Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer’s much-anticipated $102 million sci-fi film was finally unveiled to the local press in Seoul last week, featuring Korean actress Bae Doo-na as part of its star-studded ensemble.

The Wachowskis (“The Matrix,” “V for Vendetta”) and Tykwer (“Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”) met with the local press on Thursday, along with Bae and English actor Jim Sturgess, and shared their experience of making “Cloud Atlas,” the most expensive independent movie of all time.

The film is an adaptation of English writer David Mitchell’s 2004 best-selling novel of the same title. It consists of six interrelated stories that take the viewers from the remote South Pacific in the 19th century to dystopian Seoul in 2144 to a post-apocalyptic future.

“I would be still surprised if all Koreans who watch this movie would say ‘Oh, I’ve seen this before,’” said director Tykwer, when asked to give his thoughts about the movie’s theme of reincarnation, which may not be something new to many viewers in Asia.

“I doubt it. I have not seen that many films that are similar to this one. And that is why I was so excited to make it. For us the beauty of making the film was that we knew that for everyone who was approaching it and finding something familiar, there would always be still something to discover.”

Its ensemble cast, which includes Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant, plays multiple roles throughout, increasing the sense of dj vu and connectivity of the storylines.

Bae, for example, plays Son-mi, a slave-clone in dystopian Korea, as well as a Mexican woman, and an American woman married to a lawyer in the 19th-century U.S. Actor Sturgess, meanwhile, went through severe makeup sessions to play Chang Hae-joo, a Korean freedom fighter in Seoul in 2144, on top of playing the 19th-century American attorney. Other actors, such as Ben Whishaw, played characters of the opposite sex and different ages. 

“There was a period of time before we started the film when we just did nothing but doing makeup tests,” Sturgess told reporters on playing multiple roles in the film.

“You’d sit on a chair for six hours at a time. I remember Ben Whishaw and I arrived to do some very first makeup tests together. We walked into two separate makeup rooms. He went into his and I went into mine. Six hours later, we both emerged again. I was dressed as a Korean man from the future and he was dressed as a woman. And we went to have lunch together. And it kind of started the whole idea that this is going to be overly playful and fun experience for all of us to go through.”

The upcoming movie is also local actress Bae’s Hollywood debut, after appearing in a number of local and Japanese films. Some of her previous roles include the North Korean table tennis player in 2012 sports flick “As One,” and the inflatable sex doll in Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda’s 2010 work “Air Doll.”

“When I first received the offer I was certainly surprised,” said Bae. “I was surprised that the three directors knew of my existence. I first found the screenplay a little difficult to digest, but after reading the Korean-translated version of the original novel, I thought I could really pull off this Son-mi character. I was hopelessly confident in spite of my limited English at the time.”

The actress has spent a significant amount of time learning English in the U.K. while preparing for the movie; she speaks in a British accent throughout the film.

“I’m shy in nature and often find it difficult to approach people who I’m not very familiar with,” said Bae. “But I tried to attend every dinner and really tried to overcome my shyness. It was certainly challenging to get past the language barrier. The three directors and the crew members really helped me through.”

Director Lana Wachowski said the Korean actress had the quality that she wanted for the Son-mi character, a slave-clone who eventually leads a revolution against the exploitive “pure blood” authorities in Korea in 2144. Though Bae’s conversational English was very limited, her actual performance was quite riveting during her audition in Chicago, the director recalled.

“That Son-mi we felt had to be able to feel innocent in the way you almost see like a deer, a deer can project a feeling of innocence or a quality that was almost trans-human, where she was almost so innocent she was not human, like the way a baby would feel, but in an adult,” said the director.

“And yet then she had to evolve into this incredibly strong revolutionary leader. And that’s what is so unique about Doo-na is that she has this capacity to, in a performance, inhabit such a pure emotional vulnerability where you feel like there’s almost nothing between the lens and her emotion. And then yet underneath that openness and sweetness, there is a sort of strength, a toughness, a kind of steel in her bones that you could believe could lead her revolution.”

“Cloud Atlas” opens in local theaters on Jan. 10.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)