So, yesterday I watched Seobok with my sister.

What is it,

I saw the promotion trailer for Seobok when I went to watch the 20th Detective Conan film, and, well, who wouldn’t be captivated by seeing Park Bo Gum and Gong Yoo on the same screen?

Seobok is about an ex-intelligence agent, Min Kihoon, who has given a new ‘job’ transporting a newly found human clone, Seobok, to a safer place. This human clone is, apparently, a key towards immortality in human’s life. Of course a lot of people want him (him?) At first, Kihoon also pursues Seobok’s ability for himself, because he is terminally ill. As the time goes, however, Kihoon grows fond of the boy, and he decides to protect Seobok from anyone with bad intentions.

Gong Yoo as Min Kihoon and Park Bo Gum as Seobok, it’s a nice combination, isn’t it?

What do I feel before,

I watched it with zero prior knowledge of what the movie was about. Apparently it’s a sci-fi movie; that much is shown on the trailer since they talk about ‘first human clone’ and there are lots of pipes and people in white lab coats, looking important. 

From the trailer, I was expecting an exciting story about someone (I didn’t know Gong Yoo’s role yet) transporting this ‘first human clone’ to somewhere safer, and perhaps a bit (a lot) of thrilling scenes of getting pursued by the supposedly bad guys of the plot. I was expecting complex revelations of the secret of immortality held by Seobok’s DNA, I was expecting, I don’t know, more lab scenes with more fantasy-science explanation?

To be fair, I had been reading The Ultimate Blue Seal, a sci-fi novel written by Priest (and fan-translated by E.Danglars), and it is awesome—I already finished the main story, there are two (or three) extras left. So, yes, I unconsciously compare Seobok with this novel, hahaha.

What do I feel after,

And then, after almost one hour (114 minutes, according to imdb), I felt…unsure. I felt like something was lacking for some reason. Perhaps this was my fault—I started the movie with too much expectation, and whenever they weren’t fulfilled, the mental satisfaction bar in my head decreased steadily.

There were enough thrilling scenes, yes, but I didn’t expect this movie to be more into its sentimental side. I wasn’t complaining about that, though. Contrary to unpopular opinion, I quite enjoyed the still scenes, but I could see people yawned at these. If the production team didn’t really brand this as an action and sci-fi movie, I believed people would appreciate this movie more.

With that note, I felt like the action genre and the drama(?) genre in this movie was balanced. It was too balanced so I was a little bit confused on how the story would progress. If only the production team focused more on one of the genres and not to both, I think the output would be better.

On the brighter note, the acting was great! I believed it was something that everyone agreed, lmao. The way Park Bo Gum acted with minimal facial expressions was amazing—he acted so little yet he conveyed so much. I wished the scenes where Seobok wandered around the market was longer, though. 

Gong Yoo’s not-so-subtle emotion change towards Seobok was nice to see. I felt like his character is the tsundere type, lol—he tried so hard to be the ‘bad guy’, often slipping curse words in his lines, yet he was also the only one who cared about Seobok’s life. It was fascinating to see how the ‘scientists’ were emotionless and saw Seobok purely as their research subject, compared to Kihoon’s character.

In the end,

All in all, Seobok was great, it could be much better with better directing, but it was okay. If I wasn’t full with expectation, I think I could enjoy this one a lot more.