Travel Documents 84: Space Sweepers
Genre: Near Future, Adventure, sci-fi, social change, Asian-futurism, international film
Director: Sung-hee Jo
Writer: Sung-hee Jo
Stars: Song Joong-Ki, Kim Tae-ri, Seon-kyu Jin
The Dust Cover Copy
After snatching a crashed space shuttle in the latest debris chase, Spaceship Victory's crew members find a 7-year-old girl inside. They realize that she's the humanlike robot wanted by UTS Space Guards and decide to demand ransom in exchange.
The Scene
Worldbuilding
Oooh was this a fun world to blast off into. Not a nice world, mind you. But a fun world.
In the year 2092, Earth has become nearly uninhabitable. You can practically taste the grit and the heat in the opening scenes down dirtside. The UTS Corporation builds a new orbiting home for humanity that mimics the natural processes on Earth; however, only a chosen few are permitted to ascend and become UTS citizens, while those remaining on Earth breathe in polluted air and fight to feed their families. Under guidance from UTS founder and CEO James Sullivan, the company is working towards making Mars a new Earth, growing genetically modified plants on the planet and turning it into a hospitable environment for humans. It’s not a nice system, and it’s underlined by the casting: the UTS Citizens are cast as nearly all European in origin, clad in shades of pastel, and excruciatingly clean. Hellllloooo Smalltown USA. Outside their perfect little bubble is everybody else, full of scrap, rust, toughness and cuss and so much creativity.
To regulate the population in orbit and keep an eye on the non-citizens, UTS governs everyone via a strict set of rules and taxes. Many non-citizens from across the globe work as space sweepers, collecting space debris floating in Earth's orbit and selling it to the company for survival. The plot follows a crew of space sweepers and their ship, the Victory.
Victory's crew is comprised of Kim Tae-ho, Tiger Park and Bubs, led by Captain Jang. Nobody on this ship is where they want to be. The bank has a lean on their ship. They all have bad stories behind them. And they’re set on a slow downward spiral of unsatisfying lives and ignominious deaths.
And then they pick up a car floating in orbit, and discover a living child in it. And everything starts to get wild.
A tactile, wholly engrossing world that is beautifully detailed, it’s both a visual treat and a well-written environment.
The Crowd
Characterization
The physics-defying spaceship chases and battles are explosive eye-candy, but it's the well-written characters that keep you engaged. You will have to read subtitles for certain sections, but stretch yourself; you’ll be glad you did. If you do, you get to enjoy the fun and sassy by-play between Bubs the android, Captain Jang—who is my favorite kind of so-done-with-this badass—, Tiger Park (yes, I snorted into my drink) and Kim Tae-ho. Fans of Firefly rejoice, this is another scrappy crew of siblings, and they’re even less inhibited than the Firefly crew. These guy roughhouse exactly like siblings over anything, including somebody cheating at cards. But oh man, if you come at any one of them, they back each other up just the way a good family should.
The movie does a gorgeous job of balancing painful backstories and current bonds in a powerful story of courage, grit, and community. At moments, the story was a bit like Three Men And A Little Baby in space, and it was just plain adorable, with plenty of moments that make anyone who’s taken care of kids laugh and groan in sympathy. There’s a little bit of sappiness and overdoing it with Kim Tae-ho’s story, but it pays off in the end, so you can roll with it.
The antagonist is both my favorite and least favorite characterization; his go-to trick is to put people in an ethically unbearable position—for example, shoot this guy who’s about to be executed anyway, and I’ll give your family UTC citizenship and a stipend— and then degrade and belittle the victim for being ‘not one of the perfect people’ when they make the ‘wrong’ choice. That he set them up for.
The first time this happens on-screen, it is straight up chilling.
Problem is, he does it four times, and by the fourth? Yawn. Predictable.
HOWEVER, the payoff is watching our protagonists take that predictable habit and turn it inside out, using it against the prick. No spoilers, but you will cheer!
Beyond that, Sullivan was a bit too stereotypical as a foil: eugenicist son of a bitch who doesn’t care how many people die if he can make his Eden out of their bones. A little on the nose, but hey, apparently it happens cough Musk cough.
The Lingo
Writing Style
With a great sense of pathos and a real talent for emotional payoff, this movie is the scrappy space opera you want with a pizza and some beers on a Saturday night. It harks to the tropes of our favorite pulp pieces, while still managing to be fresh. Is it a little melodramatic? Well yeah, duh! It’s space opera! But if you’re in the mood for some good sass and affirming plotlines, the writing delivers. Oh, and there's a sweet LGBT subplot that's beautifully normalized, for a bonus.
The Moves
Plot
Witty, scrappy and energetic, it’s a well-paced and beautifully told story. It has a slight tendency to overdo the syrup, and it does wrap the ending up in a nice neat little bow, but it is not the bow everyone expects, and the ways this story subverts a Disney ending are just amazing.
Overall Rating
A rollicking ride through space in a rust-bucket of a ship, with a great crew all around. Strap in!