Monday, June 5, 2017

Korean Movie Night: Sori: Voice From the Heart 로봇, 소리 (2016) Korean

Lee Sung Min, Shim Eun Kyung, Lee Ha Nui, Lee Hee Joon, Kim Won Hae, Chae Soo Bin

Movie rating: 7/10     Neck score: B

Lizabreff summed it up nicely when she said that if it had been anyone with less acting chops than Lee Sung Min, this movie might not have worked.  It would have been superbly campy and not the sweet tear jerker it was.  Lee Sung Min was amazing as a man who has lost his daughter and doesn't believe she was killed in the subway fire like everyone else keeps telling him.  During his crazy search to find her, he finds a crashed surveillance satellite that can trace calls and phone records.  It also has an attitude.  Shim Eun Kyung did an awesome job with the satellite robot's voice, making it sound very robot AI, but also have such character and personality.

He join forces with the robot and goes in search of his daughter, based on phone records and GPS locations.  Naturally, since this was an NSA surveillance satellite, they don't want it falling in the wrong hands, so we've got some bad English speaking actors.  We also have the NIS and KARI involved too.  Lee Ha Nui is the KARI employee, and she is awesome.  Her English was awesome too.  At first, based on the friction between her and Lee Hee Joon, the NIS agent, we were like "couple?" but then he was just a tool, so we were glad that didn't happen.  Ew.  So, it definitely had an agenda.  It was very anti-surveillance and pro-personal privacy protection.  No one seemed to have a good opinion about the NSA.  The NIS wasn't very favorable either, for that matter.  They definitely made a statement about the issues about privacy in the digital age, as well as corruption based on the power of having the sort of information that would be stored in such a remarkable surveillance satellite.

So it's going to put you through all the emotions.  I described it to my brother as "a tear jerker, but funny" and that is true.  The robot is so sassy, and Lee Sung Min is great and a little crazy.  Ryu Jun Yeol's bit part was funny.  That wig, haha.  Then all the crying parts.  It's good.  But really, it is a silly concept, so it could have been so bad so easily, but it wasn't.  It was a funny tear jerker and it was good.