Seoul Station
If you've ever seen the most excellent South Korean zombie film Train to Busan you'll probably remember the first zombie seen in the film. Clueless dad misses it, right outside his train widow, but his daughter doesn't and it sets a great tone for the rest of the film. There was a sort of sequel to that movie Train to Busan: Penninsula, which was a simply okay zombie film/car chase action film/heist film jumble. I had not heard of this 2016 anime version of the Seoul zombie outbreak until recently or I would have watched it sooner.
Station isn't exactly a sequel or a prequel, instead showing the very beginning of the zombie outbreak in Seoul, Korea, at the train station the father and daughter leave from on the way to Busan a little later. Here the zombie imagery begins in the opening moments instead of sneaking into it. An old man stumbles down a crowded street, holding the huge, bleeding bite mark on his neck. Not only is he totally ignored by everyone around him, when he finally asks for help he's shooed away because he's homeless. So the zombie imagery begins right off, as does the social commentary, a signature feature of all good zombie films. "I was going to help him if he was hurt, but…he was homeless." Then we are introduced to our heroine, Hye-Sun, who is trying to get regular work away from prostitution but her boyfriend keeps pimping her out for easy money. So she has a triple whammy disadvantage of *gasp* female, poor, and "bad character". She ends up in one scrape after another, just trying to get someone, anyone, from the government to help with the shockingly fast zombies that are overwhelming the city.
All the classic zombie tropes come into play in the film There are a lot of deaths, hammer-you-over-the-head social commentary, a likeable hero who is fun to root for despite their "disadvantages", lots of gory scenes which is a lot cheaper with animation I would expect, with no need for makeup experts who can strap a gut harness onto an extra for those yucky moments. There are a lot of memorable characters like Hye-Sun and her pimply boyfriend, and the many, many, many others who die horrible deaths because they get no help and suffer from the slow start to understanding what the heck is going on. I was seriously impressed with the filmmakers seeming encyclopedic knowledge of what has gone into zombie films time and again. It didn't feel stale to me, but more like all those Marvel movies with the ten thousand easter eggs that slide by comfortably as the story unfolds. There have been very, very few original story lines since the days of Homer, so, unless you're Zack Snyder (Rebel Moon) who thinks he has made this all up for the first time, if a filmmaker can take elements and make something good from it, I say good on ya.
There are, of course always a few things that aren't quite right. For Seoul Station the biggest problem for me was the timing being a little off. If the station was locked down at the start of the outbreak, how did the father and daughter board the train? I chose to simply look the other way and pretend I didn't notice. There was also the usual, again classic zombie film, hero getting so beaten up by events that by the end they should be lying on the ground screaming in agony, but still manage to hotfoot it down the alleyways ahead of super fast undead. I just kept telling myself she's young. I also felt the chase music sounds a little silly at times to a western viewer, but that's really a minor note.
Overall, this is a really fine zombie film. The animation is fine, as is the voice acting. The filmmakers totally get how zombie films should be made and use a lot of imagery we've seen in more than a few other films. Comfortable seems a bit of an odd choice of wording, but that's how watching it felt to me. I liked it. If you like zombie films, you will like it – unless you hate subtitles. I recommend it.
Available on: Fawesome, tubi, Filmrise, Fandango at Home, hoopla, freevee
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CFR: In Addition
Hooray! A new zombie movie for Cranky!! I'm glad you liked it, Cranky, cause I know how much you love zombie movies. Cool that this one is animated. I don't ever remember seeing a zombie movie that is also animated before. (Vampires are animated all the time.)
I might have to watch this.
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