Robert Pattinson visits Seoul as disposable space worker in Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho's latest
"How did I survive that?" asks a frost-covered Mickey (Robert Pattinson), lying mangled in an icy pit. His supposed friend, played by Steven Yeun, approaches with an unsettling grin, only to ask with morbid fascination: "What does it feel like to die?"
The chilling scene, unveiled Monday at Seoul's Yongsan CGV in a first-look preview of Bong Joon-ho's "Mickey17," suggests something more grotesque than the work's familiar sci-fi premise might indicate. On paper, it reads like another "Edge of Tomorrow" variant -- an expendable protagonist dies repeatedly in humanity's colonial expansion into space. But Bong seems to have turned this well-worn trope into a savage satire of a world where death becomes the inevitable expression of labor exploitation.
The footage reveals Mickey's employers as gleefully sadistic researchers who subject him to increasingly gruesome deaths, enabled by technology that can "reprint" his body and reimplant his memories. It's a perverse, self-perpetuating system that preys on the vulnerable -- Mickey, viewers learn, signed up to clear debts from his failed macaron shop. Mark Ruffalo emerges as the architect behind this deadly scheme, a demagogue whose cuddly charm masks a familiar strain of populist manipulation that, the film suggests, will outlive humanity's migration to outer space.
"I'm not really interested in the scientific technicalities," Bong said at the press event, discussing how he transformed the novel's original protagonist -- a cerebral historian -- into a more visceral figure. "I wanted Mickey to be this simple, sorry figure. Someone whose literal job is to die, again and again."
It's precisely this kind of mordant observation that has defined Bong's career, from the environmental horror of "The Host" (2006) to the class warfare allegory aboard the perpetual-motion train in "Snowpiercer" (2013), to the monstrous corporate greed of "Okja" (2017). Each film uses genre conventions as a Trojan horse for a searing indictment of institutional power, seasoned with the director's characteristic pitch-black humor. If the preview footage is any indication, it shows that the director's talent for wringing timely social commentary from the wildest corners of genres remains intact.
Pattinson, making his first visit to Korea, brings an unexpected vulnerability to the role, trading the masculine gravitas of his Batman for a nasal whimper that perfectly embodies Mickey's learned helplessness.
"The script seems deceptively simple at first," he told the packed theater of reporters. "But when you try to break down Mickey's mentality -- this guy who has zero self-confidence but somehow doesn't feel sorry for himself -- it gets complicated really quickly. I ended up thinking of him as this poorly trained dog who needs to die 17 times to finally learn something."
The actor pulls double duty as Mickey18, a "misprint" that Pattinson describes as "basically Mickey17's (Freudian) id personified, looking at him and going 'Why are you so pathetic?'" This twisted brotherhood offers Mickey's only path to redemption -- after all, breaking free from one's chains sometimes requires confronting one's reflection.
Bong's distinctive directing style of editing in-scene rather than shooting traditional coverage proved revelatory for Pattinson. "Most actors are used to scavenging for ideas through multiple takes," he shared.
"With Bong's approach, you're just doing one or two lines at a time, which lets you take these really sharp turns in energy you couldn't normally pull off. After a week, you're thinking 'This is how every movie should be made.' The way he shows you the edit on set – it's like he has the entire movie in his head before we even start shooting."
"There's something about Bong's worlds that makes sense on a very personal, emotional level," the actor said. "You can't really define exactly why they work, but they always do, especially in the performances."
"Mickey17" gets its world premiere in Korea when it opens here on Feb. 28, a week ahead of its March 7 global release. It marks Bong's first return to Korean theaters in five years since his Oscar triumph with "Parasite."
