Characters / Space Sweepers

The Victory Crew

In General

• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: They may argue like crazy, but when the chips are down, Tae-ho, Park, Jang, and Bubs will always have each other's backs.
• Badass Crew: Each member of the crew is scarily efficient in their chosen field, and all four of them together make quite a good team ... when they aren't bickering, that is.
• Color-Coded Characters: Tae-ho is mostly seen in blue; Jang, her orange t-shirt and spacesuit; Tiger Park has his yellow henley; and Bubs wears all three colors throughout the film.
• Dark and Troubled Past: All four of them have this.
  • Tae-ho was once a high-ranking UTS officer who fell into poverty, all because he refused to kill after becoming a father. He loses his adoptive daughter early on in the film as well.
  • Orphaned at a young age, Captain Jang was adopted by the UTS. When she formed a resistance group to assassinate James Sullivan, the entire mission backfired and everyone else—save for her—was slaughtered. She's been on the run ever since.
  • Tiger Park was once a drug cartel leader on Earth, and the only reason he's even in space to begin with is because he'd be executed if he ever stepped foot on Earth again.
  • We don't find out any exact details, but it's implied that Bubs was once a military robot, if the casual way she talks about combat and assassinations is anything to go by.
• Declaration of Protection: Towards Kang Kot-nim. Although they only wanted the reward money at first, they eventually grew to care for Kot-nim. By the end of the film, all four are fond enough of her that they are willing to lay down their lives for the child's.
• Family of Choice: Kot-nim calls them this in her final voice-over. Even before that, she was already calling Tae-ho and Tiger Park her sang-chons (uncles), and Bubs her unnie (big sister).
• Forced to Watch: James Sullivan leaves them alive so they can watch him kill Earth's entire population, along with Kot-nim.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Two guys (Tae-ho and Tiger Park) and two girls (Captain Jang and Bubs, who despite being a robot identifies as female). This changes after Kot-nim joins their crew.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Towards the end of the movie, they load the bomb onto the spaceship and make it seem as if Kot-nim is with them, therefore luring James Sullivan away from the child, who is actually with the other Space Sweepers back at the Facility.
• Morality Pet: It's extremely obvious that Kang Kot-nim is everyone's. Tae-ho has an extra one in the form of his adoptive daughter, Su-ni.
• True Companions: Right before their Disney Deaths, the members exchange declarations of love and friendship, cementing themselves as this.
• Weapon Specialization:
  • Tae-ho: Seeing as he is the resident pilot, Tae-ho is mostly seen using the ship's guns in combat.
  • Captain Jang: A BFG that she wisely keeps disassembled unless called for, and can only be activated by one of the rings she wears.
  • Tiger Park: He's mostly seen using a machete made out of one of the sharpest metals around, but when unavailable, he fights just as well with Good Old Fisticuffs.
  • Bubs: Being the crew's harpoonist, she obviously fights with an extendable Harpoon Gun for easy retrieval.
• What You Are in the Dark: Even with James Sullivan clearing their crimes and giving them enough money to last for a good while, the whole crew decides that none of it is worth it if they can't save Kot-nim as well.

Tae-ho

Played by: Song Joong-ki

The first of the Victory crew that the audience meets, Tae-ho just wants to find his daughter. He spends most of the film trying to scrounge up the money needed to find her ... or, at the very least, retrieve her body.

