'Train to Busan' director Yeon Sang-ho strikes out with his sci-fi feature 'Jung_E,' an inert action-drama that feels stuck in testing phases.
But Yeon’s latest is altogether a disappointment, lacking both the brain power and the beating heart that made his other movies so full of humanity. Jung_E is a heck of a work for Kang to part on. Even for non-Korean speakers, it’s easy to grasp the broad strokes of Jung_E as you doomscroll the latest nonsense on Twitter. It’s less about its sputtering plot and illogical worldbuilding — both ripe for criticism — and more about the film failing to raise the question, “Why?” Jung_E is ostensibly a sci-fi centered on the brain, which uses the motif to explore tangential themes like identity, control, and the ephemeral sense of self. Despite occasionally mesmerizing effects work, compulsively enjoyable performances and action choreography, and a schmaltzy but effective undercurrent that affords the film a modicum of emotional depth, Jung_E collapses under its own ambition. Her adult daughter, Yun Seo-hyun (the late Kang Soo-yeon) is the head of the “Jung_E” project that tries to harness Jung-yi’s brilliant tactical mind to create a new breed of artificial soldiers.
Way too much of Jung_E is content to discuss its themes instead of merely embedding them in an interesting story.
After an opening sequence that sets the table for Jung_E’s fighting ability, Yeon settles into scene after scene of Sang-Hoon and Seohyun discussing how the project is going and how to fix it. Leading the project is an expert named Seohyun (the sadly deceased Kang Soo-yeon, to whom the film is dedicated), who happens to be the daughter of Yun, who has been in a coma for 35 years. Romero](/cast-and-crew/george-a-romero), “Jung_E,” now on Netflix, is the filmmaker’s stab at “The Terminator,” “ [Blade Runner](/reviews/blade-runner-1982-1)” and sci-fi action flicks with deep philosophical underpinnings about what it means to be human.
The latest film from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, Jung_E, is now streaming, but should you give it a watch? After the one-two punch of Squid Game ...
As the heart & soul of the movie, Kang Soo-yeon brings depth to a mostly thin storyline. Some early reviews of the film have mentioned the production design & VFX as strengths of the film, but I would say they were very inconsistent. However, I feel that they should have done a little more to cultivate that relationship in flashbacks or early scenes before we meet Seohyun as an adult to cement what these repetitive tests are doing to Seohyun’s psyche and why she has such strong motives as the film moves towards its conclusion. I wouldn’t be surprised if many turn off the film in the early going because of his character. He relies on the script & his performances to carry the film more than the spectacle for which he is best known. With this film, he strips a lot of that away in lieu of a toned-down examination of AI & experimentation.
It follows Kronoid team leader Yun Seo-hyun as she tries to create the perfect AI combat robot based on her own mother, Captain Yun Jung-yi, who was a hero in ...
When the doctors lead her out to take her to her chamber, she beats them up and escapes. When Seo-hyun realises that her mother’s brain will be used to make a sex toy or as a household android, in the last trial run, she deletes the memory of Yun ever having a daughter. He also checks Seo-hyun’s mandatory ethics test and realises that she is helping the AI and confronts her. They hope to replicate her so that her AI can take up the job and end it once and for all. The movie begins with team leader Yun Seo-hyun (Kang Soo-yeon) trying to make the perfect AI of her mother and failing. After the sea levels rose on Earth, most humans moved to shelters created on the orbits of the Earth and the Moon.
From Yeon Sang-ho, director of 2016 zombie horror Train to Busan, this sci-fi thriller follows a researcher and her team as they attempt to find the key to ...
On a visit to the lab, Kronoid Chairman informs Seo-hyun that the Adrian War is coming to an end and that weapons manufacturing, including of the combat AIs, will cease. In a flashback, it's revealed that Captain Yun became a mercenary to pay for her daughter Seo-hyun's lung tumor treatment. After an ethics test to check she's not an android, a doctor reveals that Seo-hyun's cancer has now spread to the rest of her organs. Then, Kronoid intends to manufacture the elite, loyal combat robot for the Allied Forces to gain a winning advantage. Thirty-five years beforehand, the real Yun failed the mission and ended up in a coma. A secret connection to the test subject and ethical questions of cloning human consciousness add complications.
For American audiences, at least, the opening sequences and other moments in JUNG_E will recall movies like Alita: Battle Angel, Elysium, and other Neill ...
By the time it circles back to a more spectacular climax, the movie feels like a genuine hybrid, rather than a case of tonal whiplash. When the movie shows a swarm of robots with generically human faces, they don’t just resemble the robot designs from the 2004 I, Robot; it feels like Yeon has made a weirder, more personal companion to that compromised movie, among others. That sense of loss is eerily appropriate to the material, which considers how or when mimicry of the human brain constitutes its own life form, and what that kind of superficial life extension might mean to more traditional forms of consciousness. In the long stretch between instances of mayhem, it goes through a lot of world-building, contemplative drama, and some plot twists that intentionally undermine both the characters’ and the audience’s expectations about where the story might logically be headed. Now, scientists working for a large corporation are putting AI-cloned versions of her through that same battle, hoping some version will figure out how to survive it — and become the great warrior needed to win the ongoing civil war. The real Jung-yi is in a coma following a major battle.
