Seoul-yeok

I am honestly shook at how bad the rating was for this. I went in with VERY low expectations and it ended up being really good! There’s not a lot of good horror anime out there that is able to really capture that anxious tension and jump scare quality, but this did it!

It’s not really connected to the movie so much but that’s fine. These kinds of situations will happen anywhere a zombie outbreak is happening so it definitely fits into the cannon. The character development and ending was SUPER unexpected in a good way.

If you’re a horror fan I think you’re gunna have fun. ... If you like Train to Busan please go into with the understanding that yes, it’s not as good as that, but that’s being Train to Busan is a masterpiece. This is still a really fun addition to that universe!

I'm genuinely confused by the curious amount of critical success the film received. With a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes I thought the film could do no wrong, but I learned from my foolish mistake after watching this. Seoul Station is the prequel to Train to Busan, a live-action Korean zombie movie that enjoyed great success. I haven't seen Train to Busan myself, but I am curious as to how it stacks up to this movie - I assume it's a lot better.

The plot of Seoul Station is easy to guess given the subject matter - a zombie outbreak occurs, causing society to be disrupted ... and causing people to scramble to find each other in this terrifying world of unknown dangers. the film primarily follows the quest of a four protagonists to find each other in this new chaotic world.

The problem with this story is that it really doesn't bring anything new to the table in regards to zombie stories. Some reviewers have praised the way the film reflects the social injustice in South Korea, and the discrimination that working class and homeless groups receive in the country. I don't know a whole lot about Korea, but I wouldn't even have guessed that was the primary goal, because frankly, the ideas it brings up seem almost quaint. People in power protecting themselves at the expense of the poor? People not having the resources to protect themselves once the establishment has fallen? Because you see these ideas crop up in zombie fiction so much, Seoul Station doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from other zombie flicks, and as such its social commentary feels lacking.

The film does have a number of really good scenes, however. There are moments when you can get to now characters and understand how their different backgrounds cause their relationships to be strained. And the film's ending was brilliant enough that it makes the film at least worth consideration. But these scenes are few and far between, the gaps filled by generic chase and action sequences set to a generic pounding rock track.

Similarly, the protagonists are quite interesting. There's a young woman, a former prostitute, saved from the streets by a disrespectful young man who spends all his time at a gaming café, ignoring her needs. They are separated and joined respectively by an old man, the first one to witness the effects of the zombie virus, and the girl's dad, who berates the gamer for the way he has mistreated his girl. Each of these characters are interesting, but their character arcs seem to resolve very shortly, with large spaces between development padded out by more zombie chase filler.

I haven't watched much Korean animation, but having seen this and Kai, I believe Korea is more fond of CG in animation. Sadly, the Cg in Seoul station feels irredeemably cheap. The low framerate can't disguise the rigid movements and the unnatural expressions on the characters' faces.

Ultimately, Seoul Station is a movie that doesn't need to exist for any particular reason. The social commentary is easily overlooked given the over-reliance on horror clichés to tell the story, its characters have potential for elaboration that is wasted, and its horrid, stiff animation makes the film a lot harder to watch, That's not to say that the film has no interesting potential . It really does, but it's sacrificed to the alter of action sequences an filler, which is a dead shame.

This movie is an absolutely horrible anime, but definitely deserves a 4 star for the top-quality sequel, Train to Busan(Live action film).

This is mostly going to be a mini breakdown of both this movie and its sequel, and what sets this hot garbage apart from Train to Busan.

Story(1/10) - First of all, just want to clarify that personally, although Train to Busan is a live-action film, it's way more melodramatic than this animated movie. It works for a zombie movie, it's nothing exceptional, it's just your typical survivors surviving in a zombie apocalypse, but that's not all. The story is overall pretty inconsistent, it would ... rather talk about morals and messages than actually tell a decent story, the pacing is off for certain scenes, and hence the characters will only do specific actions because the movie needs it to. Not to mention the absolute muck of an ending this has, it could've been a 2 if the plot twist didn't exist, completely breaking the characters and the ending of this movie. The reason why this is so high in the rating is that it's nowhere close to the absolute mess numerous (Both live-action and animated) zombie movies attempts to try.

I also didn't mention how every selfless act was for the worse, instead of inspiring people to be selfless and rely on each other, what you get is an action thriller that suggests you to rely solely on yourself.

Art(0/10) - What more can I say, the animation is abysmal to even take a glimpse at, it's not that I hate CGI(Computer generated images) animation, of course, I personally prefer exquisite hand-drawn animation, but I do understand why CGI is commonly used nowadays, not only does it save the studios money, it also saves them way more time if the CGIs are used right. The problem is with the flow and style of it, when you have a movie-budget anime, you could at least expect animations that are less snappy than this pile of junk. Still, fully respect the people behind this movie, most studios nowadays always give little time for the studio behind the animations to work with.

Sound(2/10) - Nothing exceptional, a little bit disturbing at times(Not the definition of being scared, I am saying the meaning where it annoys you trying to enjoy the movie entirely), but the voice acting was overall "Ok". What brings this down to a pile of crap is the awful zombie sound, I understand making a relatively scary zombie sound is hard, especially with all the higher-ups of censorships with their grubby little hands going against you, but you could've at done a better job on the zombie sounds, especially after hearing the other sound effects like bashing or dropping items.

Character(0/10) - The worst aspect of this movie, all the characters are unpredictable and unlikeable. The characters would constantly act differently from what they normally would do considering their motives and personality, all just for the drama in this movie. Not to mention how most characters are really only made for expressing the morals and messages this movie tries to deliver, all of them feel bland and one-sided, hence weak characters that just make the plot feels messier the more they appear.

Enjoyment(2/10) - Dreadful movie to watch through, it has certain scenes that I did enjoy, but it makes up less than 1% of the entire movie, it was dull and repetitive, seen it too many times in other zombie movies. Being repetitive isn't a bad thing, but somehow being a worse version certainly is.

It delivered its messages, but what it traded off was consistent character development and actions, and non-sloppy animation. Love it or hate it, it's a zombie movie that is pretty on par with most of the live-action zombie movies released recently. Hopefully, the sequel of this movie could inspire more creative and inspirational movies to come in the future. There are countless videos online complaining about this movie, and I couldn't agree more after watching this.