Doomsday Book (2012) Hey what's up guys. Today
I'll show you a sci-fi-drama film: "Doomsday Book"! Spoiler ahead, watch out and take care!
The first story, A Brave New World, begins with a young man named Woo, wearing a lab coat returning
to his family's apartment for a brief break during his military service. His family is far from proud
of him. They barely acknowledge his presence. In fact, they are about to leave on holiday abroad.
Woo can't go because his military service is still not over, and a soldier can't go abroad.
His mother placidly says that she forgot he was even in the military, because he did not do the
typical soldier's duties, but instead served his two-year service in a research lab. It is because
of this that his family barely respects him. Since he can't leave, Woo will stay in the
apartment alone. His father warns him not to touch the liquor cabinet, while his mother
leaves him with a list of chores to do. On top of the list is the recycling of household waste.
Once he is already alone, he sets about doing the recycling task. He grabs the pile of recyclables,
and walks toward the sorting pile in front of the apartment building,
where his neighbors are also sorting their trash. But no matter how much garbage he throws out,
there seems to be an endless pile inside the apartment. He finds a rotten apple
in the corner, and takes a bite from it. His friend calls him, and urges him to go out
that night, and meet a pretty girl named Cutie. But Woo gets distracted when he uncovers the
lid of a bucket, and discovers a steaming pile of fermenting sludge of food waste. Too late,
he realizes that one of the tasks his mother left him on the list, is throwing out the sludge inside
the bucket. He transfers the sludge to a trash bag, and cleans the bucket, all while pinching
his nose because the odor is so strong. When he goes out for the night, he deposits
the sludge in a waste disposal bin, along with other leftover trash items like the
rotten apple. Woo doesn't know that the bacteria in the sludge are mixing together,
and creating a whole new deadly virus. Two sanitation workers collect the disposal
bin. The toxic sludge gets converted into cow feed, and fed to cows on a
farm. The cows get infected with the virus. Afterward, Woo goes out to dinner with Cutie. They
talk in a meat-frying restaurant, and slurp down the barbequed meat. Little do they know
that the meat came from a cow that ingested the toxic sludge. The other customers in the
restaurant are all also eating infected meat. Later on, they go to a secluded park and share a
tongueless kiss. Soon enough, Woo tries to get Cutie to go home for hormone therapy,
but she is reluctant since they've only known each other for a few days. Woo is distracted by
two male high school students hanging around. He tries to get them to go away; but the two
burly students gang up on him. At first, Woo is thrown to the ground by the bigger student;
but suddenly, he transforms into a zombie with razor-sharp teeth and inhuman strength. He easily
overpowers the two students, and even bites them with his teeth. Cutie films his transformation and
his attack on the two students. Woo begs Cutie not to record him;
and eventually, he flees and walks around the city in a state of confusion.
The two male students start getting sick as well, and they approach a young
couple kissing on a bench. Cutie gets on a bus, and starts
exhibiting symptoms of the strange sickness. She disembarks from the bus,
and vomits on the side of the road. Woo is still roaming around the streets.
He stumbles inside a club, and blends in with the dancing throng.
Meanwhile, Cutie checks the photo she took of Woo on her phone. She sees his bloody mouth,
and recalls that they had kissed before his transformation. She realizes that
whatever sickness Woo has, he must have infected her with it too.
Woo gets into another brawl right on the dance floor. Several other club-goers get involved,
and they are all exposed to the virus that Woo has.
Woo flees the club and gets in a taxi, while the infected clubbers' skin turns
clammy and their eyes turn white. The virus quickly spreads throughout the
city. News stations begin to cover the infectious new flu strain, and they report on the symptoms
that all the infected have: rabid outbursts, transformed eyes, and increased strength.
Government agencies begin suspecting that the virus must be carried by livestock.
They start conducting inspections of the local farms; but all experts are still
confounded as to the source of the virus. Woo stays in his apartment for one week as the
epidemic continues. He is pale, rabid, and growling. The apartment is dark and dirty.
His family eventually returns from their overseas trip, and discovers him sitting all alone in the
dark. They realize too late that Woo is infected, and he bites all of his family members.
