Paradise Lost Lands North American Distribution Ahead of TIFF

Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Paradise Lost, the new mystery thriller from Train to Busan and Hellbound filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho. The deal comes before the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13.

Kim Hyun-joo and Bae Hyun-sung star as So-young and her son, Sun-woo. After the boy disappears, So-young copes by using an artificial-intelligence program that preserves a virtual version of him. When the real Sun-woo returns nine years later, the person standing in front of her no longer matches the child she has kept alive in her mind.

Paradise Lost Puts Artificial Intelligence Inside a Family Nightmare

Yeon co-wrote the screenplay with Ryu Yong-jae, adapting Oh Seong-eun’s novel Black Inferno. The setup uses artificial intelligence less as a futuristic gimmick than as a way into grief, memory and the unsettling gap between a person and an idealized reconstruction of them.

Paradise Lost will screen at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre as part of TIFF’s Special Presentations program. A South Korean theatrical release is planned for October, but Well Go USA has not yet announced a North American release date or platform.

What We Think

We just watched Yeon’s Colony, and it split us: I liked its inventive infected concept, while Amy was worn down by the pacing and struggled to connect with the characters. Paradise Lost sounds especially promising because its horror is built directly around that missing emotional connection.

A mother choosing between the son she remembers, the artificial version she created and the changed person who comes home is a sharp, uncomfortable premise. Train to Busan alone is enough to make us respect Yeon’s talent, but for us, nothing he has made since has reached those same heights. We’re both holding out hope that Paradise Lost is the one that finally does.

Sources: Variety, TIFF and Yonhap News Agency.