“The Silent Sea” is a sci-fi thriller Korean drama watched online on Netflix. The series is directed by Hang-yong Choi and starring Doona Bae and Yoo Gong.
“The Silent Sea” tells the story of a special team composed of many elites who were ordered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to go to a Balhae Base research station on the moon that had been abandoned for many years to retrieve a mysterious sample.
However, as soon as they arrived at the Balhae Base research station, they found numerous dead bodies with unknown causes, as well as strange and unknown biological signals, and fell into a huge crisis of chaos.
A new breakthrough in Korean science fiction
In 2021, Netflix launched many excellent Korean dramas, whether it is “Squid Game”, “D.P Dog Day”, “My Name” or “Hellbound”, Korean film and television creators can always arouse people’s discussion and attention with their unique themes.
And this time “The Silent Sea” is no exception. The series combines sci-fi and suspense thriller and other genre elements, once again subverting the audience’s established impression that most Korean dramas are mainly love, and it brings amazing newness. breakthrough.
Related Post: Another Korean drama “The Silent Sea” on Netflix starts airing: it’s worth watching but it should not be able to surpass “Squid Game” .
The background world view of “The Silent Sea”
“The Silent Sea” is adapted from a short film of the same name directed by director Hang-yong Choi in 2014. The opening of the series introduces the audience to the background of the whole series.
With climate change and humans’ reclamation and destruction of the environment, the earth in 2077 has become a barren desert.
Not only has the rainfall been decreasing year by year, but the main rivers in major cities have exposed dry riverbeds, and the drop in sea level has also made the operation of desalination plants difficult.
According to scientists’ estimates, the water resources available to humans will be further reduced by 40% in the next ten years, and they will truly face the dilemma of no water available.
In “The Silent Sea”, the entire world is short of water and most of the drinking water sources are polluted, which affects the health of all people, and the neonatal mortality rate has repeatedly hit new highs.
The South Korean government in the “The Silent Sea” drama started to develop factory farms that can greatly reduce water consumption, trying to cope with the food problem caused by lack of water.
On the other hand, they are also actively looking for other sources of clean drinking water in various places in a variety of ways.
The government expects to be able to resolve this most difficult crisis in human history within a short time.
The actor role of “The Silent Sea”
Unlike “Space Sweepers” starring Song Joong Ki in early 2021, which chose to portray an imaginative interstellar journey in the form of “space opera”, this time “The Silent Sea” adopts a relatively realistic style.
Just like in the opening scene of the first episode, the audience saw a thrilling bridge where the spacecraft boarded by the crowd crashed on the surface of the moon, and may be completely wiped out.
“The Silent Sea” immediately established the tone of being serious and not funny, because the expedition team may lose their lives in the dark universe if they are not careful.
The protagonist group of “The Silent Sea” is an expedition composed of elites from various fields from Korea Aerospace Exploration Agency, headed by the captain Han Yoon-jae played by Yoo Gong.
Doctor Song Ji-an, the heroine played by Bae Doona, is a researcher with a doctorate in “Astrobiology”.
This is a science that specializes in studying the origin and evolution of life in the universe, and exploring whether there are organisms on a planet.
For this mission, they had to go to an abandoned “Balhae Base research station” on the moon and retrieve important samples left before it was officially closed.
Is “The Silent Sea” worth watching?
After a serious safety accident at the “Balhae Base research station” five years ago, Song Ji-an’s life fell into a trough due to the loss of her sister who had depended on each other since she was a child, and her mentality was tortured by trauma.
So Song Ji-an will take over the search mission and follow the team to the Balhae Base research station, mainly to take the opportunity to investigate the truth about her sister’s death on the moon.
At that time, officials said to the outside world that it was an accident caused by an accidental radiation leak, but are there other factors besides this? What kind of secrets are hidden behind?
“The Silent Sea” is full of many unknown mysteries that puzzle the audience and the protagonist.
Although members of the expedition are preparing to go to the moon to perform a dangerous space mission.
However, apart from knowing that the sample to be retrieved is contained in the capsule and where it is located, they have no idea about the properties of the material inside and the current status of the base.
This not only caused them to crash due to abnormal equipment when they were just preparing to land on the moon, but the situation in the base was not as good as they had originally imagined. It also added many unknown variables to the mission of “The Silent Sea”.
Related Post: “The Silent Sea” was exposed to plagiarism, it caused controversy worldwide.
The unexpected accident of “The Silent Sea”
Although Han Yoon-jae and Song Ji-an finally arrived at the “Balhae Base research station”, they found a large number of “drowning” bodies of researchers in the blocked gate.
Moreover, the samples they used as mission targets were either damaged or missing. Later, they learned that there were spies deployed by hostile organizations in the team.
The team members were attacked by unknown creatures, and their bodies began to show abnormalities that were difficult to explain with common sense.
