*****SPACE-SURVIVAL SPOILERS!*****

Space survival dramas are hardly new, of course. Even as a kid, I remember my eyeballs nearly pressed against the glass screen of the family Zenith while watching 1964’s “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” However, the post-“Star Wars”/“Jurassic Park” revolutions in filmmaking made later space survival sagas a lot more realistic. And with a recent embrace of greater science in space films (see/read: Andy Weir’s “The Martian”), they have access to greater authenticity as well, even if science accuracy still takes a backseat to drama. Hey, movie’s gotta movie. 

Released last year, “The Moon” was made by Korean writer/director Kim Yong-hwa (“Along with the Gods” Parts 1, 2).  While I was a bit late to this particular party, I recently bought the movie blind on Blu-Ray, and screened it at home on my 7 ft/2-meter screen via my digital projector, and it did not disappoint.  

“The Moon” (2023)

The movie opens in 2029, some five years after the loss of the first Korean manned mission to the moon. In the murky aftermath of the disaster, lead engineer-designer Hwang Kyu-tae committed suicide, and managing director Kim Jae-guk (Sul Kyung-gu) resigned in disgrace. Now we see Hwang’s son, Hwang Sun-woo (Doh Kyung-soo), a former Marine and the youngest member of a new crew that has launched aboard the Woori-ho spacecraft to land near a permanently shadowed lunar crater and collect ice samples.  

Note: There is quite an info dump at the beginning of the movie, with competing text and dialogue too often overlapping each other. Not speaking or reading Korean, I was relying entirely on the English subtitles, which seemed strained to keep up with this busy prologue. However, things do smooth out after the story moves on.

Meanwhile, ground control warns the crew of a powerful solar wind that has pushed some space debris their way, but the astronauts don’t have time to react before they’re cut down by the storm and its debris; which causes severe damage and malfunctions. Before long, Hwang’s crewmates are killed, and he is left alone inside the command module, which is torquing and straining against the storm. Too close to the moon for an abort, the rookie pilot is directed to steer his damaged spaceship into lunar orbit for a possible free-return trajectory to Earth. 

Note: The pressure of the solar wind is a bit more dramatic than it’d be in reality, but that’s only the beginning of a few liberties the movie takes with space science and physics. While not quite “Armageddon”-level bad, the space storm in “The Moon” is more like the beefed up sandstorm we saw in “The Martian”; something far worse than is physically possible, though based loosely in reality (Mars does have sandstorms, but in the near-vacuum atmosphere, they’d be more like a stiff breeze at worst).

Now faced with fatalities (and bad press) that might shut down future manned missions, the KASC Minister of Science (Jo Han-chul), a former humanities professor in over his head, reacts with near panic in the Mission Control Room, sometimes grabbing and shrieking at his deputies (Park Byung-eun, Hong Seung-hee). Taking a page from the “Airplane!” playbook (“Get me Rex Kramer!”), the bumbling team recall disgraced mission director Kim Jae-guk, who reluctantly returns to Mission Control, aided by his intern Kang Han-byeol (Hong Seung-hee); a bright young woman who currently conducts research with Kim at the Sobaeksan observatory.  Kim realizes the sole survivor of the lunar mission is the son of his late colleague Hwang Kyu-tae, which only adds to Kim’s reluctance.

Note:  The history between Kim Jae-guk and astronaut Hwang Sun-woo is not strictly necessary, and arguably exists only only for melodrama’s sake, but the actors do a nice job with the material and it keeps the film from being only about spaceflight logistics.  It gives a layman viewer an emotional handle. 

With his spacecraft increasingly battered by meteorites directed at him by the solar storm, Hwang manages to separate the lunar lander from the crippled command module and flies down to the shadowed crater that was their original mission objective.  Having landed more or less in one piece, the lone astronaut decides to complete as many of the original mission goals as he can by himself.  Activating an AI-controlled drone as a guide, Hwang drives his lunar rover into the large, darkened crater. There, he drills beneath the gray soil to get a sample of pure water ice—a discovery that could make the moon viable for future research outposts and refueling.

Note: Water ice has been detected in craters from orbit by various unmanned spacecraft (the LCROSS and Lunar Prospector missions), so this objective is very much based in real science. The scenes of Hwang’s first walk on the lunar surface are as convincing as anything seen in 1995’s “Apollo 13,” or 2018’s “First Man.”