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• The Ace: He used to be this for the UTS, being one of their best soldiers and a commander of a unit.
• Ace Pilot: His main role in the group. During his stint in the UTS, he apparently reset the records for flight speed and was outright called a "top-tier pilot" in his dossier. His skills are good enough that even when he attempts to pull off an especially risky flight maneuver during the final battle, the entire crew immediately goes along with it.
• Anti-Hero: Losing Su-ni and years of living in squalor have made him rather gruff, but he eventually proves that his heart's still in the right place.
• Barefoot Poverty: He's way too poor to buy new shoes, and the pair he does own ends up giving out halfway through the film.
  • Exaggerated when he has to sell his metal shoes and all he has to replace them are a pair of plastic bags tied with string.
  • Subverted by the end when Kot-nim shares that the first thing he bought with his share was ten pairs of shoes. His final shot even starts with him dusting off a pair of rather fancy sneakers.
• Broken Ace: After becoming a father and losing the will to kill innocents, he was booted out of the force and fell into poverty. By the time the film starts, he's mostly running space sweeps and cons with the Victory crew.
• Defrosting Ice King: He starts out treating Kot-nim rather coldly and even goes out of his way to avoid her. However, as the film goes on, he becomes rather fond of her and ends up being one of her caretakers by the end.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: When he doesn't have the ship's guns to help him out, Tae-ho fights just as well with his fists.
  • When a Black Fox member tries to knife him, Tae-ho—who has been out of military training for years and is holding a frightened Kot-nim in his arms—disarms him one-handedly and puts him on his ass in no time.
• It Has Been an Honor: Said by him word for word when he thinks he and his crew are all about to die.
• My Greatest Failure: Ignoring his daughter as he gambled for more money for them to survive and her subsequent death. Throughout the film, he's shown doing everything and anything he can to scrape up enough cash to buy the service that will retrieve her body before it leaves orbit.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He loses his adoptive daughter on an exploding space station and desperately wants to recover her body before it drifts into space so he can give her a proper burial and say goodbye.
• Papa Wolf: To Su-ni and Kot-nim. It's implied that the reason he becomes so protective of Kot-nim is that he's trying to make amends for losing Su-ni.
• Say My Name: Does a platonic example of this when his daughter is nowhere to be found and the station they were just on explodes.
• Self-Serving Memory: When Bubs tells Tae-ho's story, she makes it seem as if he'd simply lost Su-ni in the chaos of the exploding space station. In reality, Tae-ho, who was slightly drunk and annoyed with losing a gambling game repeatedly, had sent her off to buy a snack and had been too busy scooping money off the floor to care about her whereabouts.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: When he thinks they're about to die, Tae-ho simply lets go of the ship's controller and gazes blankly at the cockpit.
• When He Smiles: He doesn't have a lot to smile about throughout the film, so it's quite charming when he finally does.

Captain Jang

Played by: Kim Tae-ri

The captain of the Victory crew, who is also a robotics and engineering genius.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Has one in the form of Pierre, the French space sweeper.
• The Alcoholic: Considering what she's been through, one can't exactly fault her for being this. She grows out of it by the end of the film.
• The Baby of the Bunch: If one were to read her dossier, one would see that she was born in 2067.
• Big "NO!": When Sullivan rips the micro-bomb from her mouth and detonates it in front of her.
• Brainy Brunette: Has dark hair and was apparently smart enough to develop tech for the UTS.
• The Captain: She owns Victory and has the final say in everything the team does.
• Chekhov's Skill: Her familiarity with bombs and machinery gives the crew access to the information they need in the finale.
• Cool Big Sis: To Kot-nim. Even though she can be quite prickly with the rest of the team, she is shown to be rather protective of Kot-nim, even volunteering to wash Kot-nim's hair for her when the guys keep arguing over the best way to do it.
  • When the ship enters the Lagrangian Point, she's the only one who even thinks to put a gas mask over Kot-nim. Knowing how dire their predicament is, she then instructs Kot-nim to close her eyes and count to a hundred, clearly trying to keep calm for her sake.
• Cool Shades: She wears these for most of the film. She apparently installed technology in it so she can see what cards Bubs is playing during their games. She later lets Kot-nim wear them.
• Death Glare: She's quite good at doling these out.
• Hidden Depths: She was once a member of the UTS Genius Program, with a specialty in physics, materials engineering, engine mechanics, and robotics/AI development. She also helped develop 4D AR lenses, lightweight laser blasters, and EMP mines.
• Survivor Guilt: Implied to be the reason why she drinks so much.
• The Lad-ette: She drinks even more than the men on her crew, swears like a sailor, and wears her hair greased-back and fairly short.
• Working with the Ex: While they may have not ever been in a formal relationship, it's implied by Pierre's song that the two once slept together, which annoys Jang to no end when they have to ask for his help.

