King of Clones

This is a documentary that expects you to feel something, likely outrage and disgust, but I admit I did not feel much of anything while watching this. It's the story of a man who ascended to the top of Korean Society by committing fraud, and because it was academic fraud, was not put in prison. Now it seems he spends his time on expensive projects to reanimate mastodons and long dead but very expensive prize candles. It seems he was touched by a bit of hubris, and promised things that he couldn't possibly deliver. But the science has left him behind, and even if he had been punished more harshly, that would not have been any different. This was a bit of a waste of time.

The documentary is about Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, who was disgraced for fabricating his thesis. At that time, when Dr. Hwang Woo-suk's thesis was canceled, the prosecution of the Republic of Korea indicted him on charges of fraud and other charges of violating the Bioethics Act and embezzling research funds. But in the trial, Hwang was acquitted of fraud charges and found guilty of violating bioethics laws and embezzling research funds. It was also revealed that researchers at MizMedi Hospital, a joint research institute that was supposed to grow cloned embryos into stem cells at the time, changed the stem cells, and Hwang Woo-suk was not aware of it. The documentary does not mention this fact, but mentions everything as Hwang Woo-suk's responsibility, which is deeply regrettable. In addition, MizMedi Hospital, which collaborated with Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, received eggs and paid money for them before the enactment of the Bioethics Act, which was also the fault of MizMedi Hospital. After the enactment of the Bioethics Act in Korea, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk received eggs in the form of egg donation with the consent of infertile patients and used them for research. However, the documentary did not mention such egg donation, which is also a very biased distortion of facts produced against Dr. Hwang Woo-suk. When the paper was found to have been fabricated, the majority of South Koreans wanted to give Hwang a chance to reproduce the research and determine whether it was the fault of Hwang Woo-suk's team in charge of cloning embryos or MizMedi's team in growing cloned embryos into stem cells, but the SNU panel omitted the procedure. This documentary was meaningful in that it was able to vividly learn the current status of various studies currently being conducted by Dr. Hwang Woo-suk. The story of successful cloning of a camel that has been dead for more than 10 years was interesting. Also, the story of bringing back memories of dog owners through cloning a dead dog provides something to think about. Finally, mammoth tissue was collected, and as a result, it was surprising and interesting to hear that Hwang Woo-suk's research team now has live mammoth cells.

No pun intended - I reckon there is way more going on than Dolly ... the sheep that is, not any living or dead person. Just in case, you may have gone there. Have to admit, that name can trigger different memories or recognition for some people. That all said, the movie/documentary here, is quite solid and knows what it wants to tell you the viewer. Structure is well done and you have a build up - even if you may know where it seems to lead. Moral questions have to be answered ... and is the ultimate goal enough to leave some of them unanswered and really just be focused on what we want to achieve. An interesting movie to watch - even more so if actually have interest in what it wants to tell us ...

How much science is too much science? There's always the question of science versus faith, and while the former is seen through the lens of being authentic and factual, even science needs to be put through the litmus test to see the level of ethics (or the lack of it) involved. Here's the story of a disgraced scientist whose cloning ambitions took the world by storm, eventually succumbing to the fundamental flaw of human greed. The best thing about the piece is getting to hear from the disgraced scientist himself, delving into the hows and the whys. The "whys" are pretty obvious, but the "hows" are fascinating. He is still valued as an individual of great interest, with people revering him for the scientific leaps he has supposedly enabled. At least, he is in the right place (UAE) where all sorts of expensive scientific disruptions (such as cloud seeding, desalination) are somehow made possible. He will continue to get the financial support he requires to keep his "experiments" running.

This documentary was all over the place. Ultimately, very unsatisfying. In some kind of movie format, we jump back and forth in time. It felt like we actually know little of what happened with the forging of the research. Either that or the makers of the documentary didn't understand. Overall, a poor execution, which is a shame given the importance of the subject. The scenes with the gay dude who cloned his dog was pathetic, and reflected poorly on people who actually love their dogs and have the means to clone them. The UAE part was interesting but cartoonish as well with some Arab wearing sunglasses in a dark lab, with no satisfying explanation of what the doctor is doing there. Super underwhelming. Poorly researched and executed.