Carefully placing the cylinder of ice into a thermally-protected container, Hwang Sun-wu has to hurry back to the lander aboard his rover when his landing site is pelted by meteors dragged by the solar storm. As the meteors drop like bombs all around him, he barely manages to make it back inside the lunar lander. The craft is tossed around, and falls on its side; forcing Hwang to attempt a horizontal liftoff in order to reach escape velocity, and he eventually reaches orbit. Attempting to reconnect with the battered command module, the lunar lander is forced to discontinue docking as its mothership is pelted once again—destroying its remaining solar panels and power supply. Hwang is now forced to crash land back to the lunar surface.

Note: Once again, the bomb-like explosive effects of the meteor impacts are clearly exaggerated for dramatic effect, but the race back to the lander is a nail-biter, and certainly makes for a good ‘movie’ moment.’  I also couldn’t help but notice that the lunar rover employs a bit of product placement with its Korean-made Hankook tires; the same brand currently in use on my still-working 23-year old Honda Accord (laughs to self).

Back at Mission Control, Kim tries to cut through the current bureaucracy and reach out to his ex-wife, Yun Moon-young (Kim Hee-ae), who now works for NASA in Houston, where she is a project coordinator for a new international lunar space station, which is crewed by astronauts from the US, Canada, Britain and Australia.  Despite feeling that his ex-wife sold out by joining NASA instead of staying with the KASC, Kim reaches out for Yun’s assistance in mobilizing the space station—which has a rescue craft—to retrieve Hwang.

Note: Korea clearly is the underdog in this story, and that’s to be expected in a Korean-made film, of course. My only issue is the timeline; it’s extremely unlikely South Korea would be able to mount a manned lunar mission by 2029, let alone a first attempt in 2025; just as it’s equally unlikely that NASA and its international partners would have an operational space station in near-lunar space by then. The current International Space Station (ISS) began construction in November of 1998, and was declared more or less completed by 2011, though it still receives regular upgrades for various mission requirements. But yeah…movie logic.

Despite her current position with NASA, Yun is hampered by her American bosses, who are portrayed in the movie as more than a tad racist as they repeatedly shut down her suggestion to use the lunar station’s personnel and facilities to rescue Hwang.  Eventually, Yun has her phone taken away by NASA personnel, who suspect her of colluding privately with the Korean Aerospace authorities. Ultimately, she heroically risks her career and freedom by locking herself in a communications room and contacting the station directly—making a heartfelt appeal to the international team of astronauts to rescue one of their own.  She then surrenders to the paranoid authorities. 

Note: While I appreciated the noble character of Yun Moon-young, actress Kim Hee-ae seems to struggle with the role. In many scenes, she speaks only in English (no easy task, of course) but it sounds as if she’s sometimes concentrating more on diction than performance. It also doesn’t help that NASA leadership, who have a long history of embracing international missions (going back nearly 50 years to Apollo-Soyuz) are portrayed here as obstinate and unwilling to help an ally nation like South Korea (?!?). Granted, “The Moon” is a work of fiction and not a docudrama, but this rings very false. 

Meanwhile, Hwang is crashed on the moon. His spacecraft is severely compromised, losing energy and unable to achieve liftoff again. Injured, exhausted, and running low on oxygen, Hwang manages to broadcast an international SOS to any spacecraft in range with the potential to rescue him (i.e. the lunar space station). After surviving multiple disasters during this cursed mission, his ship’s docking port is now too damaged now to dock with a rescue craft.  Despite holding onto his water ice sample (a key objective of his mission) Hwang’s now willing to stop struggling and give up.

Note: The spaceship Woori-ho goes through a helluva lot in this movie; things that would’ve most likely destroyed a real spaceship, which can be surprisingly vulnerable to micrometeorites, let alone the macro variety. There’s also the issue of the spacecraft landing on its side in a crater, yet it is still able to liftoff; the drag of lunar-soil on the rocket’s performance—even in 1/6th lunar gravity—would hinder liftoff of a fully operational spaceship, let alone a damaged one.

Hwang’s weak cry for help is picked up by Kang Han-byeol, who’s gone back with her mentor Kim to a little-used radio room at the Sobaesksan observatory, in hopes of contacting Hwang on the lunar surface.  Thinking on her feet, and realizing that they need the entire world behind a rescue effort, Han-byeol smartly upload’s Hwang’s SOS call to YouTube—where it instantly goes viral.  Back at NASA, support for rescuing Hwang grows, as the authorities relax their iron grip on their suspected ‘spy’ Yun Moon-young.  They allow her to return to work and coordinate a recovery effort with the lunar space station, which has a lander craft that can hoist Hwang up into the lunar space station.

Note: This part of the movie reminded me of the US and China coming together to rescue Mark Watney in “The Martian.”  Sentiment still works, and “The Moon” is, at its core, an old-fashioned rescue story; tropes and all. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, either.

