Seoul-yeok

It may be about zombies but the director seems to take a zombie apocalypse to bring out a social scope on the matter; South Korea’s homeless predicament is a ubiquitous theme throughout the film, prostitution secondly, youth runaways. Centerpoints which all come down to a social class theme.

At least that’s what I thought of it.

Homelessness was tied to all the prominent characters from what I saw as I scrubbed the video to the beginning, going back before finishing the last act, pausing at the each character’s first appearance onscreen. Their surroundings tell all and are primary motivation for specific characters decisions; where they ... are at first, and what one could infer from the scenery at that moment pretty much paints the picture of the character.

It should be noted that this isn’t some crappy z-flick movie best left in a trash bin. The plot is quite good, it definitely plays off at the end, leaving one to think about what was and what ended as the movie drew to a close.

Just like the rest of the z-flicks, it’s not a happy story - but it’s one that puts out its key punches in way unique from most of the rest.

It’s a pretty well polished film, great music and ambience, with a distinct animation style, great rendering if not a bit over the top character gesturing. With that, the film smoothly strong-arms the characters’ emotional state onscreen most of the time.

Just one quick thing to point out about the criticization of the graphic animation. It was well done imo, the style probably wasn’t in many people’s tastes. I could only count of two short and quick scenes where I was there were a few more lines of details instead of, say in one, where the floor was just a flat green one color.

More importantly, in addition to the animation expressing the character’s emotional state, it does extremely well detailing the bodies of the animated cast. The physical appearance of a character’s body should be kept in mind as the film moves on and when extra detail is shown of or when the camera centers in on a part of the character. I thought it was very emphatical keying into the those cues. The background and scenery art’s relationship to the film’s theme of home also became very well emphasized as one of our mains reacted with the surroundings at the last act. Again, here the film gives an image to allow the viewer to contemplate the events that had past in the film to the current moment on scene.

To summarize my take on the art a bit, I saw the graphical representations to be quite detailed and refined for most of the time in the film. I thought at times the visuals, and the little details especially, should be definitely taken into account in order to sink into the atmosphere of the movie. The blurring, animation and style of locomotion could be offputting at times, akin to Knights of Sidonia’s style but any negative aspects in the film’s art is offset by the important details put in scene.


On how the film kicked off and died slowly then lingered after:
I thought it was unique a intro and background-reveal to one of the main characters, although I was a bit annoyed with the first act’s prime character’s method of speech, a different character from former first described.

Finally, I thought the ending was just lovely for me. It hit the right notes for me.
And on a musical perspective, it hit the best note with its song at the very end. I was out of breath and forgot to take one in. Stunning.




- - - This isn’t the average zombie movie. And if one like this type of horror, it’s well worth a watch and it may leave some nice surprises that gives more than one what was initially looking for - - -

Rate of 5 (fine)
seen via english subtitles

Zombies, shot at life among humans never works out. This is no exception.

Likes:
-plot in terms of the intro. There are many routes this could have played out: the news bulletin of an out break, a chemical gas, magic. Their take was more realistic in terms of a passersby(an unaware person) and was not too played out. For example don't you hate movies that start out generally the same without much change:batman and robin, spiderman, deadpool all fighting for justice.

-ending was definitely not what i thought for sure. Kudos to the writers on that. Yet, i feel mixed on ... to how it was portrayed.

-characters: No matter whom it was say an officer they didn't break character.

-message: though it was short and midway through their message was a connectable piece of data that shouldn't be ignored.

Dislike:
art: Character portray was original and clear but in terms of blending in with the environment they did not mix well. Almost as if someone showed there characters via a projection on an everyday street. Hard for the viewer to sink in if he/she can not fully connect to the story.

To be honest the movie is not so bad, the course of it is pleasant and funny despite the abusive cgi. Until we find the end of it, an immense confusion.

History: (4/10)
The story from beginning to before reaching the end, would be even in a 7 of how decent it is, but the end ruins everything. An immensely confusing Plot Twist.
Girl: He's not my dad!
Me: WHAT?

“Just a homeless guy...... I would’ve helped him if he’s injured”

*HES BLEEDING PROFUSELY FROM ... HIS NECK

In conclusion, a decent story going to painful, but ignoring the "dad" and the prostitute daughter, decent.

Art: (2/10)
Little to tell the truth, art is very bad, since the studio lacks the resources to make a simple drawing, it resorted to CGI and implemented in everything it could. The animator forgot to encourage people by closing doors. Simply a masterpiece of trash anime.

Sound: (1/10)
The sound I don't know what to say about it, with each blow that passed, it made me laugh more.
They looked like blows to a cardboard more than to a zombie, but hey ...

Character: (4/10)
All, absolutely all the characters are confusingly weird.
Hye-Sun: The girl in the movie, at first they told us that the boyfriend prostituted her through internet blogs, until she realized that he got angry and they fight, ending the relationship.

Hye-Sun: can I live?

Logic: you'll live when you CLOSE THIS DAMN DOOR !!!

Ki-woong: He doesn't do anything, he's scary, he used his girlfriend to get money for rent, and then he meets the "dad" and they go all over the city looking for the supposed daughter, to finally die in his last heroic act.
The Boss: The f ** king boss, literally posing as Hye-Sun's dad only to get his money back, in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, which is impressive.
The tramp: The old man who spends the whole story with our protagonist (Hye-Sun). I was a little sorry that he died

Conclusion:
The movie develops very badly, the animation is ... CGI BOSS. I don't know if it had the sound, the characters evolved ... I think, And despite everything I enjoyed the movie, so I think the punctuation is very good.