served if it played up the comedic/surreal aspect of the plot (which it reluctantly seemed to not want to fully embrace).

Summary: Ultimately disappointing!

Bottom Line: Overall, I was not impressed! A bit of a missed opportunity that's "OK" to watch, but I recommend you don't set your hopes too high going in if you're going to check it out. I'm not going to destroy it, because it ain't terrible. Occasionally though, delays/timing/funding get in the way of the best laid plans; here's Exhibit A in regards! That's just the way it goes sometimes!

6 out of 10 stars overall!

An anthology of apocalyptic sci-fi. Kind of. The film as a whole is infuriatingly confusing in its conception and execution. The first segment, directed by Pil-Sung Yim (of the Korean Hansel & Gretel movie), is the part that can be definitively labeled horror. Tainted beef turns people into zombies. The film has some decent comic moments, but it never really goes anywhere. Plus, I'm absolutely sick of zombies. The third segment, also directed by Yim, concerns a gigantic pool ball from space on a collision course with Earth. Turns out a young girl accidentally ordered an alien attack on the planet. This segment is so absolutely bizarre, I have no idea what they were going for. It is, at least, a bit amusing even if baffling. Bae Doon-Na appears at the very end of this segment, in the last ten minutes of the movie, and director Bong Joon-Ho also appears. The middle segment, directed by Kim Jee-Woon, cannot be considered horror at all. It concerns a robot which has achieved enlightenment and is considered by his fellow monks to be the reincarnation of Buddha. His makers are incensed at the idea, though, and wish to destroy him. This starts off as the most interesting segment, but as it goes on it gets lost in endless dialogue. Kim is a great action filmmaker and has no ability to make abstract concepts interesting. It's the most boring segment of the film, unfortunately. The one thing I can say for the film as a whole is that it always looks fantastic. Even when it's dull, which is often, it's always pretty.

If there's a common point that links all 3 of these short movies, it's how they show human stupidity and the realistic statement that that's the reason why we are coming to our own end.

The first movie present us with a zombie scenario, more credible than those created by other movies. It's a superb critic of a society drowned in consumerism, the abuse of other life forms and the worshipping of the shallow. It also presents us with the hypocrisy people live by, with somehow subtle imagery of religion and the disregard for those same values when it comes to feeling pleasure through the material and sex. The point of view is original, for which we see the event unfold mostly from the perspective of a zombie, rather than a hero trying to save him/herself. The film is filled with humour, although an underlying seriousness is palpable.

The second movie is a completely different story. It's comparable to Ghost in the Shell for its cyberpunk elements as well as deep philosophy. There's no comedy here. It's the only film with no direct doomsday scenario, although the human folly is obviously present. The future presented here is most plausible and, indeed, this is likely to happen sooner or later. This film is worth watching on its own, if you want to skip the other 2.

The last film is pure absurd comedy. I personally didn't find it amusing, particularly after watching the previous one. The nonsensical idea of this movie is not helped by the fact that the plot wasn't really thought throughly, and not much effort was put into giving any sense to anything, even to the parts that supposedly help the movie unfolds (i.e.: they randomly find silly solutions out of nowhere, comparable to the "deus ex machina" a child playing with toys would create).

Alas, I'd give individual scores as follows: First movie 5/10 Second one 7/10 Final movie 2/10