Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho is taking a different kind of nightmare to North American cinemas. His psychological thriller Paradise Lost opens through Well Go USA on 6 November, pairing a missing-child mystery with the uncomfortable promise of a virtual replacement.
In an Associated Press interview published on 5 November, Yeon discussed how new technology could help Asian filmmakers tackle subjects previously constrained by production costs. His latest film puts technology inside a much more intimate crisis, asking what happens when comfort and reality become incompatible.
Kim Hyun-joo plays So-young, whose son disappeared during a bus kidnapping. Nine years later, she has found refuge in an alternate reality where she can still care for him as a child. Then the real son returns, now an emotionally distant adult played by Bae Hyeon-seong.
For So-young, the reunion creates a choice between the person standing before her and the child who still needs her in a virtual world. Getting your family back is supposed to be the happy ending; here, it is where things become more complicated.
The Korean-language film runs 101 minutes and screens with English subtitles. It opened in South Korea on 21 October. CJ ENM reported that month that sales to 118 countries had already covered its net production budget through international revenue alone.
