Apple TV+ K-drama Dr Brain: streaming series starring Parasite’s Lee Sun-kyun is a mind-melding cyberpunk sci-fi noir
- Lee Sun-kyun, who appeared in Oscar-winning film Parasite, stars in this Frankenstein-meets-Blade Runner drama series from director Kim Jee-woon
- It tells the story of a neuroscientist with autism, who taps into dead people’s brains to extract their memories
Apple TV+ launches in South Korea in mind-melding fashion with Dr Brain, the debut drama series of filmmaker Kim Jee-woon. Kim brings his visual flair to bear on this six-episode webtoon adaptation that merges sci-fi, horror and mystery components into a cyberpunk noir odyssey.
Under the care of a kindly brain researcher, played in a cameo by Moon Sung-keun, the orphaned Sewon becomes a dry but more-or-less stable adult, living with Jung Jaeyi (Lee Yoo-young) and their son Do-yoon, who is also autistic. Tragedy strikes again when Do-yoon perishes in a mysterious explosion, and Jaeyi descends into paranoia, refusing to acknowledge her son’s death before eventually slipping into a coma.
Rather than succumb to trauma, the taciturn Sewon doubles down on his research, which involves the study of “brainwave synchronisation”. In layman’s terms, this involves tapping into another person’s brainwaves to get a front-row seat to their feelings and memories.
His experiments on rats keep failing, until one day he hooks up a live rat to a perished one. From there, this modern-day Victor Frankenstein quickly escalates to experimenting on fresh corpses in the morgue, with the jovial Hong Namil (Lee Jae-won) serving as his Igor after another researcher shuts down his request to skip the lengthy protocols necessary to pursue official trials.
While this sounds straightforward, up until this point – roughly halfway through the premiere episode – Dr Brain is weighed down by exposition and a self-serious tone that doesn’t initially do it many favours.
This is most acutely felt during a scene in which Sewon mutters his findings to a panel of researchers at a conference. Lee Sun-kyun’s toneless delivery is a manifestation of his autism, but as our first introduction to the adult Sewon, this info dump is heavy going.
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Thankfully, any misgivings are quickly brushed aside when ‘Dr Brain’ descends into the morgue and, through the brainwaves of a freshly deceased car crash victim, gradually begins to cross over into a psychotropic realm.
Soon private investigator Lee Kangmu (Park Hee-soon), emerging like a spectre from the shadows, darkens his doorstep, inquiring about his wife on behalf of a man unknown to Sewon. The police then knock on his door when that same man winds up dead.
Sewon visits another morgue and performs a second brainwave sync experiment, and things really start to kick off. He begins to assume habits not his own and his paranoia skyrockets as sinister apparitions start to cloud his sight.
With the stylistic potential of its high-concept premise and quickly deteriorating circumstances of its lead protagonist, Dr Brain is ideally suited to Kim’s abilities – at least once it gets going. The very beginning of the show is weighed down by its melodrama, something that has never been Kim’s strong suit.
Where the show does excel are in its visuals, which are awash with neon tones, particularly purple. This aesthetic, coupled with the story’s sci-fi identity crisis theme, call to mind Blade Runner, while a scene in which Sewon imagines bugs crawling all over him evokes another Philip K Dick-penned tale, A Scanner Darkly.
Speaking of classic genre fiction, Dr Brain also bears the DNA of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the “weird fiction” of HP Lovecraft, as Sewon’s apparitions begin to take on monstrous proportions.
With its high production values, throbbing score – courtesy of film composer Mowg – and engaging mix of tone and themes, Kim’s drama series debut is yet another step forward for Korean small-screen content, not to mention an impressive launch for Apple TV+ in Korea.
Dr Brain is streaming on Apple TV+, with a new episode released every Thursday.
