Upcoming Korean SF Film: AM 11:00

Well, there have been a few Korean SF film projects going on lately, and the most recent film in process now is a time-travel effort titled AM 11:00. I don’t know when it’s supposed to come out, though I feel like I saw an ad for it already — but that can’t be, as they only started shooting in May, right?

Anyway, according to Hancinema, here’s the deal:

“AM 11:00” is about a scientist who invented a time machine and went to the next day’s 11:00 AM, but witnesses a mass murder of his colleagues and comes back to the right time to stop it.

Kim Moo-yeol will be acting with Jeong Jae-yeong and Kim Ok-bin.

Jeong Jae-yeong will take on the role of the main scientist and Kim Ok-bin as a junior scientist who experiences the future with him. Kim Moo-yeol will take on the role of Kim Ok-bin’s lover scientist.

The phrase “lover scientist” does little to inspire faith in the writing team, but then again, if it didn’t have a love interest, I suppose the film wouldn’t get made. As for the rest, it seems relatively straightforward (dare I say, Hollywood?) in its conception, which is to say, nothing too new or original, neatly avoiding the whole issue of paradox by having the protagonists be busy in the process of averting a future event. It’s very old-school as far as SF concepts go — I’m pretty sure a Golden Age SF author could have written just such a story — but that can be said (and would be true) of many Hollywood SF films.

Here’s hoping it’s a good one: the last few big-budget Korean SF movies (loosely defined, that would include the disappointing Psychic and the ridiculously bad Sector 7) were pretty awful, and knowing the Korean film industry’s aversion to bad investments, too many flopped SF films in a row will scare them off genre entirely, even despite a very well-made and impressive film like Doomsday Book (which, after all, was underscreened in Korea).

One can only hope that indie filmmakers will help make it clear that outstanding Korean SF films are possible.

I’ll update (and re-date) this post once the film has come out and I’ve gotten a chance to see it.