There is one final obstacle to Hwang’s rescue; Hwang himself. The astronaut is battered, injured, exhausted and demoralized.  He’s turned his oxygen down in the hope of peacefully asphyxiating in his sleep. Hwang also realizes that person who’s been talking him through his various crises is Kim Jae-guk; the man he associates with his father’s suicide.  Kim was mission director during the original tragedy that claimed the lives of those first KASC lunar astronauts.

Note: If any other actor anchors this movie (beyond star Doh Kyung-soo ), it’s Sul Kyung-gu, who pours his heart into the role of guilt-ridden former mission director Kim Jae-guk. Sul is to this film what Ed Harris was to “Apollo 13.”

In a need for both forgiveness and redemption, Kim tells Hwang the full story about his father and the coverup that doomed the first lunar mission (via flashback). The elder Hwang (Lee Sung-min) repeatedly came to director Kim with engineering specs that proved their spaceship wasn’t ready, but Kim pushed him into approving the launch—at the expense of the crew’s lives.  Hwang Kyu-tae felt personally responsible for not trying harder to change Kim’s mind, and ended his own life. For awhile, Kim was suicidal as well, but chose to live; something he hopes that astronaut Hwang on the moon can do as well.  Begging for the younger man’s forgiveness, Kim is relieved to learn his confession lifted a weight from astronaut Hwang as well. 

Note: Of course, this confession scene may be a melodramatic tipping point for some viewers, but I was okay with it, since the survival story by itself isn’t quite enough to keep this otherwise well-crafted movie in orbit.

Hwang consciously chooses to live. Despite his injuries, he gathers the insulated lunar ice sample as well as a toy in the spaceship cabin that was meant for his late comrade’s unborn child. He then seals his EVA suit and goes outside. Using his faithful AI drone, he lies across an open lunar plain where he’s eventually rescued by the crew of the international lunar station. Returning home as a hero to the world, he presents the toy he salvaged from his crashed ship and presents it to his friend’s widow.

The End.

Note: A happy ending, but with a touch of bittersweet as well. Nicely done.

Summing It Up

Written and directed by Kim Yong-hwa, 2023’s “The Moon” is an entertaining film that puts a lone rookie astronaut through hell in the service of lunar exploration.  While the acting from the main cast is consistently strong throughout the film, the movie’s KASC authorities (a slight fictionalization of the real-life Korean AeroSpace Administration) act as a broadly-comical Greek chorus, in jarring contrast to the drama.  The movie sometimes embraces science (ice found in lunar craters, for example), while also playing fast-and-loose with ‘movie physics’ in a way that brings it dangerously close to “Armageddon” territory.  Nevertheless, the space sequences are very well made, and are on a par with with the FX seen in 2013’s “Gravity” and 2015’s “The Martian.” 

There is a bit of Korean nationalism and chest-thumping in the film; and that’s to be expected. Some of the movie’s projections for space also seem wildly optimistic (a convenient space station between Earth and the moon by decade’s end, for example). NASA is portrayed as a not-so-quietly intolerant bureaucratic menace that is more concerned with chain of command than saving a man’s life. Ultimately, however, as we saw with the US and China in “The Martian,” both sides come together in the end through a tense and tricky combination of subterfuge and spirit.  

Forgiveness also plays heavily in the climax, as the guilt-ridden Kim Jae-guk (Sul Kyung-gu) makes his tearful confession to a resigned Hwang Sun-woo (Doh Kyung-soo). While this heavy story element is a bit melodramatic, it also gives the film a strong human heartbeat that it needs to avoid becoming a soulless exercise in space logistics. I also appreciated the strong roles for women in the film, such as NASA coordinator Yun Moon-young (Kim Hee-ae) and scrappy intern Kang Han-byeol (Hong Seung-hee). Perhaps having a woman in the actual space crew would’ve been a nice touch too, since the first Korean astronaut was, in fact, a woman (Yi So-yeon, born 1978).

In the end, “The Moon” is a well-crafted (though not quite great) film that tosses Korea’s hat into the ring of realistic space sagas such as “Apollo 13,” “The Martian” and “Gravity.” While I’ve enjoyed recent Korean pop-space operas, such as 2021’s “Space Sweepers,” I also look forward to sci-fi films that embrace more realistic space travel.

Despite my aforementioned nits with the movie, I recognize and appreciate “The Moon” as a significant landmark of Korean sci-fi cinema. It’s an entertaining popcorn flick, too.

Where to Watch

“The Moon” is currently available for streaming only with a subscription to Viki (a platform which I’ve never heard of, to be honest), but is available to purchase on Blu-Ray via Amazon, and can also be purchased digitally from Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, and Apple TV (prices vary from $3.99-$4.99).