Thank goodness for streaming services! Otherwise there’s no chance in hell I’d see Space Sweepers. This isn’t Oscar baitey Boon Joon Ho fare. Space Sweepers is more blockbustery, but here’s the rub. Studio producers have decided that American audiences will NEVER see a blockbuster if it needs extensive subtitles. So thanks to Netflix for looking past those subtitles, and bringing Space Sweepers to its filmmography, because, you know what’s fun? Korean Guardians of the Galaxy!
In 2092, Earth is on the brink of environmental disaster. In steps the UTS corporation, and its 150+ year old CEO James Sullivan (Richard Armitage). Using their unlimited money they build a network of space stations above planet Earth, and hope to expand outward, starting with farming and colonizing Mars. While exploring, UTS needs “space sweepers” to clean up random debris from previous rocket launches into space. One such ship is the Victory, shuttled by a formerly Korean crew: Tae-ho (Song Joon-ki), Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), robot Bubs (Yoo Hae-jin), and Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri). Going through the motions of their day-to-day existence, the crew luckily/unluckily stumbled upon something that Sullivan, and a terrorist organization called Black Fox, are both looking for despearately.
Space Sweepers feels familiar and different at once with its ambitious world building and plot. Certainly if you’re remixing pieces of beloved properties like Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy, you’re starting from a good place. A story about the haves and have nots is something anyone can understand, making our heroes instantly relatable and easy to root for. The space stuff looks solid enough (a big screen would help this movie 10% at least), with its world worn 3rd world space stations nicely juxtaposed with the almost artificially clean looking CEO Approved installations, similar to Elysium. But Space Sweepers adds these little touches that help separate itself out of the pack of space exploration films. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a space movie so internationally representative before; of course during the mad dash into space, parts of Korean, Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Kenyan, cultures remain, but we would cease to be country representatives, and become a planetary culture, mixing all those languages, people, and dialogues. Our Korean protagonists navigate these language shifts as a part of this new existence, among all sorts of new customs in this now global melting pot of people. Plotwise, there are going to be a few twists that you’ll see coming, but I guarantee you won’t see them all; the best wrinkle has to do with how the Victory engages in combat with other ships: a type of space combat I have never seen before on film and almost stood up and clapped for at home.
But at the core of Space Sweepers success is the Guardians of the Galaxy character formula: take a disparate group of funny charming people with complicated pasts and watch them at work and play. Our 4 leads all bring something specific and unique to the table, creating a never boring, potent mix of fun. Kim Tae-ri saunters into every scenario Captain Jang enters, the hottest sh*t in the room, and everyone knows it, as she backs it up with wit and a little muscle if need be. Jin Seon-kyu’s manic energy makes Tiger Park the Victory’s wildcard, extremely impulsive and volatile, but deep down sweet as honey. Song Joon-ki shoulders the emotional weight of this movie on his world weary shoulders, perpetually quiet and stressed, but when backed into a corner, he can become unintentionally funny. And last but not least, Yoo Hae-jin’s Bubs is your Groot/Rocket unholy mixture, with all sorts of special talents and a shockingly fascinating, fresh set of problems rarely seen in space robots. Whether paired off, together, or alone, you’re always excited to see what shenanigans the crew of the Victory are going to get into next. The crewmates suck you in with their infectious, prickly chemistry, and slowly work in moments of real emotion, both good and bad, that legitimately made me shout or well up on more than one occasion. Space Sweepers also mixes up the dynamics by introducing all manner of side characters who probably could warrant their own movie too, like the instantly lovable but strange Park Ye-rin as young Dorothy or the surly, menacing Richard Armitage, off in his own world of his own hubris and planet terraforming.
I know I watched something special when I say “wait that’s it?!?!?” Space Sweepers’s world and characters are so excellent that I hope we get a few more films with these people, and director Jo Sung-hee gets more Korean won to make his interesting big budget extravaganza, forming a fearsome Korean foursome with Bong Joon Ho, Park Chan Wook and Lee Chang-dong in our current Korean moviemaking Renaissance. Who knows? Maybe Sung-hee will make Korean Star Wars next!