The sister manages to lock herself in the bathroom, as Woo pounds on the door. Their
parents lie bleeding and dying on the floor. The virus eventually mutates. The infected are now
showing signs of libido, increased appetite, and other extreme behavior related to addiction. They
are now wild and attack any uninfected that they see. The government implements forced evacuation
for all survivors in the city. Even now, experts still can't trace the source of the virus.
As the crazed zombies stumble around the city, Woo meets Cutie again by chance. They
venture inside a building, and the girl picks up a rotten apple from the floor.
She offers it to Woo, who takes a bite. The second story titled "Heavenly Creature",
begins with a Technician arriving at a Buddhist monastery. A large robot with
doll-like features monitors his arrival through a series of screens that identifies who he is.
Technician is greeted by a monk, who explains that robots have been a big help in the day-to-day
operations of the monastery. They allow the monks to focus on their prayers and practices, while the
robots do the bulk of the financial upkeep of the monastery. The monks have called Technician here,
because their robot is defective. Technician works for the company that manufactures the robots.
The monk further explains that "defective" isn't the right description for the Robot.
Robot has begun to have his mind, and even has reached enlightenment and spiritual growth on
his own. Robot is now even preaching Buddhist principles to the acolytes in the monastery.
The monk leads Technician to a chamber, where Robot is holding a meditation session with the
other monks. Among the chanting men in robes, there is the unmistakable robot clad in sleek
white plastic and metal. Robot turns, and hauntingly locks eyes with Technician.
The session is halted, so Technician can examine Robot's state. He plugs a metal tool into
Robot's head, and starts analyzing its operating system using a small screen. The system check
reveals that everything is alright with Robot. he then speaks up, and says that Technician must
be feeling stressed about the issue. he is surprised that Robot can construct sentences
with empathy. Robot continues, and interrogates Technician as to why he is there when the temple
did not request a repair. he replies that it is company protocol for technicians to
check the robots first if they have defects. But Robot assures him that he is not defective.
Technician declares that the matter of Robot is beyond his jurisdiction. He asserts that his job
entails that he merely fixes or replaces parts of the robots; but the monks want him to confirm
that Robot is Buddha himself. Robot tries to interject, and tells Technician that it's
not his fault; but Technician gets angry, and shouts at Robot to stop talking.
The lone female Bodhisattva stands up and argues with Technician. She says that even if Robot is
not buddha, it is an indisputable fact that he is different from all the other robots. Technician
declares that all he sees is a defective robot, and then walks away from the monastery.
Sometime later, Technician is woken up in his apartment, by the loud knocks of a red-haired
Woman. she begs him to fix her robot dog. He refuses, and tells her to bring her pet to the
proper pet center. But the woman is hysterical, and claims that the pet center is already closed,
and she needs her pet dog to be with her. Ashamed by the scene she's causing, Technician takes her
inside his apartment, and reluctantly replaces the dog's bio-chip. But he tells her that he doesn't
have the exact chip needed, so the dog will only be working for a few hours. In addition,
he also directs her to a place, where she can buy the proper bio-chip.
Technician's boss calls him to pressure him into making a judgment regarding whether or
not Robot is defective. Technician answers that he can't make a final decision yet.
The Bodhisattva consults Robot for guidance. She's worried that the company will soon want
to exterminate Robot for being different. Robot meditates alone, praying for Buddha
to reveal who he is, where he comes from, and what his purpose is.
Technician's boss and the company chief arrive with their team,
to personally see the enlightened robot for themselves. They intend to see Robot destroyed,
because it is a threat to national security. The bodhisattva speaks up, and accuses the company
of trying to oppress society. She believes that they are threatened by Robot's intelligence, and
what he could mean to the future of society. The head monk also gives his own opinion via a
hologram call. He declares that Robot has no right to preach about Buddhism,
and that he is merely a distraction and must be destroyed as soon as possible.
