Single mom Ryu So-young (Kim Hyun-joo, Jung_E) finds her world rocked when her son, Sun-woo (Yu Ji-wan, Netflix’s Parasyte: The Grey) is among 13 schoolchildren who vanish on a camping trip. Some, but not all, of the kids’ corpses are found in a coal mine before a collapse ends the search. 

Nine years later, police inform her that her son’s been found. He’s alive. All grown up (and now played by The Divine Fury’s Bae Hyeon-seong), he’s sullen, withdrawn and antisocial. And he might be a serial killer. 

Remarkably, Paradise Lost is Yeon Sang-ho’s third film to hit U.S. theaters this year alone. On the heels of The Ugly and Colony, it pulls themes from each: the long-buried secrets of the former and the technological anxiety of the latter. 

Ah, yes, the tech, borne of tragedy: To help the parents grieve, AI giant company Trans Human creates “live” versions of each kid, viewable only via special glasses. (Don’t think this isn’t coming.) So-young begins each and every day donning the specs, so when Sun-woo suddenly, surprisingly returns, he’s more than a little jealous of her addiction to his younger, frozen-in-time self. 

In exploring this angle, Yeon raises questions of identity and reality. But are they worth answering in this story? Wrestling with those ethics, the speculative subplot gets in the way of the mystery’s mechanics as both compete for Yeon’s attention. While I understand his interest in the SF potential of AI, it isn’t needed at all to make the movie tick. 

Thus, Paradise Lost feels like two movies forced to get along. In the first act, it feels like Yeon could have chosen either route and run with it, and I wish he had. At least trying both gives his leading lady more notes to play, which Kim does quite well, so that’s one for the plus column. A second victory: Even with his bifurcated, dueling narrative, Yeon wraps it all up in an economical 101 minutes. —Rod Lott

In theaters Friday, Nov. 6.