Tiger Park/Park Kyung-soo

Played by: Jin Seon-kyu

A former gang member in charge of running the Victory's engines and also serves as the muscle.

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• Affectionate Nickname: While Kot-nim also refers to Tae-ho as uncle, Park is the one to suggest she call him "Uncle Tiger" as he starts to warm up to her.
• An Arm and a Leg: While recounting his past to Bubs, he talks about how he used to chop off his opponent's hands: one for him to keep, the other for the person's family to send a message. Bubs believes him, but still asks what he does with the hands he keeps. In the climactic fight at the factory where he finally manages to defeat Camila, he uses his axe to chop off her hand and then tosses it to Bubs.
• Barbarian Long Hair: His hair is long enough that he has to keep it in dreads and he's downright brutal in a fight, especially if Kot-nim's safety is in question.
• Berserk Button: Never harm or attempt to kidnap Kot-nim when he's around. Just don't.
• Building Swing: Pulls off one of these to save Kot-nim from falling to her death.
• Determinator: One of his best qualities. Even when the odds seem bleak, such as the ship's system failing him at a crucial moment or Kot-nim being kidnapped yet again, he'll just power through until he gets the job done.
  • When Jang reveals that the bomb will kill Kot-nim, he immediately starts urging everybody to think, despite the fact that there is apparently no way out anymore.
• Dreadlock Warrior: A deadly fighter who keeps his long hair in this hairstyle for the entire film.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: He uses his axe to cut things and his fists when he can. Captain Jang deals with things through shooting.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may be a rough-and-tough crook who was only in it for the money at first, but by the end, he's actively working with the rest of the crew to save the whole world, keep Kot-nim safe, and even outright admits that they are his best friends. His softer side is hinted at in the beginning when he's shown attempting to nurse his withering tomato plant with little success until Kot-nim comes along.
• Manly Tears: He's on the verge of them when Jang reveals that there's just no way to save Kot-nim or Earth from Sullivan's plan.
• Papa Wolf: Out of all the main characters, he's the one who grows attached to Kot-nim first and it shows whenever others try to attack or take her away from them. In fact, one of the best ways to goad him into his old violent ways is by harming her.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Delivers a good one to the "terrorists" who keep trying to kidnap Kot-nim.
  Tiger Park: You punks wanna dance?!?
• Real Men Wear Pink: Despite his rugged appearance, he's a decent enough tailor and cook.
• Tattooed Crook: He's a former drug lord with the ink to boot. Subverted in Kot-nim's closing narration where she reveals that he got his tattoos removed, in order to not scare off her friends.

Bubs

Played by: Yoo Hae-jin; Kim Hyang-gi

A robot that the crew excavated and use to help them take junk from other sweepers with their harpoon.

