Alienoid

Choi Dong-hoon, the director behind The Thieves and Assassination, takes a wild swing with Alienoid, a 2022 South Korean sci-fi action epic that jumps between the Goryeo dynasty and modern-day Seoul. With a budget around $24.5 million, it's one of the most expensive Korean productions of its time, and it shows on screen. The film opens with a prologue explaining that aliens have been using Earth as a prison for centuries, implanting their criminals into unsuspecting humans. The story then splits between 1380, where Taoist wizards chase a legendary Divine Blade, and 2022, where a robot guardian named Guard (Kim Woo-bin) raises a girl named Lee Ahn (Kim Tae-ri) while secretly managing alien prisoners. When a time-traveling wormhole opens, the two timelines collide in spectacular fashion.

The cast is a who's who of Korean cinema: Ryu Jun-yeol as the bumbling magician Muruk, So Ji-sub as a detective who gets possessed by an alien rebel leader, and Yum Jung-ah and Jo Woo-jin as rival sorcerers. The action sequences are jaw-dropping, especially a car chase with a pursuing spaceship that critics have called mind-blowing. But the movie's ambition is also its weakness. The plot is dense, packed with characters and lore, and the 142-minute runtime doesn't always make it easy to follow. It grossed about $12.1 million worldwide, which was a disappointment given the scale, but it found an audience on streaming and earned a 6.9 rating on TMDB. The film ends on a cliffhanger, setting up the sequel Alienoid: Return to the Future, which hit theaters in January 2024. [edit]

In 1380, during the Goryeo dynasty, a monk warrior tries to kill an alien that has taken over a woman's body. As she fights for her life, a time portal opens and a jeep bursts through, transforming into Guard, a humanoid robot, and Thunder, a flying drone. They are alien law enforcement officers tasked with recapturing escaped prisoners. Guard extracts the alien, but the woman is mortally wounded. Before dying, she begs him to care for her baby daughter, Lee Ahn. Guard refuses, but Thunder secretly takes the baby anyway.

Ten years later, in 2022, Lee Ahn has grown up thinking Guard is her father. They live in an abandoned factory, and Guard hides his true nature. Lee Ahn is suspicious and eventually discovers the truth: she was brought from the past, and Guard and Thunder are aliens managing a prison system on Earth. Meanwhile, in the Goryeo timeline, a bumbling Taoist magician named Muruk and a sharp young woman named Ean (also played by Kim Tae-ri) are competing to find the legendary Divine Blade, a weapon with a huge reward. They're joined by sorcerers Madam Black and Mr. Blue, and a masked figure named Jajang.

Back in Seoul, Lee Ahn learns that a new group of alien prisoners will be implanted at Jisan Hospital. She goes there to witness it, and during the chaos, a police detective named Moon Do-seok gets possessed by the leader of an alien rebellion, known as the Controller. The Controller escapes and wreaks havoc across the city. As the two timelines converge, it becomes clear that the Divine Blade is actually the power source for Guard and Thunder's technology. The Goryeo characters' quest and the modern-day alien conflict are deeply connected, and the film intercuts between the eras, building toward a climactic confrontation that leaves the fate of both worlds hanging in the balance.[edit]