An interesting idea backed by a relatively weak plot
A lot of invisible threads bind this cerebral sci-fi narrative, so many left open that at the end of the movie I was left questioning everything.Story:
The premise is immediately attention grabbing for a fan of science fiction/thrillers - a spaceship that returns from a mission 150 years later with a sole female survivor. Of course there will be an inquiry panel set up that shall debrief the astronaut and inquire about what happened to the ship for 150 years.
The opening sequence begins with the inquiry already ongoing. While that is fine, as a viewer I felt hurried into the movie and it took me a while to get my bearings and understanding of what was happening.
The entire movie is an interview where the female astronaut speaks about her experience and is broken into chapters. I found the pace was fine after the first chapter and the story too was interesting but not a lot is explained.
It is assumed that the viewer is also living in this advanced world (we are 150 years ahead of time) and is aware of all the technology. We are introduced to an alien species but are never told where they went. We are told they are an intelligent life form but are never told what their purpose is. The robot should be still alive but he isn't. What happens after the inquiry?
And therefore, a lot of incidents from this uni-directional narrative were left unexplained while the astronaut wasn't questioned much at all about them.
I mean, this is an inquiry panel at least make it believable that the sole survivor of a 93 people manned ship is interrogated right. So many minor storylines were introduced but never explored and did not receive closure which left me feeling unsatisfied at the end of the movie.
Acting/Cast:
The robot 7 by virtue of being a robot should have no emotions so his acting was superb! The female astronaut also did fine with her role. Considering this was a thriller, the acting was okay.
Overall:
Overall, this movie veers more towards the philosophical than sci-fi action. This is my first Chinese Sci-fi so I was impressed with parts of the story but parts of it also disappointed me because of a lack of logical explanation. There are some thrills in this movie which make it an easy one-time watch for a lazy day and that's my verdict.
Go watch it on the weekend if you have time! Its a 7/10 for me.
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