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• Badass Boast: To Camila, when she tries to kill a cornered Captain Jang: "Touch her and I'll kill you, you bitch."
• Cool Big Sis: Serves as one to Kot-nim, even before it's revealed that she identifies as a female. She puts make-up on Kot-nim, gives her food, and even asks her opinion on what voice she should get post-surgery.
• Deadpan Snarker: Almost as much as Captain Jang.
  Tiger Park: Can you shut your mouth for once?
  Bubs: I don't have a mouth. Joke's on you.
• Expressive Mask: Bubs' display changes with her moods, just like any regular human. Sometimes it even has punctuation points appear.
• The Fashionista: Unlike the rest of the crew, Bubs seems to enjoy fashion very much, to the point that she's almost always in a different outfit when she appears. While spending time with Kot-nim, she applies makeup on the girl and tries to get Kot-nim to open up to her since they are "girlfriends".
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Well, robot, but after the final battle, Bubs' upper half is the only thing that survives. Luckily, Captain Jang saves her and she's able to get the skin grafts she always wanted later on.
• Javelin Thrower: She throws a harpoon to latch onto their enemies or other objects whenever they're space sweeping.
• Luminescent Blush: Her cheeks turn pink a la anime-style when Kot-nim calls her a lady without having to be told.
• Motor Mouth:
  • When she's bored, Bubs can go on talking for a long time. During their card game, Bubs rambles on and on about the crew's money problems and an annoyed Tae-ho has to ask her not to talk about things he didn't ask about. Even Tiger Parks asks for her to shut her mouth.
  • While applying makeup on Kot-nim, she happily recounts the crew's backstories. Poor Kot-nim is then shown falling asleep.
• No Biological Sex: Given that they are a robot, Bubs has no defining gender and is sometimes referred to with male pronouns, and their voice sounds a bit on the male side. However, early on, they can be seen looking at female skin graft surgery and dreams of being able to save enough money so she can look more human. By the end of the film, she gets the look they want.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Bubs has no defining gender as a robot, and sometimes is referred to by male pronouns in the subtitles. Kot-nim is the first to call them "sis" without being told, and it actually excites Bubs when she hears this. After she gets her graft surgery at the end of the film, she pulls Kot-nim aside to ask the girl which voice she should pick. When Kot-nim tells her she likes her voice the way it is, Bubs giggles, but still asks because she was getting a bit tired of her current voice.
• Odd Name Out: While everyone else in the crew has Korean names, Bubs is the only one with an English-sounding name.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When she's in "attack mode," Bubs' eyes shift from black to a creepy red, with matching fangs where her mouth should be to boot.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Even before they get their skin graft surgery, Bub seems to enjoy fashion as she dons on different shirts or jackets throughout the movie.

Other Characters

Dorothy/ Kang Kot-nim

Played by: Park Ye-rin

A young-looking gynoid who apparently blew up a sector, therefore rendering her a wanted criminal. She stows away on a ship that the Victory crew are about to salvage and is subsequently adopted by them.

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• Because You Were Nice to Me: She becomes very fond of the Victory crew and even saves their lives from the bomb explosion using her nanobots to protect their ship from the blast.
• Chekhov's Skill: Her ability to communicate with the nanobots of the universe.
• Children Are Innocent: She acts this way and is usually very playful with everyone, who try to mind themselves when she's around.
• Glowing Eyes: Her eyes glow dark blue whenever she uses her powers.
• Green Thumb: One of her main powers includes having the ability to make plants grow. In her closing narration, Kot-nim mentions that she is occasionally brought down to Earth to replenish its decimated plant population.
• Happily Adopted: The Victory crew take her in at the end of the film.
• Living MacGuffin: She's actually a young girl who was injected with nanobots by her father in order to save her life from a deadly illness. The only reason James Sullivan was even after her in the first place is that she can communicate with other nanobots and make plants grow, which would prove detrimental to his "quest" to prove that Earth is uninhabitable.
• Nanomachines: She can control them, and they make her effectively impervious to all damage outside of certain conditions that the Big Bad of the film is trying to fulfill. She can also control them, as is seen when she protects the Victory from the ever-hungry nanobots within the Lagrange point.
• Replacement Goldfish: She reminds Tae-ho very much of Su-ni, which is why he tries to distance himself from her in the first place. Over time, he grows very attached to her as well.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Subverted. She is a human who was injected with nanomachines.

Pierre

Played by: Kevin Dockry

A French man who works with Tae-ho and co. from time to time to help them with repairs or for any other task Captain Jang begrudgingly asks of him.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: He is madly in love with Captain Jang. His first appearance on-screen even has him asking Tae-ho how she is. When Tae-ho passes her message along ("If you talk to her again, she'll kill you"), he isn't even the slightest bit deterred.
• Amazon Chaser: He's in love with the tough and foul-mouthed Captain Jang. Even when Tae-ho's message from her is her telling Pierre she'll kill him if she ever sees him again, that only seems to make him happier.
• Hidden Depths: Pierre may have lived on Earth long enough to remember what the foods grown there used to taste like, since he seemed to be overcome with nostalgia and joy after eating the tomato that Kot-nim grew and declared that it was delicious.
• Serenade Your Lover: While helping the crew with repairs over the emergency channel, Pierre starts to serenade Captain Jang with a love song, much to her and his co-workers' annoyance. He apparently also found a way to bypass the emergency channel so Captain Jang can't mute him. This comes back to help them in the finale in a very big way.
• Undying Loyalty: He will gladly throw his life away if it means he can be useful to Captain Jang ... which is what he does in the finale where he answers their emergency call and smuggles Kot-nim onto his ship as Victory takes the bomb and lures James Sullivan away so Kot-nim can live.
• Working with the Ex: While they were never formally in a relationship, if Pierre's song is to be believed, the two once slept together.

