Lost in Starlight’s Love Story Shines in Its Universality

This review contains spoilers for the Korean animated film Lost in Starlight.

It’s 2051 in Seoul, and Nan-young (Kim Taeri), an aspiring astronaut, is working hard to join an expedition that will give her the opportunity to finish what her mom died trying to do: discovering signs of life on Mars. In the midst of this, she unexpectedly meets Jay (Hong Kyung), a repairman at a vintage record shop whose dreams of becoming a musician have been left in disrepair. As both of them struggle to parse through the trauma barring them from embracing their career paths, the two kindle a romance and navigate how to maintain their overwhelming love when their separation is on the horizon.

In the beginning, this movie left me a little bit — no pun intended — lost. As someone who was excited to see Kim Taeri and Hong Kyung’s voice acting chemistry, I was surprised by my disappointed gut reaction to the romantic storyline. The first 40 minutes speed runs Nan-young and Jay’s meet-cute and feels littered with cliché: A career-oriented woman swiftly falls in love with a failed musician and encourages him to chase after his dream while feeling selfish about following her own. It didn’t seem like anything particularly inspiring, and had the film gone in the direction of Nan-young giving up on her dreams, I would have enjoyed it much less.

Thankfully, the film does not do this, and its remaining hour subverted my early criticisms. Where the story found its groove, ironically, is when the two characters’ relationship starts to fall apart. As both of their individual career goals begin to take off, Nan-young’s hypothetical trip to space quickly becomes a reality, disrupting the foundation of their relationship with the obstacle of insurmountable distance. This results in a fervent argument between the two lovers, where Jay blows up and says he didn’t realize just how dangerous the space mission would be. To him, it seemed like she was leaving him behind to face her death.

While I first rolled my eyes at this — what do you mean you didn’t know how dangerous this would be? She’s literally trying to go to Mars! — the following reconciliation scene made me understand the true meaning behind Jay’s outburst. He loves Nan-young, and above all, he wants what’s best for her — how couldn’t he be worried about her safety and survival? Additionally, his outburst isn’t completely unfounded. Prior to meeting Jay, Nan-young showed little concern for all the risks that going to Mars entailed. Her sole focus lay in completing her late mom’s mission; whether or not she survived didn’t seem to matter as long as she found proof of life elsewhere.

In the end, it’s Jay who reminds Nan-young that she herself is proof of life, that she herself is worth discovering and maintaining. When Nan-young apologizes for being selfish and leaving Jay behind on Earth, Jay tells her to continue being selfish, to only think of herself for the duration of her journey and focus on coming back home. 

This reconciliation sequence is when I let go of my critic’s lens and enjoyed the movie for what it was. Perhaps I’m just a sucker for realism, but I also think this is where every part of the production felt the most complete. Kim and Hong’s tender vocal delivery plays over a montage of the lovers’ quiet embrace and Nan-young’s launch into space, capturing their motley of worry, trust, and desperation. Amidst all the uncertainty of their future, they continue to push forward and pursue their desires — because what else can they do but have faith in each other and themselves?

Lost in Starlight saves itself from its initial romantic clichés by exploring the complexities of our personal decisions in the face of love. The guilt over being selfish is such a universal human emotion — how much can you compromise without losing out on your aspirations and also without hurting those around you? This question never really arose for Nan-young until she met Jay, and now she’s tasting love’s bittersweetness firsthand. At the airport, on the doorstep of her lifelong dream, she finally understands what her mom must have felt when she left for her own expedition: the pain of wanting to accomplish something so badly, and the pain of leaving your loved ones behind in the process. 

There is no correct decision, and there is no easy decision. Even once she’s in space and chasing after her dreams, when Nan-young listens to the song Jay composed and recorded for her, she breaks down in tears, struggling to brave her loneliness. I love this poignant verisimilitude. I love that despite all the pain, Nan-young chooses to be selfish anyway, and that this story doesn’t kill her off or penalize her in the end for this selfishness.

In terms of the animation, director Han Ji-won’s work is at first glance breathtaking, and at second glance so intentional in its blend of new and old in the near-future Seoul that she’s created. Han’s animation style has been previously compared to that of Makoto Shinkai, especially in her previous work The Summer (2023). While there are obvious streaks of Shinkai’s influence, Han unleashes a magic of her own in Lost in Starlight, doubling down on the oxymoron of futuristic retro. 

There are clear signs of technological innovation in 2051’s Seoul, with holographic store signs and self-driving taxis — but many key scenes take place in Seoul’s existing locations. Jay’s old-timey repair shop gig is located in Sewoon Sangga, a megastructure with a longstanding history of both urban preservation and renewal. In the lead-up to their exhilarating first kiss, Nan-young and Jay share a drink above Cheonggyecheon, a long water stream restored in 2005 after decades of industrialization. Through her geographic location choices, Han illustrates a world that continues to build on what came before it.

This blend of new and old extends to Nan-young and Jay, who have fully acclimated to all things digital — Nan-young even struggles to use a pen in one scene, hinting at the fizzling out of traditional handwriting — yet possess an inherent old-school feel through their character designs and movements. As part of the animation process, the animators had Kim and Hong act out certain scenes and referenced their movements in their frames, embedding the characters’ movements with more nuance. It wasn’t animation directly mapped onto their actions, nor was it animation trying to imitate live action. Instead, the final result coalesced at the sweet spot of otherworldly and grounded, and the slight oddities in the characters’ movements strengthened the production’s greater theme of unfamiliar familiarity.

Han Ji-won is definitely a director to look out for, and Nan-young and Jay’s authentic love story is one that I’ve come to treasure the more time I spend with it. While Lost in Starlight’s storyline isn’t groundbreaking, the realistic struggles of the characters and avant-garde approaches to the animation deliver an out-of-this-world journey that hits much closer to home than first anticipated.