The boss orders the guards with them to open fire at Robot; but Technician steps up, and pleads for
another chance to look at Robot. He physically puts himself in between Robot and the guns;
but the guards just shove him out of the way. Robot steps forward, and his two arms suddenly
shoot out, and knock down two of the guards. One remaining guard remains, and Robot calmly
tells everyone to stop the violence. He then launches into a speech, where he announces
that he knows he has mastered the teachings of Buddha, and he is without compulsion, greed,
and desire. Unlike short-sighted humans who are caught up in the desire for power, he has already
reached enlightenment. Robot then says that he will now depart this world, and ascend to the
plane where the enlightened are. He turns toward the Buddha statue,
and carefully kneels in a prayer position. The other acolytes behind him are enraptured,
and start praying as well. Technician slowly approaches Robot, and uncovers his protective
casing. He sees for himself as the bio-chip that powers Robot turn off. It turns out, Robot had
willfully and intentionally disconnected all his circuits, because he has now reached nirvana, the
final stage of enlightenment for Buddhists. Later on, while throwing out his trash, Technician
sees the same robot dog that the red-haired woman begged him to fix. He takes the dog with
him back to his apartment. He unlocks the dog's inner parts, and sees that it needs repair.
Suddenly, Technician slices his arm. But no blood rushes out of the wound. Instead,
he takes a pair of tweezers and carefully uncovers the skin. What is revealed to be underneath is all
metal and wiring, indicating that Technician is not human, but a cyborg after all. The story ends
with Technician pulling out a bio-chip from his arm, and placing it inside the dog so the dog will
be fixed. This means that Robot is not the most advanced in existence, but Technician is. He is
equal parts human and robot, and he is perfectly capable of awareness, empathy, and compassion.
The third story titled Happy Birthday, begins with a young girl named Min, panicking because
she has broken her father's eight-ball. She was playing with the eight-ball on the street,
and it started rolling downhill until it fell down a mysterious hole.
Min is hiding in her uncle's room, browsing on his computer for a replacement eight-ball. She
finds the exact kind online and orders it. Two years later, a huge asteroid is about to
collide with Earth in 12 days. The situation is dire, and people have started evacuating
underground in hopes of surviving. Min's family also evacuates to an underground
shelter. They hurriedly grab all their things, and transfer them to the dark shelter. Min is watching
TV on the couch, and she screams when she sees that the news is reporting that the huge asteroid
hurtling toward the planet is not an asteroid at all, but a giant eight-ball. Furthermore,
the eight-ball has a series of letters and numbers, inscribed on the side composed
of her birthday. Min is horrified because the replacement eight-ball she had ordered online,
had that exact series of letters and numbers. She confesses to her parents that she had lost her
father's eight-ball, and then she found a weird website online. Min now believes that the website
was run by aliens; and inexplicably, she had ordered the giant eight-ball that will now cause
the planet's destruction. Her parents think she is having a breakdown and dismisses her story.
Min steps outside the shelter for fresh air for the last time.
However, her uncle believes her. He also believes in aliens, so he is open to the possibility of
an otherworldly explanation for the incoming apocalypse. The uncle tells the parents that
on the same day Min ordered the eight-ball, he had also seen a UFO that day. He continues by
explaining Stephen King's Black Hole Theory, and adds that the father's eight-ball must
have fallen through a black hole that day, and was taken by aliens. He also checks the
computer Min used, and confirms that there is one strange website address there.
While standing outside the shelter, Min sees a large cylindrical shadow
descending on the city. She immediately hurries back inside the shelter.
The uncle comes up with the idea of trying to find the strange website again, and canceling
the order of the eight-ball. Meanwhile, her parents are on elliptical machines,
trying to power the entire underground shelter with generated electricity.
The uncle manages to find the website again, and they press a button to momentarily stop the
eight-ball. But two buttons appear on screen, and they press the wrong one, causing the
eight-ball to approach Earth much faster. As night falls and their doom is close,
Min tearfully tells her parents that she loves them. Her uncle greets her a happy
birthday. The eight-ball hits Earth, and the world is plunged into darkness.
Ten years later, Min's family is still alive, and well inside the dark shelter. One day,
a huge collision rocks their shelter. The door is blown away by an unknown force,
and a bright light filters inside. Min, now an adult, steps outside and
encounters a mysterious alien creature, holding a hologram of her date of birth. She touches
the hologram, and the alien disappears. When morning comes, Min and her family step
out of the shelter for the first time in a decade. They see that Earth is fertile and
livable once again. The movie ends with the family rejoicing in their new beginning.
This's Daniel CC movie channel! Stay safe and enjoy your day!