Nevertheless, regarding the valuable challenge of ‘alien + humans’ [Jihye Yoon’s public research area]

[TV Daily Yoon Ji-hye’s Column] Beings from extraterrestrial life, Taoists and immortals from the Goryeo Dynasty, and modern humans join forces to save the world from another, vicious extraterrestrial being that wants to devour the Earth. This is a challenge that director Choi Dong-hoon vigorously presents to the Marvel-centered, cosmic hero genre that no imagination or world view has dared to penetrate.

The timing was also right. After the first generation of ‘Avengers’ died, the generational change had not yet been completely achieved, so Marvel’s power was not the same as before, and it was slowly coming time for heroes from Eastern culture to appear in earnest. In other words, a good opportunity was seized because a tectonic change of its own was taking place in the hero genre.

Of course, heroes from Eastern cultures were not completely unfamiliar. However, most of them were people we encountered in Chinese martial arts movies and dramas, so we needed our own unique heroes who were different from those from the mainland. And director Choi Dong-hoon already had a database built up: ‘Jeon Woochi.’ The movie ‘Jeon Woo-chi’, released in 2009, is a work created by director Choi Dong-hoon with his unique imagination based on the classic novel ‘The Story of Jeon Woo-chi’.

If you think about it, the movies ‘Alien + Humans’ and ‘Comrade Woochi’ have quite a few similarities. This is also true of the setting in which immortals and gurus, beings from a very long past, travel across time and try to protect today’s world, and in the process, a timeless romance blooms. The biggest difference is that the world view expands into the universe, and while in ‘Jeon Woochi’ they were sealed monsters, in ‘Alien + Humans’ they are alien prisoners, and beings from space join them.

‘Alien + Human’ was literally created by mixing together areas that had been considered separate and distinct from each other, such as past time and future time, non-science and science, space and Earth, East and West, etc., into one without any boundaries. What a variety of fascinating material and worldview this is. He blocks strange attacks from strange forms of alien life forms with mirrors and amulets, and counters them with the sword and fan power, which are said to be able to cut down monsters. That’s equivalent to a weapon from outer space. The only modern weapon that appears here is a gun.

Perhaps it was a story from the culture it belonged to, and above all, it may have been an imagination possible because the director was deeply interested in related subjects. Moreover, he has the ability to turn his imagination into concrete results and visual media, and this has been proven in several works. Isn’t this evident just by looking at the cast of actors who have unquestionable acting skills and outstanding individual charms?

The timing is good, and we have ingredients that will provide you with rare fun that you won’t find anywhere else, as well as talented people who will play with them to your heart’s content, so all you have to do is mix them together to make them look pretty. However, in making a movie, it is the most difficult thing to put together the appearance well, and at this point, unlike ‘Alien + Human’, which started off with good momentum, unfortunately, it was not able to utilize the opportunities, materials, and actors ambitiously until the end, which is quite disappointing. left behind

Above all, the growth narrative of the main characters, which is considered the most important in the hero genre, especially that of ‘Mureuk’ (Ryu Jun-yeol), did not stand out. Muruk started out as a foolish Taoist monk, and at the end of ‘Aliens + Humans Part 1’, he showed the appearance of a Taoist warrior by pulling out a sword from his fan with his sword power, but in ‘Alien + Humans Part 2’, he wore an unsuitable suit at a critical moment and acted like a different character. This is because they meet the end without being able to use their full potential, either by being run over by the field or by giving up their place.

However, the existence value of director Choi Dong-hoon’s ‘Alien + Human’ is still too significant to focus only on the disappointments of the production quality. It was exciting and thrilling to not stop imagining this while watching it, but to realize it as a video that can be watched, and I thought I would be envious of Marvel if another story, a more well-crafted story, was created based on this worldview. just because. This is why director Choi Dong-hoon and ‘Alien + Human’, who finally completed a challenge that only he could do, but which must have been dangerous, cannot help but feel infinitely more valuable ‘despite that’.

[TV Daily columnist Yoon Ji-hye news@tvdaily.co.kr, photo = still cuts from the movies ‘Aliens + Humans Part 1′, ‘Aliens + Humans Part 2′]

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