This is Bong’s first film since his 2019 global hit comedy Parasite, which had its debut in Cannes where it won Bong the Palme d’Or for Best Director and went on to win an Oscar for Best Motion Picture. His 2017 film Okja also screened in competition at Cannes. Needless to say Mickey 17 has been highly anticipated. He gained a cult following with his black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite in 2000 but the real breakout for the 55 year old director came with Parasite.

Bong is a master at mixing genres and dark comedy and he often explores society and class distinctions. All his previous films have been South Korean productions but Mickey 17 is a USA/South Korean coproduction and weighed in with a budget of 118m USD. Bong also wrote the script.

Robert Pattison plays the unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes, a loser with a string of bad debts and his business partner Timo another loser played by Steven Yeun. To get away from the pack of creditors on their tail they sign up for a dangerous mission to outer space. The mission is organised by a creepy politician Kenneth Marshall played by Mark Ruffalo and his wife Ylfa played by Toni Collette.

But Mickey finds himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job, to die, for a living. He flees earth on a space ship and dies over and over again but he keeps returning via his clones and his memory survives via an advanced human printing machine.

Mickey is expendable and he accepts his fate as he dies and comes back over and over again until something goes wrong as the ship approaches a planet populated by giant insects that Mickey has to exterminate. This will be Mickey’s 17th death, which is where the title of the film comes from, but somehow he survives and returns to find that Mickey 18 has already been printed.

The two Mickeys get into a fight over his girlfriend played Naomi Ackie. The three end up in a very sexy love scene together. For fans of the heartthrob Pattison this is double the fun. Despite endless death Bong and his strange brand of black comedy seems to always fill his films with optimism and light heartedness.

Bong said at the premiere that he was fascinated by the idea of human printing which is what gave him the idea for the bizarre sci-fi story. He also said he liked the idea of cloning Robert Pattison over and over again.  

Mickey 17 (USA / South Korea )
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo