Alienoid - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Alienoid



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I’m always pleased to catch films that I really didn’t expect to be hits come across my review path. In fact, that’s one of the reasons that I do this job. To find those hidden gems that I wouldn’t have normally checked out and be totally blow away by them. The major one for this year was Everything, Everwhere, All at Once, and now I’m going to follow it up with Alienoid. With a title like Alienoid and a big glitzy trailer I was not expecting much. Asian sci-fi movies are GENERALLY not going to rival Hollywood blockbusters in terms of CGI, story, and general market appeal. Their big thing is period piece epics, high paced dramas, and incredible action movies. With the waning of Chinese cinema ever since the early 2000s, there’s not a whole lot of big quality productions come out of the Asian market, at least over here in the states. But the Koreans have fast become some SERIOUS heavy hitters in the industry, pumping out hit after hit after hit in succession. Films like Emergency Declaration and Hansan: Rising Dragon have all been very pleasant films to watch, but as I said, Alienoid looked to be big, dumb, and most likely heavily convoluted for people not steeped in Asian oriented mythos. Yeah, I’m here to eat some serious crow.

Taking elements from a myriad of different films, Alienoid opens up our wold with an alien race dumping their prisoners off on Earth. However, instead of just leaving their bodies down there, this powerful race imprisons them inside the minds of human hosts, locking them away behind the subconscious to suffer until their human host dies, taking the alien prisons with them to death. Guard (Kim Woo-bin) is a robotic prison warden, specifically tuned to camouflage in with the locals and make sure any prisoners who escape from behind the consciousness of their human hosts is taken care of and sealed away forever.

The premise of the story also clues us in that the Aliens have scattered their prisoners throughout time as well, and Guard (with the help of his A.I. powered shapeshifting ship Thunder) has his hands full. Things have been normal for many years, but something odd is going on. Prisoners are starting to escape their bonds, and once it’s revealed that the leader of the corrupt prisoners has been sent to earth, the real enemy rears its head. You see, the insurgents that are being locked away want their boss back, and are now waging an all out war against humans and Guard in order to use his power (known as the divine blade) in order to start this apocalypse.

If you think that my description is fairly simple, it’s really not. I’ve only described the basic generic outline for the plot, as the 2 hours and 22 minute film is actually REALLY dense and full of a lot of co-existing plot points. The film actually takes place across two time periods. One with Guard and his adopted daughter Ean (Kim Tae-ri) taking on the alien invaders, and a second time period 630 years in the past. This story involves sorcerers, the divine blade (which happens to be Guard’s power source), Wuxia martial arts, fantasy, comedy, and LOTS of action. I know, it’s a lot to take in, but we’re still not done yet. This is actually only the first half of the story, as the film ends with a massive cliffhanger that promises to end the adventure once the South Korean sequel is completed.

At 2.5 hours (nearly), Alienoid never once felt laborious to watch. Quite the opposite actually. I was drawn in from the first 15 minutes and couldn’t take my eyes off the screen until it completed. The movie is incredibly dense, but also amazingly approachable. I’m used to big complex Asian cinema films being a bit confusing for the western audience due to a cultural disconnect. This is NOT the case here. You don’t have to know Korean mythos lore, nor is the film going to just skip points and have you catch up. The entire plot is intertwined with the multiple time lines, but it does an excellent job keeping just enough information from the audience to keep you wondering, but also ties everything together very neatly by the end. Honestly, this is the best sci-fi experience I’ve had since Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. I was grinning from ear to ear and can not wait for the sequel to come out.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA





Video:

From what I could ascertain from sniffing around online, Alienoid was shot using a variety of Arri Alexa cameras and finished at 2K for the 2.39:1 framed AVC Blu-ray. This is an amazing looking image, and really shocked me for how fine tuned it looks considering how much CGI is in the film. Asian films are usually not known for their CGI (they make up for it with incredible period piece costuming and set pieces), but this is a balls to the walls crazy picture with AMAZING details, and very strong CGI (It was roughly 25 million dollars, which is pretty beefy on the budget side for a Korean film) with tons of bright colors. Reds, greens, blues, they all pop off the screen with varying intensities depending on what time line we’re in. I did notice a FEW times where the CGI went a bit wonky (the cats, as well as that giant Ant-Man arm from Madame Black in the final battle), but overall this is a great looking encode whose only problem is a few soft scenes when the CGI got heavy, and a little bit of banding. Still a stellar looking disc.









Audio:

Ok, this is really the only caveat in the technical specs, and it’s VERY minor. This is a movie that just screams for Dolby Atmos, so the inclusion of 5.1 DTS-HD MA tracks is a tiny bit of a let down. That being said, it IS very minor, as the 5.1 Korean/English mixes are SUPERB. Powerful, energetic, and filled with rippling bass, the sci-fi/wuxia/fantasy/action movie blasts onto the scene and doesn’t let go until the credits roll. Dialog is crisp and clean, and the use of panning effects and heavy surround usage makes for a very immersive experience. There’s a few times where I wished there was some extra dynamic range, but overall this is an absolutely superb track whether you choose the Korean or the English dub.












Extras:

• Making of Featurette
• Character trailer
• Original trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score: ​

I honestly was happy as a clam watching Alienoid. It’s heartfelt and sweet without sacrificing the action and intensity of a sci-fi movie, and manages to blend in fantasy, Wuxia, period piece AND comedy with a delicate balance that actually WORKS. Genre mish mashes aren’t always known for that ability, and it’s extremely refreshing to see a movie take all of those pieces and blend them together fairly seamlessly. The Well Go USA Blu-ray release looks and sounds great, and while the extras are pretty mediocre to poor, I wouldn’t keep that from you picking up this one. Great Watch


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Yoon Byung-Hee, Lee Dong-Hee, Kim Eui-sung
Directed by: Dong-hoon Choi
Written by: Dong-hoon Choi
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: Korean: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, Korean DD 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 143 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: December 6th, 2022

Recommendation: Great Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Never heard of this one but after reading the review, will check it out.

 

[Ralph Potts]

Greetings,

This one had me at the trailer but, it turned out to be more fun than I imagined.

 

[Michael Scott]

Greetings,

This one had me at the trailer but, it turned out to be more fun than I imagined.

Agreed it was probably one of the most surprising hits of the year for me. I enjoyed the living daylights out of it

 

[Ralph Potts]

Greetings,

Yep. I am impatiently awaiting the sequel....!

 

[Michael Scott]

Greetings,

Yep. I am impatiently awaiting the sequel....!

Same. You by any chance didn't notice to see if they had the sequel in development already? I didn't have time to poke around the web and see if the sequel was underway or not yet

 

[Ralph Potts]

Same. You by any chance didn't notice to see if they had the sequel in development already? I didn't have time to poke around the web and see if the sequel was underway or not yet

Nope, haven't checked either.

 

[Michael Scott]

Nope, haven't checked either.

Lol. Same. I'm just impatient