This seemingly simple search task with many dangerous crises hidden behind it also aroused the audience’s curiosity about the development direction of the subsequent plot.
After a series of unforeseen accidents, “The Silent Sea” focused the story on the process of solving problems in two ways by the expedition team.
Han Yoon-jae is trying to restore communication, requesting support and the commander’s next instructions to find a way to leave the base.
On the other hand, Song Ji-an chose to start from the causes of death of the team members and researchers, holding the attitude of “Only asking questions can find the true answer”, trying to find out the secrets and conspiracies hidden in the base.
And perhaps this is the case, the truth that gradually emerges is even more surprising.
The hidden secrets of “The Silent Sea”
Under the background that this clean water has become the most important resource in the world, and the common people need to contribute to the society to obtain it, I like the screenwriter to set the cause of death of many corpses on the moon as drowning, and their bodies are filled with water and die. Plot design.
Not only does it resemble a tribute to the classic “Alien”, it brings horror to the audience with the tragic death that is rare in the past, but also fits with the theme of “The Silent Sea” lacking “water resources”, and extends it to the entire film. Discussion of the theme of the work.
The sample to be retrieved by the expedition is a substance that Song Ji-an’s sister discovered on the moon and named it “lunar water”.
Although the surface of “lunar water” looks no different from the water we are familiar with, if it comes into contact with the human body, it will grow like a virus hidden in the host body in a short period of time, causing the human body to be occupied by it. And drowned.
Therefore, how to adjust the “lunar water” of the human body and turn this dangerous substance into a water resource that people can use endlessly has also become the goal that the researchers at the Balhae Base research station in the “The Silent Sea” play want to achieve.
Theme of “The Silent Sea” plot
This drama is based on Galileo’s observations with a telescope in the 16th century, and mistakenly believed that the lowland shadows on the moon were the ocean, hence the name “The Silent Sea”.
“The Silent Sea” has transformed from the human desire for exploration in the past space disaster movies to a solution to the problem of the earth’s lack of water.
But whether it is out of curiosity or as a last resort, the bold attempts made by mankind to pursue progress are still a challenge to the unknown.
Sometimes they will succeed, and sometimes they will fail.
Therefore, even if “The Silent Sea” has lofty ideals and ambitions, it is to create the well-being of mankind.
But the cruelty of the real society and many things that cannot be expected to control may bring us devastating consequences.
Just as human beings think they can fight against nature, they have also arbitrarily reclaimed and plundered the earth’s resources during the development of civilization over the years, ultimately resulting in the consequences of climate change.
The “The Silent Sea” research conducted by “The Silent Sea” at the Balhae Base research station reflects the arrogance of human beings. It also reminds us of the desire for progress in all aspects. It is also a double-sided blade that needs attention.
The meaning of the ending of “The Silent Sea”
Doctor Song Ji-an, played by Bae Doona, went from being melancholy and anguished because of the loss of his family, to getting the motivation to continue after meeting Luna, the mysterious little girl.
The team leader Han Yoon-jae, played by Gong Yoo, participated in this mission because he wanted his daughter to get better medical care. In the end, he volunteered to let Song Ji-an and Luna who hold the key to human survival escape and sacrifice.
In the end, with the theme of water crisis in the whole work, “The Silent Sea” finally talks about environmental conservation and sustainable development.
Maybe human beings can enjoy a convenient life now, but besides technological development, what else do we leave for the next generation in the future?
I believe these are the questions that the audience wants to think about in the ending of “The Silent Sea”.
“The Silent Sea” review conclusion
On the whole, as the first Korean drama with space science fiction as the theme, “The Silent Sea” does show the strength and maturity of the Korean film and television industry.
Not only is its scene modeling and special effects scenes top-notch, the background design of the entire work also echoes the crisis encountered by the characters.
“The Silent Sea” succeeded in creating a suspenseful and thrilling atmosphere full of unknown mystery, creating a high degree of entertainment, and highlighting the theme that the whole show hopes to convey to the audience. This is indeed worthy of recognition.
It’s just that even if the screenwriter is Eun-kyo Park, who wrote the script of “Mother”, the story content still has a lot of room for development, but the overall script of “The Silent Sea” is still not detailed and complete.
In addition to allowing the audience to discover many logical contradictions and loopholes in the process of watching the movie, the final episode of the final episode was too rushed and abrupt.
The editing of many parts of the series obviously has the problem of incoherent pictures, which also affects the narrative rhythm and final results of “The Silent Sea”.
It’s a pity that I didn’t make good use of the interesting themes of this work.
“The Silent Sea” Season 2
Although the final ending seems to have a feeling that the story is not over yet, “The Silent Sea” has not yet released the news that the second season will be filmed.
Related Post: Netflix space sci-fi mystery “The Silent Sea” released a new trailer, the series has officially started.
