Raphael, Korea's AI Feature, Sets a Theatrical Release

Raphael, an 80-minute science fiction feature made entirely with generative AI, set a November 25 release exclusively at Lotte Cinema, one of Korea's three big chains. It is set in 2050, after climate disasters and war have broken civilization. Alexei, an android war machine modeled on a dictator in his youth, runs a controlled zone called Delmor, where an unregistered child and the last bride of humanity set him on a search for freedom in a society that suppresses emotion. The poster's tagline asks: "If I die, can I go to heaven too?"

Mateo AI Studio and MBC C&I's AI Content Lab made it with directors Yang Ik-jun, Moon Shin-woo and Jeong Ju-won, using generative AI for every character, background and battle, and spent fourteen months refining images and footage, mostly to keep the characters' faces and movement consistent from scene to scene. Its early tests ran through Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and Runway Gen-3; the finished film was made with Kling, whose native 4K made a cinema release practical. The project came out of a government AI production program run with the Korea Creative Content Agency, opened the second Busan International AI Film Festival in 2025, was pitched at Hong Kong FilMart, and was presented on Kuaishou's Kling stage at the Cannes Marché du Film in May. The main trailer followed on October 28. It came a week after China's Sanxingdui: Future Past opened to empty seats, putting a second country's AI feature in front of paying audiences.