Last year Netflix treated us to the Chinese space epic The Wandering Earth, which was a cracking good time, and they’re about to send us back to space with the South Korean action-adventure Space Sweepers.
Written and directed by Jo Sung-hee (A Werewolf Boy), the movie is set in the year 2092, where humanity is reaching for the stars – but getting in the way is decades’ worth of accumulated space junk. The misfit crew of the spaceship Victory are salvagers who pick through space junk in order to eke out a meager living, but when they stumble upon what seems to be a small girl hiding in wrecked space shuttle they not only garner the potential score of a lifetime, but also the attention of those who’ll stop at nothing to get her back.
The official plot synopsis is as follows:
Set in 2092, spaceship Victory is one of the many that live off salvaging space debris. Crewed with a genius space pilot Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), a mysterious ex-space pirate Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri), a spaceship engineer Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), and a reprogrammed military robot Bubs (Yoo Hae-jin), spaceship Victory surpasses all other space sweepers. After successfully snatching a crashed space shuttle in the latest debris chase, Victory’s crew find a 7-year-old girl inside. They realize that she’s the humanlike robot wanted by UTS Space Guards, and decide to demand ransom in exchange.
I get it, they’re in space, you don’t need to keep repeating the word. Anyway, let’s space take a space look:
This looks like a whole lot of fun. While the plot seems a tad predictable, I’m keen to watch this ragtag crew as they’re forced into an adventure. The direction is solid, it’s got great special effects work, and there’s some cool action sequences on display, while also not taking itself very seriously.
What do you think?
Space Sweepers will premiere on Netflix on 5 February. It also stars Park Ye-rin, Kim Dae-han, Ana Ruggiero, and Richard Armitage.
Last Updated: January 19, 2021
