“Lost in Starlight” arrives on Netflix, the first South Korean animation feature film produced for the famous platform. Signed by director Han Ji-Won together with the screenwriter Kang Hyun-Joo and made by Climax Studio, the film combines romantic science fiction elements and retro suggestions in a story that celebrates the Korean imagination and inaugurates a new phase of Asian animation on a global scale.
Lost in Starlight: the plot
We are in 2050, in a futuristic Seoul illuminated by neon lights but still characterized by its historical alleys. Nan-Young dreams from a child to sail the space and set foot on Mars: years of study, training and sacrifices have finally brought it among the candidates of an interplanetary mission. Jay instead leads a silent life in his tiny electronic laboratory, where he brings to life on turntables, valves and magnetic ribbons: sound machines that evoke memories of an analog era. Destiny makes them meet when Nan-Young entrusts Jay the old turntable that belonged to the mother. The two, so different, discover themselves similar in cultivating a profound desire to relate. The result is a love that grows between streets illuminated by holograms, listening to graffitious vinyls and conversations on the future.
One official confirmation comes: Nan-Yung will really leave for Mars. The couple is faced with a distance that no video call can shorten: millions of kilometers and twenty minutes late on radio broadcasts. And the film follows their resistance pact: she, on board an orbiting base, filters the emotions inside vocal diaries and windows that frame the red of the planet; He, who remained in the city, records the melodies on the ribbon that he feels born thinking of her, mixing brown and words never said.
Curiosity
The first Korean animated film commissioned and distributed worldwide by Netflix, confirms the interest of the platform for Asian talents after the success of K-drama and Southean Live-Action cinema. While the two protagonists learn that the most difficult universe to explore is that of their fears, the animation melts futuristic environments with vintage elements: turntables that rustle, holographic signs that recall street lamps, spacecrafts designed with soft lines and hot palettes. Sewoon Plaza and the Jamsu bridge, reinterpreted in a 2050 key, stand out among the seabed.
Lost in Starlight: when it comes out on Netflix
The film “Lost in Starlight” comes out globally on Netflix on Friday 30 May 2025.
Lost in Starlight: the Italian trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4hiu_kohhs
