ANI-MOVIES, *Lost In Starlight

Korean animation only gets a fraction of exposure to most Western audiences aside from the rare gem like Seoul Station. Han Ji-won is an animator with much clout behind her whose more recent film, The Summer, was a moving animated lesbian drama. Her latest movie, Lost In Starlight, was oddly enough inspired by a commercial she did for a jewelry company back in 2016 about a woman's memories of her going from child to astronaut to grandmother. Han Ji-won's popularity got the attention of Netflix so that they premiered Lost In Starlight on their streaming service along with an English dub. Upon first viewing, many Americans will identify the animation as similar to that of Makoto Shinkai, and even the story structure of this sci-fi romance is patterned after Shinkai's, except this time it features an older couple instead of teenagers.

In 2026, an expedition to Mars ended in failure, so cut ahead to 2051 when NASA is planning another trip to the Red Planet to find out what happened to the original explorers, one of which was the mother of Nan-young Joo, a xenologist who is trying to be among the crew. Nan-young's emotion's towards discovering the truth of her mother leaves her off NASA's roster and instead set as a reserve candidate. Nan-young takes her old record player to be fixed and encounters Jay who specializes in repairing older hardware of which the two form a relationship. The two of them become even closer when Nan-young realizes that Jay is the musician who did a track that was only released online briefly a few years ago that she was in love with, although Jay's stage fright prevents him from performing on stage with his old band. Nan-young is eventually chosen to be on the Mars mission after she makes a startling revolution which could make the planet's air breathable. She doesn't tell Jay at first which leads to them breaking up, but they get back together, and he sees her until she takes off with the rest of the NASA team. While Nan-young is on Mars, Jay finally works up the strength to try performing live for the first time in a long while. However, a storm that forms on Mars leads Nan-young to a life-or-death situation that culminates in an insanely prolonged climax that you have to see in order to believe.

Lost In Starlight is a refreshing look into the not-to-distant future with AI playing an even bigger part, plus smart watches and holographic projections taking the place of mobile phones and tablets. Han Ji-won's production is not specifically influenced by Makoto Shinkai, despite the fact that you'll find elements of his works like Voices Of A Distant Star dealing with estranged romances across the stars. There is a considerable effort towards the music in this film even though there are only a few songs performed throughout it. The flow of colors is nearly psychedelic, bleeding the barrier between what is really happening and what is a dream among the trippy imagery. The animation is stellar and the main characters' relationship is what drives the story. For a deep look into the future of Korean animated movies, this is a true macher and a decent competition for any anime production.