[imagesource:facebook/Hwang Woo-suk]

King of Clones lifts the lid on the controversial South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk who tried to clone humans.

The sensational documentary film featuring unprecedented access to the ‘disgraced’ scientist is set to stream on Netflix in June, telling the story of Hwang’s human cloning research and his scandalous downfall.

King of Clones, a Netflix UK commission is directed by Indian-origin, London-based Singaporean filmmaker Aditya Thayi who has 20 nominations and five wins at the Asian television awards, including two wins for best direction, noted Variety.

Thayi found out about Hwang three years ago when the birth of his son threw him down the rabbit hole of birth science, IVF, and disease-ridden kids born in India in the 1980s as part of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. His anxiety about his own child being born deformed led him to stories about human cloning.

Hwang – with a degree in veterinary science and a master’s and a doctorate in theriogenology, the study of animal reproduction – rose to prominence with his successful cloning of cows and pigs.

Things really kicked off for the scientist when, in 2002, he embarked upon human cloning research and partnered with Moon Shin-yong, an obstetrician with expertise in in-vitro fertilization:

Their collaboration led to a major announcement in 2004, claiming the successful cloning of human embryos, with the potential to cure some diseases. The announcement fueled a heated debate on bioethics, despite Hwang and Moon emphasizing that their work focused solely on therapeutic purposes and strongly opposing reproductive cloning.

However, the tide turned against Hwang in November of that year when he admitted to utilizing human eggs donated by two of his own researchers – an ethical breach that shook the scientific community.

Suspicions of coercion emerged even though Hwang insisted that the researchers had willingly made the donations, and he was forced to step down from his position as director of the World Stem Cell Hub. In 2006, Hwang’s position at the Seoul National University was terminated and he later moved to Abu Dhabi where he continued his cloning research under the patronage of Sheikh Mansour.

Thayi finally met Hwang after nine months of writing to him and believed that because he is Asian but not South Korean, he was one of the very select few whom Hwang would tell his story to. Thayi describes Hwang as a “polarizing figure” in Korea and wanted to do an objective take on him:

“I went into this film thinking that I was going to find a crazy monster in the science, but I find that the science – there’s nothing really wrong with it, it’s pretty solid. I think it’s just as human beings, we’ve not really had discussions about where the science can take us,” Thayi added.

“It has been possible to clone a human being for at least 10 years, the scientific ability is there, it’s just that somebody somewhere has to just do it. And then you’ll have to reckon with it. But I fear that we’ve not really spent so much time thinking about it.”

There appears to be no trailer except for the short one available only under Netflix’s Remind Me section, which you can check out here.

Otherwise, King of Clones will be on Netflix from June 23.

[source:variety]