Sector 7

Bong Joon-ho’s seminal 2006 masterpiece The Host casts a long shadow in its native land, and will no doubt set the gold standard for Korean monster films for many a year to come.  Which is perhaps unfortunate for hardworking fare such as Sector 7, which despite the best efforts of third time filmmaker Kim Ji-hun cannot hope to compete with its predecessor in terms of casting and effects and has thus far received the most lukewarm reviews of Kim’s heretofore promising directorial career. 

The problem seems to be one of focus.  Kim clearly has a wide range of thematic interests; his first film was a comedy about a detective who infiltrates a potential drug ring, his second a drama based on the real-life massacre of several hundred students during the 1980 anti-government protests in Gwangju.  Perhaps in keeping with this tendency Sector 7 is all over the place stylistically; one minute playing for high drama, the next incorporating slapstick and sassy dialogue (or in one notable instance an impromptu and highly improbable motorcycle race) before promptly reverting back to drama again.  The Alien influence is clear, perhaps a little too much so, though by the midway point of the movie when the monster is actually introduced viewers will likely wonder where he’s be hiding all this time as opposed to ruminating on the similarities between central character Cha and Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. 

The premise is an endlessly promising one: set aboard an oil rig where anything that can go wrong will go wrong, there’s plenty of opportunity for deep-sea misadventures as well as the slow physical and psychological destruction of those aboard the rig itself, whose number include well known Korean actress Ha Ji-won and Oh Ji-Ho of My Wife is a Gangster fame.  Yet with its variable acting and uneasy melding of laughs and scares, Sector 7 never really gets the chance to take off. 

Special Features

A Making Of Featurette (5:25), Cast Interviews (3:09), an Action Choreography Featurette (2:04), Visual Effects Featurette (2:02) and several Trailers.