This is a rather good little flick, offering high energy, interesting characters, solid acting and a real visual flair. With a few touches of wry humor of the kind often found in 'serious' Korean movies.
The premise is particularly clever: a starship screws up what should be a routine entry into an interstellar wormhole. A journey of minutes will now take seven years - and there are only hibernation pods for four people. But that's just the start. On board you've got a pair of sexy twin assassins; a nanite-enhanced special agent; a star pilot remorseful for causing a huge disaster; a dishonest captain; and assorted refugees, law-enforcement types and one cute kid. Oh, and a horrible murderous creature that can turn itself transparent.
Mix well and present at a frenzied pace, with set-piece fights that are never repetitive, always imaginative. You've seen the individual ingredients before, but never in quite this combination.
On top of its credentials as an action film, Star Abyss is also rather beautifully shot. It has the slick grainless feel of an all-digital production, but the sets are impressive and blend imperceptibly with what have to be CG backdrops. I often found myself admiring beautifully composed shots I wouldn't normally expect to see in a simple genre film.
Okay, this isn't a work of monumental artistic merit - but it is a very slick, skillful piece of entertainment. It had me grinning right from the first scene through to the last bits of denouement presented in a window over the closing credits. If you like sci-fi and action films in general, and are willing to speed-read a few over-long subtitles, you should be very pleasantly surprised by Star Abyss.
