[HanCinema's Film Review] "Wonderland"

While "Wonderland" has been complete or nearly complete for four years, the sci-fi melodrama had its release constantly delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the exceptional cast, it only grossed 625,467 admissions at the South Korean box office, and came out worldwide on Netflix yesterday in a surprisingly fast turnaround, hoping to attract more attention internationally than domestically. The real question, of course, is whether "Wonderland" is any good.

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The premise, about artificial intelligence being used to simulate real people for the loved ones who miss them, is not as relevant as it sounds. The AIs in "Wonderland" are far beyond any contemporary technology. It's actually a bit of a plot twist at one point when we learn that one character is an AI, as this person is presented to us in such a way as to feel like an entirely human character. This is all part and parcel for the premise, as AIs that know they're AIs would probably not be very good at making clients feel like loved ones are actually with them.

Overthinking the worldbuilding of "Wonderland" is not very helpful to appreciating the film, though, so I recommend you try and avoid doing so. Despite the big budget pretensions, "Wonderland" is very much an emotional melodrama about coping with loss, and appreciating how even a perfect facsimile of a loved one can distort a person's perspective about what their relationship really was or is. Jin-goo (played by Tang Jun-sang), for example, gives a surprisingly brutal performance as a college student who only ever asks his grandmother Jeong-ran (played by Sung Byung-sook) for money.

That's just a subplot, though. Tae-joo (played by Park Bo-gum) has higher billing as a seemingly perfect boyfriend. We understand why Jeong-in (played by Bae Suzy) doesn't want to let him go, yet we're also left to wonder how much of their relationship was a fantasy that couldn't cope with real change. Then there's Byri (played by Tang Wei) on an archaeological dig in Egypt, always seeming to neglect her young daughter.

Ironically enough, the more expensive parts of "Wonderland" to film are also the least compelling, the climax in particular being a mess of computer graphics for no obvious purpose. What makes "Wonderland" so brutal to watch is how we see the living characters so desperate to see the AI versions of their loved ones they'll happily endure remarkably petty inconveniences they almost certainly would have resented in real life. We're left to wonder whether this is healthy for either the humans or the AIs to live a segregated existence like this.

One problem with "Wonderland" is that the concept is spread so wide no individual storyline can get the in-depth attention it really deserves, as all the emotional situations we see are remarkably complex. Even a cheesy workplace romance with Hae-ri (played by Jung Yu-mi) and Hyeon-soo (played by Choi Wooshik) just left me wanting more. Hyeon-soo even gets a subplot about his birth father that's not really resolved in a mid credit scene which just begged more questions about how the AI technology even works.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Wonderland" is directed by Kim Tae-yong, and features Tang Wei, Bae Suzy, Park Bo-gum, Jung Yu-mi, Choi Wooshik, Tang Jun-sang. Release date in Korea: 2024/06/05.