Powerful

People are voting emotionally.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

An anthology of apocalyptic sci-fi. Kind of. The film as a whole is infuriatingly confusing in its conception and execution. The first segment, directed by Pil-Sung Yim (of the Korean Hansel & Gretel movie), is the part that can be definitively labeled horror. Tainted beef turns people into zombies. The film has some decent comic moments, but it never really goes anywhere. Plus, I'm absolutely sick of zombies. The third segment, also directed by Yim, concerns a gigantic pool ball from space on a collision course with Earth. Turns out a young girl accidentally ordered an alien attack on the planet. This segment is so absolutely bizarre, I have no idea what they were going for. It is, at least, a bit amusing even if baffling. Bae Doon-Na appears at the very end of this segment, in the last ten minutes of the movie, and director Bong Joon-Ho also appears. The middle segment, directed by Kim Jee-Woon, cannot be considered horror at all. It concerns a robot which has achieved enlightenment and is considered by his fellow monks to be the reincarnation of Buddha. His makers are incensed at the idea, though, and wish to destroy him. This starts off as the most interesting segment, but as it goes on it gets lost in endless dialogue. Kim is a great action filmmaker and has no ability to make abstract concepts interesting. It's the most boring segment of the film, unfortunately. The one thing I can say for the film as a whole is that it always looks fantastic. Even when it's dull, which is often, it's always pretty.

I really enjoyed Doomsday Book. Three short films in a feature length format. Each story more interesting than the next. There's a zombie film at the front, a religious robot story in the middle, and the finale is about a little girl who purchases the end of the world online. I never quite saw anything like this before. All were very well shot and entertaining. My favorite was the second story about the Buddhist Robot. I would recommend Doomsday Book to anyone who likes horror and science fiction. I saw this on Netflix Instant but I'm looking to buy it on DVD. I didn't even want to watch it when my husband put it on but it sucked me in immediately!

This Anthology features 3 tales, 2 of which are somewhat religious and another one dabs more on an alien Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy way. All three have to do with the fall of mankind.Story 1: 9/10 My favorite, A Brave New World, depicts a basic zombie uprising, in the plague form, but what is different is the overall direction the story goes, and the characters development... of zombies. Rarely do zombie films give the zombie POV, but we are able to get that here. A great aspect of this story is the strong acting by the leading actor, a guy who gets bullied by those around him and is very awkward, in a nerdy way. He goes on a date with this girl, and they seem to have a great connection, but then he begins to turn, and she is scared off. What happens at the end throws in a bible element to the story, which I didn't much care for, but I understood the creators message of a new world. Overall, I thought this tale was hilarious and sweet and well acted with enough zombie chaos to intrigue hardcore zombie fans.Story 2: 6/10 The Heavenly Creature. This story is about a Robot that becomes Buddha, or at least to the monks. When the factory finds out, they seek to destroy the machine for attempting to forget it's duty to serve man and instead attaining man's greatest goal. This is deemed a threat and an insult to mankind. While I like the message of man's jealousy over a near perfect machine, I was turned off by the Robot's final message to man. It seemed idealistic to me, and hard to swallow. Overall, it was slow paced and more of a thought provoking study on people and our desires and fears. Might be a good watch for a philosophy/Buddhist student. Story 3: 5/10 Happy Birthday, to me this was the cheesiest of all the stories, and cute, but less thought provoking. Like the first story, it had comical moments, and was quite enjoyable at times, it also felt like a family story and not on the same level as the other stories. You could actually watch this one with your 8 year old, and they might really like it. A problem with this story to me is how things aren't really explained, especially a scene in the end. I laughed off my interpretation of it, but am unsure of the message. There is a adorable aspect of it about trusting your child and having faith in them, which was very sweet, but for me, it wasn't enough to give it a very favorable review. I would have definitely liked to have seen a different story here that didn't have such an absurd scenario... I giant 8 ball heading to earth... why would aliens have giant pool tables and websites dedicated to selling individual balls to different planets? Too silly to me.

You get three directors (on one theme) and of course three different ways they handle that. Completely different ways that is. The first short (still about 40 mins long each of them) is more on the funny side of the spectrum, the second one is more philosophical and the last one tries to combine those two "worlds" (no pun intended). Each does so with a great finesse.It's hard for me to decide which one I liked best, but if I had to say one, I'd say it's the middle piece. The framing especially is more than gorgeous. But they all have their charming qualities and the third one is just so out there you will either love it or dismiss it, for its craziness. Hopefully the former, but whatever the case, if you like Korean cinema you'll enjoy it no matter what. If not you might want to change the order of the shorts and watch them backwards (3, 2, 1)! I have a feeling that might work better for some