Trying to find the most accurate way to describe Alienoid is like attempting to hold the sands of time in your hands. Directed by Choi Dong-hoon, the South Korean time-traveling action film is one that dips its toe into both science fiction and fantasy, becoming a bit of a glorious mess that is a formidable one to grasp. Telling a story that spans multiple timelines and genres, it can be rather unwieldy in ways that are hard to fully get a handle on. It is a film that feels like it is moving a mile a minute, hardly ever stopping for you to catch your breath as it throws everything at the screen. However, at the core of this is the always outstanding Kim Tae-ri as the older version of Lee Ahn who is tasked with saving the world as we know it.

Perhaps most known for her outstanding work in her debut feature The Handmaiden and last year’s Space Sweepers, she is a dynamic performer who practically disappears into every character she has taken on to date. Even in just these two roles that preceded Alienoid, she has covered more ground than most actors do over an entire career of acting. In The Handmaiden, she was able to go from pretending to be an unassuming servant to a wealthy heiress as part of an elaborate con to then falling in love with said mark. She made the vibrant erotic thriller an overwhelming emotional experience as she was just so comprehensively compelling through every twist and turn that it threw at us. There was not a moment where she wasn’t convincing as she acted through various layers of deception and unspoken desire. It remains a stunning piece of cinema in part because of her irreplaceable presence.

In Space Sweepers, an underrated science fiction space opera from last year, she played Captain Jang. She is the head of a ragtag crew who travel through the galaxy on their ship Victory as the so-called space sweepers of the title. They go around collecting debris in space that they can sell to survive only to get swept up in the chaos of it all. From the moment we first get introduced to the captain, she is just cool as a cucumber and brings real confidence to the character. Even as they undertake some wild maneuvers in their craft, she maintains a steely disposition that masks a darker past. If you were to put this alongside The Handmaiden, you would have no idea that this was the same actor. While the film was full of quirky characters, she stood out from the moment she put on her shades and took a shot from a flask before doing battle with a rival crew. She took what could have been a trope, the hotshot captain in space, and made it all her own without missing a beat in the midst of the spectacle.

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While Alienoid is not quite as good as those two prior films, Kim Tae-ri continues to elevate every moment that she gets. We don’t really see her until almost an hour in, but her introduction is so great that it makes this all worth the wait. Without giving away too much, her character has a gun that she has brought through time to the 14th century. In just the opening moments, she proceeds to poison her groom, steal his cartoonishly fake mustache, and go off to do battle. She is again cool under pressure, taking down enemy after enemy with ease, though in a manner that feels more subtly silly as she sinks her teeth into each fight sequence. When she pulls out her gun, there is a perfectly timed needle drop as she shoots a leaping archer and holds everyone up to steal the magical item she has come for. Through all of it, she remains convincingly unfazed by the invisible couple that she deals with before attempting to make her escape. When she gets captured, you can’t wait for her to break free.

Unfortunately, it does take a while to get back to her as the story jumps far forward into the future for much of the remaining runtime. Without giving away anything, Lee Ahn gets trapped for a while which somewhat sidelines her. It ends up feeling like a bit of a waste of a talented performer even as there is a part two that is on the horizon. Still, it is a testament to how compelling of a screen presence she is that she can transcend the confines of the narrative to still be riveting to watch. She is just overflowing with charisma, bringing both an appropriate amount of charm and comedy to the predicament that her character finds herself in. Too often, action stars can feel shut off and cold. Lee Ahn ends up feeling more playful and genuinely fun to watch because of just how effortlessly Kim Tae-ri can make any scene shine.

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The venom with which she can deliver a snarky retort is matched only by the gravitas she brings as she recounts how she found herself in the past. It helps to instill everything with the necessary emotional stakes that were frequently in the rest of it. With her range and confidence, she constructs a character who is both witty and wise, making even just a moment where she flips the bird at her captors a fun one. Even as it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger for her character between the jumps back and forth through time, the film rightly seems like it is banking on her as being the focus of the sequel. She still makes an exit in a rather spectacular fashion as part of a closing cathartic sequence that it feels like the entire story was building to.

Without her strength as a performer and the ability to carry this conclusion on her back while the character leaps through the air, it would not be nearly as exciting of an experience. She ensures it is a strong note for the film to end on, smoothing off some of the rougher patches so thoroughly that you are willing to forgive most of them. At the very least, it shows once again that she is capable of taking on any challenges that are thrown at her. Whether the story is set in the vast reaches of space or traveling through time, she remains a reason to see any new works that are lucky enough to get to include her in them.