Stream It Or Skip It: ‘King of Clones’ on Netflix, a Fascinating Documentary About Scientist Dr. Hwang Woo-suk’s Cloning Scandal

Probably the 21st century’s biggest scientific scandal is the topic of King of Clones (now on Netflix), director Aditya Thayi’s examination of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, the South Korean scientist who once claimed his work in genetic stem-cell research and human cloning could make a wheelchair-bound man walk again. “That’s what Jesus Christ said!” exclaims one commentator in the film, and we all know that Dr. Hwang never fulfilled that lofty goal. It’s a hell of a story – his rise to international fame and subsequent fall after journalists uncovered his ethical violations and fraudulent research – and fascinating fodder for a documentary.

KING OF CLONES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Dr. Hwang walks into his lab and shows off all the dogs he’s cloned. They’re the product of biotechnology that evolved out of selective breeding; grossly simplified, it involves removing the nucleus from a living cell and inserting it into an unfertilized egg, then zapping it with electricity – cue up a clip from Frankenstein, please and thank you – to prompt it to begin cell division. Dr. Hwang’s next step was to apply the practice to humans, with the intention of producing viable stem-cell tissue that could theoretically repair damaged spinal cords or prompt terrible diseases to go into remission. To hear Dr. Hwang tell it, his overwhelming success with cloning animals such as pigs and dogs put him on a path from promising research to the significant probability of implementing a major medical breakthrough. 

So then why is Dr. Hwang currently living in Abu Dhabi, cloning racing and show camels, while disabled people remain wheelchair-bound? Well, he made a few too many compromises in his work, tried to cover them up and wound up being a disgrace, far beyond the borders of his South Korean homeland, where he had once been hailed as a national hero. Before we get into the dirt, we meet some people who benefitted from his work. One is an Australian veterinarian who ended up a camel specialist in Abu Dhabi; he bred a massive, incredibly valuable black camel named Mabrukan, who died suddenly, but years later would be “resurrected” multiple times by Dr. Hwang’s cloning technology. Another is a rich Hungarian man who presumably coughed up a large sum of cash to clone his beloved French bulldog after it died – we even get a shot of the poor pup’s severed ears that served as tissue samples – and he now insists the new dog is exactly the same in both demeanor and physicality. “One might consider grief as a starting point for cloning,” the man says; he then reveals that he keeps his first long-gone dog in a package in his refrigerator.

Thankfully, the film fulfills its duty by rolling out scientific ethicists, journalists and even religious leaders to provide some perspective on Dr. Hwang’s deeds. Is his work morally viable? Is he playing God? Where will it lead? Some insist that cloning primates is the first step on the slippery slope, but Dr. Hwang insists right back that “regenerative medicine” is a noble endeavor. They both seem right. And as Dr. Hwang pretty much guarantees, to great international notoriety, that his research will cure many human miseries, he began feeling the pressure of an entire nation – and compromising his methods. He needed human female volunteers to undergo invasive procedures to donate their eggs, and when journalists asked him about the source of those eggs he was evasive. Turns out, he was pressuring young women on his research team to donate their eggs. He was also embezzling money from his scientific grants to purchase eggs on the black market. Then he began fudging the data to make his work appear more fruitful than it actually was. And here’s where the old adage becomes applicable: rising so high pretty much inevitably leads to a great fall. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Hope Frozen, a documentary about a family who cryogenically preserved their dead daughter’s corpse in hopes of reviving her after a cure for cancer is found, plumbs similar ideas about science and ethics. Otherwise, pair King of Clones with Netflix’s series on gene-editing research, Unnatural Selection.

Performance Worth Watching: My hooray-for-journalism bias is showing while hailing American reporter David Cyranoski and Korean TV-documentary producer Han Hak-soo for exposing this fraud (and possibly revealing the chinks in the armor of the scientific community’s peer-review process). 

Memorable Dialogue: Camel guy Dr. Alex Tinson’s response when his dinner out was interrupted by the bad news that mighty Mabrukan had suddenly died: “I stood up and said, ‘Cut out his testicles, get some skin, I’ll be back tonight!’”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: To clarify: King of Clones isn’t just about the scandal, or even just about Dr. Hwang. Thayi uses the story as a springboard to explore the hows and whys and what-ifs of cloning itself, and it’s an ambitious undertaking. The documentary succeeds at simplifying the complexities of cloning science without sacrificing too much detail – no venturing deep into the weeds here. But it also lacks the crisp, accessible narrative that a more straightforward, linear timeline might’ve given us. Thayi chooses to explore bigger ideas in an overt manner (e.g., dropping in the story of a pastor whose paralyzed son pinned all his hopes on Dr. Hwang’s research), and the results are fascinating, even as they muddy the narrative. One wonders if simply sticking to the ups and downs of Dr. Hwang’s story would’ve curdled nicely in the subtext, resulting in a more subtly provocative film.

But as it stands, King of Clones is consistently gripping. How could it not be, considering the subject matter? The film shows how Dr. Hwang’s intense fame resulted in nationalist fervor in South Korea, where citizens, convinced he would resolve many of the world’s medical ills, responded to the controversy by rallying in the streets and threatening the journalists behind the exposé. But instead of gaping slackjawed at the international media frenzy, Thayi goes a step further, and explores how it reflects tones of fascism in Korean society. The director also ventures into philosophical and ideological territory, showing how U.S. President George W. Bush pushed back against what he deemed to be unethical stem-cell research; the film also goes so far as to suggest that the core definition of death itself could be changed in light of Dr. Hwang’s work. He touches upon female bodily autonomy, the nature of grief, the roles of science and religion in society, the value of ethical watchdogs, and more. 

Notably, Dr. Hwang participates willingly in the documentary – which is lightly shocking, considering how it absolutely doesn’t intend to flatter him. It catches up with his work since he was barred from the scientific community and convicted of embezzlement: We see him crawling through a Siberian cave, harvesting material from a mammoth skeleton in hopes of recreating the long-extinct beast; we see him hobnobbing with rich Arab men who hire Dr. Hwang to clone their camels. What’s the status of human embryo cloning research here in 2023? We’re not sure. The documentary satisfies our curiosity to this point, but wraps with an unspoken To Be Continued. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. King of Clones is an admirably concise and potent condensation of complex material. It tackles a thorny, thorny topic with assured confidence, although it ultimately leaves us wanting a little more.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.