Tangled Web
The superheroes have been and gone so it’s time for the webtoons and manga to take over screens.
Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy
Director: Kim Byung-woo • Writer: Kim Byung-woo
Starring: Ahn Hyo-seop, Lee Min-ho, Chae Soo-bin, Shin Seung-ho, Nana, Jisoo
South Korea • 1hr 57mins
Opens Hong Kong July 31 • IIB
Grade: C+
Okay, so you’ve seen Superman, you’ve seen The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and the highly anticipated Demon Slayer is a few weeks away so the fantasy stepping stone to carry you through until then is obviously Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy | 전지적 독자 시점. The Koreans truly have blazed a trail on the webtoon, and to a degree the web novel, scene; Along with the Gods, Inside Men, Concrete Utopia, Netflix’s gonzo Chicken Nugget and True Beauty are among dozens of big and small screen treatments that spring to mind. SingNsong’s 2018 to 2020 novel (Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint) and then 2020 to 2022 comic is just the latest. And yes, yes, word on the street is that there’s an animated television series in the works, but for now we have the feature film.
A feature film that is exactly what you expect it to be for the most part; a hodgepodge of a million sci-fi and fantasy references (Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, The Running Man, Squid Game, Train to Busan, I don’t know, fucking Elden Ring, as a start) and archetypes stuffed into a subway station to play out like a video game with really, really stellar cut scenes. Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy has a fair bit going for it on the production front, it’s got value for money (the budget was allegedly just over US$20 million, chump change these days) and not one, not two, but three K-pop stars: former One O One boybander Ahn Hyo-seop, After School/Orange Caramel’s Nana and Blackpink’s Jisoo. If the original novel and comic had anything to say about anonymity, guilt and self-determination it’s buried so deep beneath the scads of hyperkinetic VFX lighting and CGI beasties streaming from the Seoul Metro tunnels it’s practically invisible. Years ago this was a straight-to-DVD (give it up for the physical media renaissance), very loosely related sequel to some random monster movie for creature feature nerds. Now it’s a would-be franchise tentpole with a built-in audience of 400 million-plus readers – who should bear in mind this is a loose adaptation.
The cast shared one expression
There are 30-odd volumes of this story across two media to draw on so for newbies things could get confusing. Check that: they do get confusing. The action’s not hard to follow, it just often defies internal logic. Anyway, the story starts with dull-as-dishwater Kim Dok-ja (Ahn, recently heard in K-Pop Demon Hunters), an office drone who generally sucks at life clearing out his desk at a garden variety company, the best he can do given his garden variety education. When he finally gets on the train home, he whips out his phone are starts reading the last chapter of “Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse,” a web novel he’s been following since he was a bullied middle school kid and its last remaining reader. But uh-oh. The book finishes by not finishing, and in a matter of seconds Dok-ja is getting cryptic messages from the author encouraging him to write the finale himself, just as a mythical dokkaebi appears in his train car and tells everyone the world is about to come to an end so get ready to fight. The commuters forced to kill each other to earn points and tokens that will help them level up their skills and gear, which will help them complete the series of quests – scenarios here – to… restore reality? Get them out of the game? Out of the book? See? Confusing.
No survival game can function without a rag-tag group of mismatched allies reluctantly brought together to save the universe, and for that Dok-ja has Sang-ah (Chae Soo-bin, Hijack 1971), a co-worker he runs into on the train; PTSD-suffering soldier Hyun-sung (Shin Seung-ho, Pilot); badass rebel Hui-won (Nana), who runs afoul of an adhoc Geumho Station gang; and nine-year-old Gil-young (Kwon Eun-seong), because you have to have a child in these movies. They join forces to find Jung-hyuk (Lee Min-ho, Apple’s Pachinko), who Dok-ja insists is the story’s true hero and upon whom averting the apocalypse depends. Thing is Jung-hyuk’s a dick, and it forces Dok-ja into the role of the protagonist. Late in the game, at Chungmuro Station, the gang ropes in high schooler and sniper Ji-hye (Jisoo) to help defeat the fire beast. Oh yes, there’s a fire beast. Among other beasts.
All this would be a great metaphor for personal agency, reconciling one’s past, out-of-control materialism and social disintegration were Dok-ja an even remotely interesting character. As realised by writer-director Kim Byung-woo (The Terror LIVE, Take Point) Dok-ja is a jumble of standard insecurities and unaddressed trauma that never raise the character above being a gamepiece to move around. He has zero nuance and less personality (the same can be said of all the characters). He uses his unique knowledge of the story to neither help his posse (lest we forget he’s the only person in Korea that’s read the book) nor to give himself a mercenary advantage that could screw with everyone else. Because there is indeed an “everyone else”, including the Geumho gang, a pervy salaryman that harasses Sang-ah, and a couple of shady “landlords” taking advantage of refugees. It remains unclear how everyone knew to seek refuge in the subways – readers may be able to fill in the gaps – but this clumsy narrative carried along by giant info dumps leaves the rest of us baffled. Who are these Constellations the squeaky dokkaebi (this thing has franchise merchandise written all over it) constantly speaks of? So… this is a game, judging by the floating scorecards? Are we really staying in the subway tunnels? I know a couple of sets keep costs down by they also hamper worldbuilding and put a crimp in DOP Jun Hey-jin’s compositions. When they’re not glowing with laser light they just provide a space for Dok-ja to spout expository dialogue in. None of the actors are particularly well served though, and only Nana manages to carve out an engaging presence. Jisoo has a pretty successful day job I hear. She’ll be fine.