Sector 7

aka 7 gwanggu aka 7광구

2011
Written by Yun Je-gyun
Directed by Kim Ji-hun

Okay, team, we’re going to get to the bottom of the question “Does this film have phallic and vaginal symbolisms, or is it just stupid?”

Sector 7 is so by-the-numbers that if you squint really hard, you’ll learn how to count in Korean! Sector 7 decided that it wanted to take all the goodwill that The Host generated for Korean monster movies and throw it all away into the pit of despair, instead giving us a grab bag of scenes ganked from some of the most famous alien monster films of all time. Each scene is a roulette wheel spin random landing on what film they’re stealing from this time. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Predator, Leviathan, Lethal Weapon 3, probably other films I just didn’t care enough to remember. Oddly enough, I don’t recall any scene ripped directly from Alien 4. It’s almost as if Alien 4 is so bad no one should copy it…

Wait, am I a penis or a vagina? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

But enough of what this films steals from, let’s go over what this film is. Sector 7 is Korea’s first 3D film, and was obviously filmed on a soundstage with the outside backgrounds CGIed in, giving it a weird visual nature. That combined with me watching a 2D transfer of the 3D film probably caused it to look less visually stunning than it is supposed to. But since there wasn’t really any iconic cinematography in the first place, it’s no big deal.

Shoot to kill any and all phallic references!

We get a prologue that is set in the long distant year of 1985, where a man investigating troubles with an underwater drill at the uncharted Sector 7 finds tiny floating jelly things, then horrible disaster strikes. But that horrible disaster factors nothing at all to the rest of the film, so ignore all that and let’s jump to 2011, where there is still an oil rig in Sector 7 and it is still uncharted despite the 16 years and the freaking oil rig that probably cost millions of dollars to build in the middle of nowhere. That logic continues into the rest of the film, but before that, let’s get to the cast…

You don’t look like my vagina to me!

Cha Hae-joon (Ha Ji-won) – A very driven oil hunter lady who searches Sector 7 desperately for oil because her father was the guy in the prologue and he died looking for oil. Sector 7 is desperate to let you know that Cha is driven and tough, between the scenes of her running around an averting oil rig disasters and the scenes of her running off to keep looking for oil after they’re ordered out, we learn that she’s driven to look for oil. She’s the Ripley of the film. Ha Ji-won can also be seen in Sex is Zero and Love So Divine. Kim Dong-soo (Oh Ji-ho) – Cha’s boyfriend who is the handsome guy on the oil platform. He’s better than her in motorcycling, but not in surviving monster attacks. SPOILERS! Lee Jeong-man (Ahn Seong-gi) – Lee Jeong-man is the Division Captain and also Cha’s uncle. He’s totally not involved in a conspiracy…. Hwang In-hyeok (Park Jeong-hak) – The oil rig captain who is a jerk, and will do jerkish things. Because he’s a jerk. So jerkish. Park Hyeon-jeong (Cha Ye-ryeon) – The oil rig’s genetic researcher, because we need genetic researches on oil rigs. For some reason. Definitely not conspiracy reasons! Why do you keep thinking there is a conspiracy going on? Jang Chi-soon (Park Yeong-soo) – a creepy guy who gets infected by one of the tiny underwater floating creatures when he tries to eat it. Also he does creepy stuff like perv on Park Heyon-jeong. Monster (CGI) – The nameless monster is like a generic generic version of the Host monster, but with less distinguishing characteristics and a bunch of goofy tentacle things for extra grossness. And that’s not to mention the prehensile tongue. Is set on fire more often than Beavis’s bedroom.

I bet there are phallic references here!