Director Bong Joon-ho is back with the sci-fi film “Mickey 17,” his first release in six years since “Parasite” (2019). The film will hit South Korean theaters on Feb. 28. At a press conference held at CGV Yongsan in Seoul on Jan. 20, Bong described “Mickey 17″ as “the story of Mickey, an ordinary and powerless young man,” adding that the film is “packed with raw human emotions.” Robert Pattinson, who stars as Mickey, also attended the event after arriving in South Korea a day earlier.
The film is based on Edward Ashton’s novel “Mickey7.” While the original character dies seven times, the film adds 10 more deaths. “I wanted to depict a worker’s struggles through a variety of deaths,” Bong explained. He also moved the setting from 1,000 years in the future to the nearer year of 2050. “Who could have imagined we’d be conversing with ChatGPT?” Bong said. “We set it in 2050, as a future audiences will actually experience, making it a more relatable sci-fi film.”
In the film, Mickey goes bankrupt after opening a macaron shop with borrowed money from loan sharks. To escape debt collectors who threaten to “chase him to the ends of the Earth,” he volunteers to become an expendable, a disposable worker sent into space to handle dangerous tasks like radiation exposure. Expendables are reprinted and given new life after death. However, complications arise when both Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 exist simultaneously, leading to chaos.
Bong explained, “The concept of humans being printed like documents to come back to life is inherently dehumanizing and symbolizes workers in extreme conditions. However, this isn’t meant to be politically charged. It’s also a coming-of-age story about how Mickey navigates his struggles.”
Bong revealed that working on the sci-fi film led him to reflect on AI’s role in the modern era. “Every night, I ask myself, ‘What kind of script could AI never write?’ Just like Lee Se-dol’s legendary move against AlphaGo, I strive to include at least one unique element in every three pages that AI can’t replicate.” Pattinson expressed his excitement about working with Bong, saying, “I was mesmerized by his unique vision after watching ‘Memories of Murder’ and dreamed of collaborating with him.”
“Mickey 17″ is distributed by Warner Bros. with a reported production budget of $150 million. Bong revealed, “For the first time in my 25-year career, the film features a love story. Even in a world where humans can be printed, there’s a love story at its core, and I’m especially proud of that.” The film has been invited to screen in the Special Section of next month’s Berlin International Film Festival as a non-competition entry.
