Science fiction tends to work best in a short format. On the page, the short story is the natural form of speculative fiction, allowing the writer to explore a single idea to the fullest extent. On the screen, the same maxim applies; certainly, we love our sprawling epics like Star Wars or, this year, Dune, but the high watermark for genre on screen is still Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, whose anthology format allowed the legendary showrunner to dig into whatever topic he liked week to week.
The modern heir to Serling’s masterpiece is, of course, Black Mirror, but even weirder and wilder than Charlie Brooker’s acclaimed sci-fi satire is SF8, a new eight-episode anthology series hailing from South Korea. While Black Mirror keeps its sights locked on information technology and how it affects us and our relationships, SF8 spreads a wider net, with eight different directors tackling a diverse array of topics. What will aged care look like in the future? Is free will even a thing when complex A.I. algorithms can accurately predict human behaviour? How will we mediate personal relationships in a world dominated by social media? (That last one is barely science fiction. Heck, it’s barely fiction.)
Season opener ‘The Prayer’ by director Min Kyu-dong (Memento Mori) posits a future in which care of the elderly and chronically ill is entrusted to humanoid robots. When a woman (Lee Yoo-young) whose mother has been in a coma for ten years begins to unravel, the robot mandated with caring for them both (Ye Soo-jung) faces an ethical dilemma she has not been programmed for.
‘SF8’ episode ‘The Prayer’. Source: Distributor
On the lighter side, Oh Ki-hwan’s ‘Love Virtually’ is a science fiction rom-com starring K-pop superstars Siwon and Uwee as a new couple in an extremely online world where not only do people date via a Tinder-like app, they get plastic surgery to literally become their idealised online personae.
Well, perhaps that’s not so light, but therein lies a lot of the appeal of SF8 – it mixes genres and tones in surprising and compelling ways, keeping the audience off balance but never less than captivated.
‘SF8’ episode ‘Joan’s Galaxy’. Source: Distributor
Artificial intelligence gets examined through a police procedural lens in Han Ka-ram’s ‘Blink’ in which a computer-averse cop (Lee Si-young) is forced to have an AI “partner” implanted into her brain, giving new meaning to the term “ride along”. However, in Kim Ui-seok’s ‘Empty Body’ the concept is given the horror movie treatment, as a mother (Moon So-ri) begins to suspect that the computer intelligence implanted to save her young son’s life is gradually taking him over – a tale of possession for the information age.
But the clear highlight is Jang Cheol-soo’s ‘White Crow’, a kind of social media horror movie that sees K-pop star Hani as Juno, a disgraced professional video gamer who is forced to participate in a gruelling VR game where she must confront her past mistakes over and over again until she is redeemed or driven insane. It’s a high-concept psychological thriller that digs deep into our current obsession with performative penance, and definitely leaves a mark on the viewer.
‘SF8’ episode ‘White Crow’. Source: Distributor
Which is true of the entire series. South Korea is currently the most interesting screen culture on the planet, and SF8 is ample proof that it’s true of their television as well as their cinema. This is bold, provocative, challenging science fiction, and genre fans and casuals alike will find plenty to chew on here. Hopefully a second season lies in the not-too-distant future.
