Review: ‘Alienoid,’ starring Ryu Jun-yeol, Kim Woo-bin, Kim Tae-ri, So Ji-sub, YuYum Jung-ah, Jo Woo-jin, Kim Eui-sung and Lee Hanee

November 21, 2022

by Carla Hay

Kim Woo-bin in “Alienoid” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Alienoid”

Directed by Choi Dong-hoon

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the 1380s, 1390s, the 2010s and the 2020s, the South Korean sci-fi action film “Alienoid” features an all-Asian cast of characters portraying humans, aliens, supernatural beings, robots and mutants.

Culture Clash: A robot and a supernatural creature travel through time to manage and guard Alien prisoners trapped in human bodies, when they encounter a teenage girl who gets involved in the possession of the Crystal Knife that is the source of the prisoner guards’ superpowers.

Culture Audience: “Alienoid” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching ambitiously told science-fiction movies that require an active imagination to process everything that happens in the story.

Kim Tae-ri in “Alienoid” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Alienoid” can be a little too convoluted with plot developments that are jumbled into different timelines. However, this sci-fi adventure has plenty of orginal storytelling and interesting characters to keep viewers intrigued. People who don’t have the patience to sift through all the layers in the story might be turned off by this movie. That’s why “Alienoid” is best appreciated if watched without any distractions.

Written and directed by Choi Dong-hoon, “Alienoid” is about the ongoing conflicts in a universe where Alien prisoners are kept in human bodies, without the humans knowing about it. Certain beings who are the guards of the prisoners are tasked with ensuring that the prisoners don’t escape from these bodies. The movie compares these escapes to a “jailbreak.” The prisoners trapped in the bodies are supposed to die when the humans die.

Alien prisoners have varying powers. Therefore, some Alien prisoners are more successful than others in escaping. However, on Earth, the Aliens only have about five minutes to live outside of a human body because of the Earth’s atmosphere, which is why some Aliens try to escape to other planets in the short time that they have to live outside of a host human body on Earth. When an Alien escapes from a host human body, that human can die as a result, if the Alien chooses to kill the human.

“Alienoid” has a large ensemble cast that might make the movie look overstuffed with characters. However, viewers should know in advance that the movie’s multi-layered storyline is essentially rooted in these four characters:

  • Guard (played by Kim Woo-bin) is a supernatural being who can transform into looking human and has been tasked to manage and guard Alien prisoners and place them in human hosts. Guard gets his powers from a special weapon called the Crystal Knife.
  • Thunder (voiced by Kim Dae-myung) is a robot that is Guard’s work partner/sidekick that can shapeshift into things (such as transportation vehicles and ships), as well as transform into looking human. Thunder also gets his powers from the Crystal Knife.
  • Lee Ahn (played by Kim Tae-ri) is a mysterious woman who can shoot thunder and plays a key role in the possession of the Crystal Knife.
  • Mureuk (played by Ryu Jun-yeol) is a Taoist swordsman who calls himself Marvelous Mureuk is sometimes physically awkward and emotionally insecure.

The movie goes back and forth between the 1380s, the 1390s, the 2010s and the 2020s. “Alienoid” begins in 1380, when an Alien prisoner has escaped from the body of a woman named Hong Eon-nyeon (played by Jeon Yeo-been), so Guard and Thunder have arrived to try to capture this escaped prisoner. Eon-nyeon knows she’s going to die, so she begs Thunder to take care of her baby daughter, whose name is Yian.

Guard and Thunder bring the baby to the future, in the year 2012. Guard, who is the one who’s more likely to be in human form, raises Yian as her single father. He does not tell her the truth about who he is until Yian (played by Choi Yu-ri) is 10 years old, in 2022. Yian was already suspicious that her father was a robot, because she was telling people that her father is a robot who experimented on her brain. Guard also mysteriously disappears every night at 9 p.m.

It should come as no surprise that the Crystal Knife ends up getting lost, and there’s a battle of good versus evil to get possession of the Crystal Knife. Along the way, many more characters get involved. Some are more eccentric than others. These characters include:

  • Moon Do-seok (played by So Ji-sub) is a detective who is being pursued by Aliens.
  • Heug-seol, (played by Yum Jung-ah), also known as Madam Black, is a sorcerer from Samgaksan.
  • Cheong-woon (played by Jo Woo-jin), also known as Mr. Blue, is a sorcerer from Samgaksan
  • Dog Turd (played by Kim Ki-cheon) is an enemy of Mureuk.
  • Hyun-gam (played by Yoo Jae-myung), also known as Master Hyun, is a Yellow Mountain resident who bought the Crystal Knife.

The hyperactive tone of “Alienoid” just might be too dizzying for some viewers. The action scenes in “Alienoid” are thrilling but can lose their thrill if viewers are confused by what’s going on in the story. All of the cast members are perfectly adequate in their acting skills, but no one is going to win any major awards for “Alienoid.”

“Alienoid” has touches of occasional comedy that work well, since the movie doesn’t take itself entirely too seriously. The visual effects, production design and costume design are among the best assets of “Alienoid,” which leaves a strong visual impression, even when things movie gets a little too cluttered with its time-jumping antics. Some of the twists in the story are very easy to predict, but the biggest surprise is left for the end of the movie. Ultimately, “Alienoid” is a movie made for sci-fi enthusiasts, and it dares viewers to keep up with its high-speed array of ideas.

Well Go USA released “Alienoid” in select U.S. cinemas on August 26, 2022. The movie will be released on digital, VOD, Blu-ray and DVD on December 6, 2022.

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