strange things are afoot at the circle k

Matz + text posts for @philologicalbat (pt. 11/50)

bonus:

HBD SEONGHWA!! ★ 04.03

Has anyone else seen this movie?!

I loved it as a kid, but we only had a bootleg copy my dad's weird friend who worked at an indie video store made for us and it disappeared somewhere along the years. I haven't been able to find anything about it online, and I was starting to think I'd imagined the whole thing when I stumbled across the above image and now my hopes have been rekindled.

So, does anyone else remember this movie? It's a classic 1980s teen ensemble heartwarming but harrowing sci-fi adventure. From what I recall, Seonghwa (soft guy, middle right) starts to think he was kidnapped and the stress of that triggers some kind of mental crisis and he thinks maybe he's going crazy but then he has this flashback memory and it turns out actually he was raised in a secret government lab with all those other kids and they were getting experimented on to give them psychic powers so they could be super soldiers when they grew up (you couldn't start with adults, they just died. You had to start with toddlers and slowly mess them up so their bodies and brains could get used to it). So Seonghwa and Hongjoong (kind of feral looking guy in the middle middle) were the oldest and they did whatever they could to protect the younger kids, but they're eight so like only so much they could do against a whole military base centered around controlling them.

And then one of the scientists is assessing the kids for the next stage of the plan which is heavily implied to be making them use their powers against other people to test the lethality. But Seonghwa is empathic, he doesn't have any offensive capabilities (he can also read people's minds if he gets in the zone, but he and Hongjoong decided to keep any extra powers that any of the kids manifest from the scientists because they are trying to get strong enough to break out of the lab and they want the scientists to underestimate them) so the scientist doing the assessment dithers a bit but then marks him as not ready for stage two and the head scientist marks Seonghwa down for termination because he's no longer useful for the experiment!

The assessment scientist sees this on Seonghwa's file and is upset because while she was mostly on board for experimenting on kids she draws the line at killing them. Seonghwa picks up her thoughts and Hongjoong, who is hanging out in Seonghwa's mind like he does (he has mind control powers and can literally get in your head and plant suggestions so deep you'll never know it's not your own impulse and he gets weird sometimes but "resting" in Seonghwa's mind stabilizes him) instantly knows as well because Seonghwa never hides anything from him. The scientist leaves in a ethical quandary and the kids start plotting their escape.

They've been thinking about escaping for a while now, but they'd been waiting for everyone's powers to stabilize and kind of ironically to get better trained by the scientists before they go. And also Seonghwa and Hongjoong know its going to be tough for eight kids to make it on their own, so they were also a little scared of leaving. The youngest Jongho (back left) is only six, and at least in the lab he gets three meals and day and a roof over his head. But the kill order changes things so they all use their powers in this cool montage to escape the lab and burn it down behind them.

And as they are very cinematically running toward the exit with the flames growing behind them, the door suddenly opens! And its ethically conflicted assessment scientist! Turns out killing Seonghwa really was over the line for her and she spent the afternoon withdrawing all her savings and getting in touch with friends who could help her disappear and her plan was to kidnap Seonghwa from the lab. So now she's giving the kids a ride to town and also a bunch of money and she's clearly feeling shitty about just dropping the off on some random curb but also has no idea what to do with eight psychic kids. And then Hongjoong leaves Seonghwa's mind and Seonghwa whips around to stare at him and then Hongjoong is ordering the scientist to take Seonghwa with her, to give him a good life, take care of him and Seonghwa is crying and tugging on Hongjoong's sleeve telling him no no no but then Hongjoong turns to him and just says "Go."

So all that was a flashback triggered after Seonghwa bumped into Hongjoong in the street while he thought he was going crazy, and now he remembers everything and he's so mad and happy and mad and relieved. Hongjoong takes him to this 1980s lost boys warehouse where they've been living and we get to see all the kids grown up and things are a little awkward at first but then Wooyoung (front and center) is glomming on to Seonghwa and you can see how almost immediately his sharp edges get smooth and cuddly and he mentions that he'd forgotten how much better it felt when Seonghwa was around. And all the kids are relaxing and beings kids again and its really cute and apparently they've been on edge ever since they escaped the lab because they were missing Seonghwa both emotionally and psychically.

Hongjoong and Seonghwa are still super awkward around each other and every so often Seonghwa hears an echo of Hongjoong's command to "go" and tenses up again. Also making him tense is the news that some of the files from the secret lab survived and someone is trying to revive the experiment. The kids have been trying to find out where the new lab is so they can go burn it down and salt the ashes, but the info is proving elusive. Seonghwa remembers that his mom has been behaving really weirdly lately and kind of has an intuition that it might be about the lab, so Hongjoong takes him to a payphone and he has this very emotional conversation with her and as it turns out she is aware of the new lab and she's been carefully getting in touch with old contacts because she's no longer cool with the idea of experimenting on kids and has massive guilt for her part in the whole thing. So she knows where the lab is and was trying to figure out how to deal with it (leak to the press??) and Seonghwa says "can you give us a ride."

Roadtrip! It's kind of a montage, bathroom breaks and rest stops and the kids being goofy and then you get a reminder that they have psychic powers and have been living rough for ten years. It also sets up their powers more, what they are capable of now versus when they were babies. They get to the lab and break in and all seems to be going well with the destruction but then the lead evil scientist is there and he's pointing a gun at Seonghwa! And Yeosang (back right) and Jongho are both with him, and they are both technically capable of killing a person with their powers but Seonghwa shoves them behind him and he calls out for Hongjoong and he feels a startled response and that makes him brave and then he starts using his ability to read thoughts to incite the scientist, keep him ranting. And it turns out that Seonghwa is the evil scientist's biological son, because of course the evil scientist had this dream of being the literal father of a race of super beings and he was soooo disappointed in how soft and weak Seonghwa was and the fact that none of the kids have killed him yet just proves his point, Seonghwa was a bad influence they are all tainted blah blah blah he's going to kill them all and start over with better subjects and he's been waving his gun around this whole time but now he aims it at Seonghwa's head and blast rings out.

And Seonghwa is collapsing and Hongjoong is there frantically patting him all over for injuries but he's okay but also crying and Hongjoong is pretty distraught and then there's a thud as the evil scientist falls to the ground with a bullet hole in his head and Seonghwa's "mom" is in the doorway with a gun still raised and she's stiff and Seonghwa asks Hongjoong if he made her do it but no, Hongjoong's plan had been to make the evil scientist shoot himself but Seonghwa's "mom" got there first all on her own. And then Mingi (middle second from left) is gently taking the gun out of her hand and she snaps out of it and is asking if everyone is okay and she's shaking a little, but a tension in her face is gone and she almost looks younger.

And then San (middle left) is saying he's placed all the bombs and they need to get going and they are running and Wooyoung and Yunho (back center) are waiting for them at the door where they were keeping watch and they are in the car and there is a huge explosion behind them and all the kids are cheering and Hongjoong and Seonghwa are squeezed together in the back seat with Hongjoong leans in close to whisper "I'm sorry" and Seonghwa answers in Hongjoong's head "I missed out on ten years of you being nice to me. You have a lot to make up for." And Wooyoung and San are screaming about ice cream and Mingi starts singing something only he can hear and then all the kids are singing and Hongjoong is teaching Seonghwa the lyrics in his head and it morphs into the title track fade to black end credits!