After Asian-wide "Three (2002)" where Jee-woon Kim contributed to the "Memories" segment and "Three... Extremes (2004)" where other Korean master, Chan-wook Park, messed with our minds with "Cut", Jee-woon Kim works here with Pil-sung Yim to give us an all-Korean short film anthology classic.

Pil-sung Yim, who was in attendance at the FantAsia Film Festival screening, writes and directs the first and last segments, while Jee- woon Kim who was in post-production for his first Hollywood project "The Last stand (2013)" sent us a video detailing the hardships he is facing in the big Hollywood machine and light-heartedly prefacing his short film "The Heavenly Creature" which he classifies in the genre of philosophical science-fiction.

7/10 "A Brave New World"

Pil-sung Yim starts it off with a meticulously constructed take on the zombie/vampire apocalyptic movie. It is endearing, funny and poetic. It tries not to take itself too seriously, but nether does it tries to take the audience for a fool. It actually develops charming characters and then delves into a deluge of disconcerting destruction, before leaving with an open-ended finale. Note that the alternate ending was an American nuclear bomb, but the actual ending fits much before with the rest of the film.

9/10 "The Heavenly Creature"

This far from formulaic robot story is in fact the crux of this trilogy and drips with deep dialogue and introspection while being sparkled with humour, sweetness, sexiness and tension. A full on societal and moral commentary here from the writer/director of the high calibre, haunting "A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)" with an enlightened robot who perhaps surpassed his creators in wisdom and the battle of sorts between capitalism and Buddhism. It explores finality, fear, faith, fate and the future in a thoughtful tapestry of tasteful interactions.

8/10 "Happy Birthday"

The last segment is a preposterous post-apocalyptic scenario that pacts loads of laughs, especially with the dramatization of a newscast presenting the unfolding doom of the world. It flows well and follows to an adequate conclusion of this science-fiction segment and film.

All in all, Doomsday Book breaks boundaries in the quality of the stories and in the directorial distinction in dealing with death and end of the world scenarios with humour, pose and serenity.

May this futuristic film live long and prosper.

We waited 6 years for this?

Doomsday Book is a 3 part Korean anthology film about the future of mankind. Its 3 separate story lines are basically broken down as follows: 1. Zombie Apocalypse, 2. Robot Enlightenment, and 3. Alien/Asteroid destruction. Each of the stories is independent from one another and all are acted, written, and directed by various teams.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

While not terrible, this movie does have some problems, and it seems strangely out dated (despite its futuristic themes). This film debuted earlier this year (2012),and therein lies the bulk of its problems; this production originally began back in 2006, but funding problems and other delays hampered its release and it was shelved for quite a while. As a result, some stories were wrapped up years ago, one never got made, another was added on post haste to finally get the film out the door, etc...The end result is an uneven amalgam of flavors and styles and eras that doesn't quite come together as a whole as was hoped for.

Story 1. "Brave New World" (i.e. "the Zombie" story). Easily my least favorite of the 3 works, and the one that suffers the most from the production delays. This story has 2006 written all over it, and revolves around the world's population de-evolving into zombie like creatures as a result of a virus born of tainted meat processing procedures. This would have been right proper back in '06, but, how many stories about contaminated mass food production, end of world viruses, etc, have been made since then?... And, we've got zombies! Sorry, but it's almost 2013 now, so enough with the freakin zombies already unless you have a more original idea to implement them! This story is ultimately not worth investing in (primarily because it was so overdone by the time it was released). There's also no zombie "love story" angle as suggested that I can recall, unless there is some extended version I haven't seen. Basically, guy goes on a date, guy runs into date later on during the wash, and, everybody is now a zombie or will soon become one!

Summary: Somewhat OK (I guess)!

Story 2. "Creation of Heaven" (i.e. the "Robot with a soul" story). Probably the best of the 3 stories, and easily the most philosophical & cerebral. Fairly interesting and well done story overall. It's basically your human created machine gains intelligence, sentience, thought, free will, etc. Then, various humans with differing opinions and motives on the subject must decide what to do with it. This story would perhaps have been better suited to be a full feature movie on its own. It does work pretty well as a short, but I could easily see it being successfully expanded into a longer production (similar to what was done with the "Dumplings" portion of the "3 Extremes" anthology).

Summary: Not bad at all!

Story 3. "Happy Birthday" (i.e. the "We need to tack on another 30-40 minute tale 6 years later to finally release this film" story). I like the somewhat odd premise of this segment, but unfortunately, it just doesn't work that well overall. This is the story that has the young girl trying to replace her dad's missing 8-ball via the internet. The internet is a magical place indeed, but I think we're still a long way away from alien races fulfilling Amazon.com orders through space and time via giant asteroids. This episode felt a bit rushed, and, I think would have been far better served if it played up the comedic/surreal aspect of the plot (which it reluctantly seemed to not want to fully embrace).

Summary: Ultimately disappointing!

Bottom Line: Overall, I was not impressed! A bit of a missed opportunity that's "OK" to watch, but I recommend you don't set your hopes too high going in if you're going to check it out. I'm not going to destroy it, because it ain't terrible. Occasionally though, delays/timing/funding get in the way of the best laid plans; here's Exhibit A in regards! That's just the way it goes sometimes!

6 out of 10 stars overall!

"In-lyu-myeol-mang-bo-go-seo", a.k.a. "Doomsday Book", is a South Korean science-fiction film divided in three uneven segments:

1) "A Brave New World": the research scientist Yoon Seok-woo stays alone at home while his parents travel for a holiday with his sister. He is in charge of cleaning their apartment and he dumps all the garbage, including a rotten apple, in a disposal recycling system. This apple becomes animal food and soon the cow meet contaminates the population of Seoul that becomes zombies.

This segment is the best one with a funny story and beautiful, but nasty cinematography.

2) "The Heavenly Creature": the technician Park Do-wan is summoned to repair the robot In-Myung in a monastery since the robot claims that he is Buddhist and has reached enlightenment. Park is not capable to fix the robot and the company's president decides to decommission the robot.

This segment is boring and annoying despite the great cinematography and special effects.

3) "Happy Birthday": a girls damages an 8 ball and she buys another one in the computer of her father. Then she throws the ball through the window in order her father does not find it. A couple of years later, an asteroid will collide on Earth and her family seeks protection in an underground shelter.

This segment has also a great cinematography but the story is senseless.

My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): Not available on Blu-Ray or DVD