James Sullivan

Played by: Richard Armitage

The president of UTS who plans on making Mars a paradise for everyone to live on and creating a new "Eden" for those who can no longer live on Earth.

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• Big Bad: He's this for the film.
• The Corrupter: Sullivan often pushes people into giving in to their innermost selfish desires, and enjoys it to boot, as is evident when he corrupts the reporter and Tae-ho.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Par for the course for someone played by Richard Armitage. It helps him come off as more menacing than the other characters.
• Faux Affably Evil: He is introduced as a humble man who would rather tend to his plants than busy himself with office matters. Of course, it's all an act.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Sullivan was exposed to untold horrors during his childhood, which, doing the math, occurred during World War II, as he saw new bodies every day and experienced genocide in his village. That said, a century to process this has left him no better than his predecessors—it's extremely indicative of how far Sullivan has fallen that a victim of the Nazis has become A Nazi by Any Other Name.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How he dies in the climax, via thousands of debris impaling him all at the same time when his ship explodes.
• Manipulative Bastard: He forces a reporter to murder someone by promising to bring his family to Eden in exchange. He then uses this act to "prove" that the reporter is too morally repugnant to be welcome in his paradise.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Obsessed with genetics and believes that they can determine someone's moral character? Check. Eco-fascist who believes that mankind deserves punishment for ruining the Earth? Check. Is willing to carry out an extermination of three billion people he sees as unfit to live in his world, and has been carrying it out already? Check.
• Older Than They Look: James Sullivan is apparently the oldest living human at 152, but he's played by 49-year-old Richard Armitage.
• Sadist: Considering his grimace when he has the reporter and the crew of the Victory at his mercy, Sullivan enjoys seeing people suffer at his hands.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: He wears light-colored polos for his first few scenes to make it seem as if he will be the film's Big Good. When his true intentions are revealed, he starts wearing darker and darker colors, culminating in the navy blue suit we see in his final scene.
• Social Darwinist: He claims that you can determine someone's morality just by looking at their DNA. He uses this to justify why his Eden is filled with the rich—it just so "happens" that all the people with good DNA are wealthy.
• The Tooth Hurts: He rips a microbomb out of Captain Jang's mouth, and takes obvious pleasure in doing so.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: He wants to create a new home for humanity to start over fresh after rendering the Earth into a barely habitable and environmentally devastated hellscape, and is more than willing to kill the majority of humanity while sparing only those he believes are worthy to create a utopia.
• Visionary Villain: Wants to create a new fresh start for humanity on Mars, with only the people he believes are good and worthy of living in his utopia.

Su-ni

Tae-ho's adopted daughter.

• Death of a Child: She was killed in a space station collision, an event that still greatly haunts and hurts Tae-ho.
• Girlish Pigtails: Sported these while she and her father were still UTS citizens.
• Happily Adopted: Was taken in by Tae-ho as a baby after he and his squadron gunned down the refugee fleet she was in, and he loved her dearly.
• Posthumous Character: She died a few years before the start of the film, appearing only in flashbacks and a short reunion with her father where they can say goodbye to each other.

Black Foxes

General

A terrorist organization that is trying to take down UTS, and according to them, were the people who set off Dorothy in that crowd.

• Eco-Terrorist: A lot lighter on the terrorist part, but they believe that Dorothy should be used to revitalize the Earth with her Green Thumb abilities.
• Good All Along: They are standing against UTS Corporation's exploitative practices and want to help the people of Earth.