Review | Netflix movie review: Jung_E – late Korean actress Kang Soo-yeon stars in Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s apocalyptic sci-fi thriller
- In the 22nd century a woman in a research institute takes drastic action after a programme involving droids, patterned on her mother, is shut down
- Jung–E, by Train to Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho, deals only lightly with themes relating to science or futurism, falling back on grief, betrayal and identity instead
2/5 stars
Ironically, the notion of preserving life, or least the human conscience, indefinitely via artificial intelligence is central to the film’s premise.
In the 22nd century, after apocalyptic climate change has driven much of the Earth’s population off-world, Kang’s character, Seohyun, works for a research institute that is tasked with developing robot soldiers to serve in an intergalactic civil war.
She does this to preserve the memory of her mother, Captain Yun Jung-yi (Kim Hyun-joo), a once-legendary mercenary who was left comatose following a mission many years earlier, and who now serves as the template for Jung_E, the institute’s new combat droid prototype.
Jung_E believes she is still embarked on the mission that incapacitated Jung-yi. Seohyun – now technically older than her mother – treasures every moment the project keeps them together, even though Jung_E fails to recognise her.
