(Brief) Movie Review: Wonderland

My sister and I watched a Korean movie 'Wonderland'. It was about an application service where you can virtually communicate to a person who passed away. It's basically an A.I. generated version of the deceased, including those who are in coma. It retains all the memories of the person so it feels like they were never dead, except that you can no longer touch or feel them as expected.

The service has proved to be quite convenient. Many did enjoy the virtual experience, the unlimited access, anytime and anywhere. It saved many from pain of loss, longing and grief.

The issue in the movie is that people become overly dependent on the service, leading to complacency in nurturing relationships with family and friends. It sort of prevented people from moving on or making a fresh start in life.

Eventually, there were people who terminated the service for good, there were those relationship got ruined leading to untimely deaths, and there were those who continued utilizing the service because it has worked well in their own setting.

My thoughts:

I do not doubt that this could someday happen in the future and while it could temporarily solve the problem of longing and sadness, I think it only messes up our relationship with people around us. It robs people from the much needed transformative process of grieving or mourning of a lost loved ones. In other words, it robbed people the potential of character development or growth.

I think the movie has so much potential in getting across the right message. It's just that it was not profound or impactful enough as to leave a deep impression to the viewers. This concept is quite fascinating and could have been more.

That aside, I think the movie was good, the acting was exceptional and Choi Wooshik is there - my favorite actor (hehe).

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