Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

Imagine being able to jump into the pages of your favorite book or comic and immerse yourself in the experience of that world. Sounds pretty fun, no? But now imagine that your favorite story is an apocalyptic survivalist fantasy and this isn’t just a temporary activity where you jump in and out of a book, but rather your world is literally transformed into the novel (meaning there’s no escape). Sounds pretty terrifying now!

That’s the basic premise of Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy. Adapted from a popular webtoon, the movie follows Kim Dok-ja, an average (or perhaps even below-average) Joe who muddles through life from temp job to temp job, never really making an impact on anything. What gets him through the day is the webnovel ‘Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse’, a story he has been dedicatedly following for 10 years. While initially popular, the novel’s reader base soon declined till only Dok-ja remained as its sole reader. At the start of the movie, the novel has finally concluded with its protagonist Joong-Hyuk as the sole survivor, having lost or sacrificed everyone else along the way. Unable to reconcile this ending with a story that has offered him such succor over the years, Dok-ja fires off an angry message to the author, and receives a cryptic reply to show him a better ending.

The message doesn’t stay cryptic for too long – Dok-ja’s train soon stops, and incredibly a dokkaebi shows up to explain that their world has now turned into a livestream for superpower beings called constellations. They have to complete various scenarios to earn coins (which can be used to level up abilities much like a video game) and special favors from the constellations. The penalty for failure though is most often a gruesome death. Dok-ja immediately realizes that this mirrors the opening scenes of ‘Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse’ and uses his foreknowledge of events to make his way through the scenarios (Guess it paid off to stick with the novel! Sucks to be the other readers who dropped it early on).

To further up the stakes (you know, beyond something as trivial as merely not dying), Dok-ja knows that the novel’s hero, Joong-hyuk, is fated to die in a few days fighting a Fire Dragon. Joong-hyuk has the power of regression, which means the world gets reset whenever he dies while he retains his memories and powers (sort of like a ‘Save progress’ button but one which throws him back to the beginning of the novel). So, no big deal for Joong-hyuk if he dies but literally the end of the world for everyone else. To avoid this, he tries to team up with Joong-hyuk to use his knowledge to help him avoid his fate. Joong-hyuk, however, is basically an ass and tosses him off a bridge (literally!).

What follows is a race to clear the challenges, power up and reach the Fire Dragon in time to prevent Joong-hyuk’s death (whether or not he wants the help!), supported by a rag-tag mix of characters from the original novel (former soldier Hyun-sung, fierce fighter Hee-won, and tortured student Ji-hye) and real world people (Dok-ja’s ex-colleauge Sang-ha and adorable kid Gil-yeong).

The movie is a fast-paced, fun watch with decent effects, and the 2-hour run time flew by (sadly, an increasingly rare phenomenon for me when watching movies these days). It strikes a good balance between moving the story forward and pausing for character beats. However, the focus still squarely remains on the action so don’t expect deeply complex character portrayals. The film allows just enough time for backstories and character development to get us to see them as distinct individuals rather than interchangeable background characters. But I feel that’s a reasonable trade-off for an action fantasy. Too often, movies look to have their cake and eat it too and try to marry stories of complex, personal drama and fast-paced action, resulting in a mishmash that doesn’t quite appeal to fans of either genre. So, I appreciate that this film knows what its key selling point is and focuses on that.

As with any adaptation, how much you enjoy it depends a lot on which version you were exposed to first. In my case, I had heard of the webtoon but not read it before seeing the film, so I went in with zero expectations and could enjoy it for what it was – a light, fun watch. Subsequently however, I read the webtoon (at least up to the parts covered by the movie) and I can better appreciate how much has been changed in the translation to screen. Having been on the other side (i.e. an avid book reader watching an adaptation in half dreaded anticipation of what cherished storylines and characters have or have not been butchered), I can well imagine fans of the webtoon ready to throw hands at how much some parts diverge from the source material. With that in mind, here’s what I think worked and didn’t work:

• Worked – Dok-ja’s character: In the webtoon, Dok-ja adapts to the new reality with remarkable ease, giving off main character energy almost instantaneously as he gathers powers and sidekicks almost effortlessly. Perhaps since we’re privy to a lot more of his inner monologue, he comes across as much more calculated. Of course, he is still a good guy (so far at least) and makes an effort to not kill anyone directly, but it often comes across as a deliberate strategy to strengthen his position given his foreknowledge of events, rather than decisions taken due to his innate good nature. In contrast, the film shows his struggles a bit more, particularly in one challenge where he faces his first true test between saving himself and sacrificing his own assured safety for his team. It also delves into his traumatic past a bit more which explains why he was so let down by the novel’s original message of self-preservation at all costs, and how it shapes his actions in the present. All this serves to soften his character and makes it easier to root for him as a viewer, as well as to understand why he’s able to draw the others to him.
  
• Didn’t work – other ‘original ‘real-world’ characters: Sang-ha and Gil-yeong are a bit underdeveloped, perhaps an unavoidable consequence of having to fit in so much in 2 hours. Gil-yeong in the webtoon is a more fleshed out character with a very pragmatic view on what’s happening and what needs to be done. I feel they aged him down in the movie and downplayed his ruthless side (probably to make it easier to root for him). I can understand why they did it, given runtime limitations, but it does make him a blander character overall. Sang-ha exists somewhat on the fringes in the webtoon as well (at least in the initial few story arcs), so the makers had more of a blank canvas here…and chose to fill it with a pseudo-Spiderwoman ability. When I think back on the movie, my main recollections of Sang-ha are her dropping down on a thread/rope from various angles (sometimes prompting me to wonder what exactly the thread could be attached to offscreen).

• Mixed – the challenges: <<Spoilers>>
  
  I liked some of the changes made – for instance, the decision to show Dok-ja trying to save the old lady from being killed during the first challenge in the train instantly establishes the basic values of the character and helps make the audience root for him. And I can understand why some plots were dropped in order to make the story tighter. The movie theater challenge (where they jump into various movies and create satisfactory endings to level up), is one example that is interesting to read on the page but would have come across as a distraction on screen. But some of the changes don’t translate as well. One which irked me a bit was the decision to make the villain in the subway challenge (where all monsters have to be cleared to pass) the final monster to be defeated. Sure, it makes for a more dramatic fight scene, but it dilutes the message of how the perils they face often come from not just monsters, but the baser nature of some of humanity itself. And the climax with the Fire Dragon is pulled from such a different part of the story itself, that I can well imagine it would be jarring for any reader to watch unfold.

Apparently, this is meant to be the first of a 5-movie series although a mixed box-office performance leaves the fate of future films up in the air. Hopefully, having done a good chunk of the world-building here, the sequels (if any), will hew closer to the webtoon.

Overall: I’d probably give it 4 out of 5 stars as a standalone movie given how much I enjoyed watching it. As an adaptation however, I’d rate it 3 out of 5 stars since it strays quite a bit from the source material in the second half.