With "Alienoid: Return to the Future" looking to pass, at best, the 1.5 million viewer mark before leaving South Korean theaters entirely, many continue to wonder just what went wrong with this once very solid looking franchise idea. The first big budget success from writer/director Choi Dong-hoon was "JEON WOO CHI : The Taoist Wizard" from all the way back in 2009. "Alienoid" was an expanded version of the same modern oriental fantasy concept, adding in sci-fi and time travel elements.
Media personalities in South Korea have settled on a few explanations for the movie's popular failure, despite its many critical plaudits. The most obvious one is length- at two hours and twenty minutes, "Alienoid" was quite dense for this sort of blockbuster concept, even if "JEON WOO CHI : The Taoist Wizard" is only eight minutes shorter. "Alienoid: Return to the Future" was edited down to a more manageable two hours, though this didn't help that much in the end.
Other recent popular films such as "12.12: The Day" and "Noryang: Deadly Sea" were also long, but with more serious concepts that seemed to lend themselves better to the theater experience, rather than the streaming one. The convoluted nature of the "Alienoid" story also makes itself harder to sell regardless of the running time. With so many characters and time periods and genre influences, neither "Alienoid" nor "Alienoid: Return to the Future" are easy to explain just in terms of their premise.
While critics have been quite positive of the innovations of this movie and its styles, and the "Alienoid" films have likewise developed cult followings worldwide, this indeed may be the whole problem. "Alienoid" is a cult film concept that may not have benefited from the big budget and big marketing treatment. But for its underperformance, Choi Dong-hoon remains a big name. His next project will be taken seriously despite this pratfall.
Written by William Schwartz
Staff writer. Has been writing articles for HanCinema since 2012, having lived in South Korea since 2011. Started out in Gyeongju, then to Daegu, then to Ansan, then to Yeongju, then to Seoul, lived on the road for HanCinema's travel diaries series in the summer of 2016, and is currently settled in Anyang. Has good tips for utilizing South Korea's public bus system. William Schwartz can be contacted via william@hancinema.net. He also has a substack at williamschwartz.substack.com where he discusses the South Korean film industry in broader terms and takes suggestions for future movies to review.
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