JUNG_E lulls the audience into a false sense of security with a fantastic futuristic shootout in its first few minutes. It'll get back to creative combat ...
Take a look into Yeon Sang-ho's take on the future. [relationship with her mother](https://gamerant.com/great-horror-movies-mothers-daughters-scream-final-girls-ma-run-smile/), a war hero who has spent most of her daughter's life in a coma. The film is dedicated to her. [film's go-to weapon](https://gamerant.com/unique-sci-fi-movie-weapons/) is an assault rifle with a built-in grappling hook, and it gets absolutely everything it can out of that solid concept. The film is available on Netflix now. The Yun Jun-yi went with the third option, forcing her [into a fate worse](https://gamerant.com/movie-characters-fate-worse-than-death/) than a thousand deaths. War is fought almost entirely with robots, but the scientists on Earth Captain Yun wound up in a coma, but the military scientists on Earth think she can still end the war. Eternal life isn't just available to the perfect soldier, anyone can copy and paste their brain into a new body if they have the capital. His biggest hit is still the groundbreaking It'll get back to creative combat set pieces by the end, but everything in between is simultaneously extremely heartfelt and deeply cynical.
Directed by Sang-ho Yeon, "Jung_E" is an emotionally stirring drama that is packed with action, seemingly making it look like one of those films that stays ...
Yun Seo-hyun told her mother that her daughter’s cancer was in remission, and it was a gut-wrenching feeling for her not to be able to tell her that she was her daughter. Probably, it was that moment in which a daughter realized that she needed to fight for the respect and modesty of her mother. She wanted to know who that woman was who had died to save her. Kim Sang-hoon chased the mother-daughter duo, and that’s when he got to know that Yun Seo-hyun had deleted the original data so that she could start all over again. Yun Seo-hyun’s mind, and she felt that the sacrifice of her mother was of no use and that the surgery she had in her childhood had been for nothing. And in order to do that, she had to do something that was against the laws and the establishment. Jae Kyung told her that he was innocent and that he had gotten orders from the headquarters to try out a product development for the legendary mercenary. Yun Seo-hyun couldn’t believe what she was witnessing, and she felt dismayed and horrified at seeing the memories and consciousness of her mother put to such use. A young Yun Seo-hyun felt nice after she saw an action figure of her mother made by Kronoid, but little did she know that the oppressive government laws had made her into a commodity. Yun Jung-yi had agreed to it, knowing that after she was gone, the funds she got from the company would help her daughter with her living expenses. The cancer that she had in her childhood had once again started expanding, and she was told that she had less than three months to live. Yun Seo-hyun met the chairman of the company, we came to know that even Director Kim Sang-hoon was an AI created by the chairman himself.
We review the South Korean Netflix film Jung_E, which does not contain any significant spoilers or major plot points.
Even though the film explains the behavior in a way that makes sense — the character evidently is learning on his own how to be human — it’s still distracting and borders on unpleasant. The filmmaker, whose remarkably blunt horror film [Train to Busan](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5700672/) was an exhilarating thrill ride, has made him a household name. To continue her good work, after her death, the government signs a deal with her family to clone the warrior’s brain. But hell, can you blame the pissed-off version of [Wall-E](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E)? [Kim Hyun-joo](https://readysteadycut.com/person/Kim-Hyun-joo/)), the former leader of Allied Forces, takes on a robot race hellbent on destroying a human existence. Along with a wicked sense of humor, Jung_E a movie you can easily get lost in.
Jung_E is Netflix's latest Korean film with a dystopian premise where humans are at war. With the Allied Forces and the Adrian Republic constantly at war, ...
It also makes the other characters’ arcs uninteresting as we would rather watch the AI of Captain Yun and cheer for her. It’s like the writers want us to root for her and Kim Hyun-joo does a remarkable job of portraying such a complex character despite her limited screen time. The production is futuristic with a hint of nostalgia from old school stand fans to sky trains with 21st-century interiors hinting at the human race’s want to win the war and go back to the old days.
Amidst the already chaotic scenario, Shelters 8, 12 and 13 name themselves the Adrian Republic and declare war on the rest of humanity. The remaining humans ...
He sees that he too is an AI and realises that he is not bound by the physics of humans. Dr. She tells him that she deleted the memory of Yun’s daughter from the AI and he shoots her. Yun finds it and helps it escape in one of the bodies of the newer combat models. She then whispers to the AI and tells it that it isn’t human and how it will be shut down after the simulation. He notices that the AI was never shot dead and it just fell and pretended to get deactivated. It shows the same feelings as the real Yun as it recalls going to war to pay for her treatment and is relieved that Seo-hyun’s cancer is in remission. She deactivates the AI and wails as it feels and talks just like her mother hinting that her brain cloning has almost been perfected. She heads to her office and sees Kim who is also upset as he gets the notice to shut down project Jung_E. He reactivates the AI and cuts off its arm and even shoots its leg but the yellow part of its brain doesn’t reappear. Yun heads for her ethics test and on the way notices a mother assuring her child that she will be back soon. Yun Seo-hyun working on the Jung_E project to create the perfect combat AI robot which is based on her mother, Captain Yun.