Director: Kwon Oh-kwang 

Genre: Black comedy

Run time: 1h 33m

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The bizarre but tender story of a man turning into a fish after a clinical trial mishap and his fight for acceptance and peace  

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“The story of a man who is also a fish.” 

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That is the casual set-up line in Kwon Oh-kwang's peculiar tale of wanton pharmaceutical ethics and the modern celebrity obsession. 

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For such an outlandish set-up, the film is surprisingly threadbare and overly restrained once it gets going, but it still provides plenty of off-beat visual interest and social commentary.

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Our sorry protagonist is Park Gu (Lee Kwang-soo) who participates in a clinical trial with pharmaceutical giant Ganmi Medical, but the consequences extend beyond mere side-effects when he transforms into a half-man half-fish mutant hybrid.  

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Gu manages to escape the clutches of Ganmi and seeks out his girlfriend (mainly in his mind only) Ju-jin (Park Bo-young), who duly turns him back in for a reward, later protesting “Why can’t I? It’s a capitalistic society!” 

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Before we see this, we meet TV editor but wannabe reporter Sang-won (Lee Chun-hee), who tries to shoot his own documentary on Gu after reading online about how a woman’s boyfriend turned into a fish.  

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There is also Dr. Byun (Lee Byung-jun), the scientist behind the experiment who is trying to develop a product that can end world hunger, only to discover that the company’s plans for the food source are as a “luxury item for the top 1%”. 

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During all of this, Gu become a divisive public figure, complete with an expansive line of merchandise, but public opinion turns against him after a smear campaign from the pharmaceutical company.  

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The film employs a shuffled chronology, though it is not clear if this adds much, as we flick between Gu’s path to his fishy future, the documentary investigations of Sang-won, and the vested interests of Ju-jin, Gu’s father, their human rights lawyer and a powerful pharma firm.  

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The film’s visuals work well. Lee Kwang-soo is cast as Gu, but spends the film under a fish head, an effect which is largely realistic despite its incredible nature. So well that your initial surprise at seeing the post-trial Gu quickly becomes the normal. A good lesson in acceptance for all of us there.  

 

The frustration of the film is that after an interesting set-up and first half, it runs out of steam when it could continue its absurd path with more success. It is a film that has more potential than you may suspect, but by allows itself to drift and meander for long segments, it dilutes the frequency of laughs and the narrative thrust.  

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The pharmaceutical industry – a common target for cinema – is portrayed as cruelly as you might expect, but Collective Invention does achieve some interesting shifts in the scales (no pun intended) of power and evil.  

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You could not call this film a subtle satire in any form, as the government, human rights, national pride, celebrity obsession and even religion are all prodded with a rather large stick. But there is enough absurdity, heart and laughs throughout to largely keep your attention swimming in the right direction.  

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