Movies: Seoul Station

Movies: Seoul Station

Korea is starting to look like a very dangerous place with zombies coming out in Busan and now they have infected Seoul too. But this time, they have infected the animation world instead of the real world but because the train is no longer the main scene of the movie, you will get to see how the zombie apocalypse will work in a city setting... something that even "The Walking Dead" did not have much opportunity to dive into. (The Walking Dead story focuses not so much on the start of the zombie apocalypse and how it spread, but rather on the immediate aftermath and life after).

As you can see, its not real life film, but don't worry, Zombies are plenty

So how does this other angle into the world of korean zombies do overall? Lets break it down!

Storyline 4/5

The storyline in this movie is.... surprisingly interesting. It has a very good amount of twists and turns throughout the movie and being an anime, it is alright for characters to die... and in this movie.. dying is aplenty!

It also seems to be trying to tell another story about the real world by highlighting real world issues such as the homeless, the poor and those who are living more unfortunate lives even after contributing much in the past. Like many zombie movies, it shows the horror and what people do when driven to the brink and everyone starts becoming self serving. It also shows the result of what happens if you are "too noble" in the real world which may very well reflect the world today.

The only issue is that it did take slightly too long to get into the exciting portions of the movie from the beginning, but once it starts, the storyline remains exciting till the end.

Character 4/5

Characters are really interesting... all the time you will be suspecting whether this character would be the sacrificing type, or the self serving type and they are all unique and have their own backgrounds that explains why they choose to things they way they did.

Overall the characters are quite believable, although the world is slightly strangely empty and a bit too void of zombies.

Cinematography 3/5

Cinematography had its good and bad points.

Good, in that this movie action puts in SOME first person sights BUT sadly, it hardly uses this during the action or exciting scenes but rather to sort of try to help u immerse into the view you would see if u were really there... its quite a waste but in this case, this movie didn't end up becoming a jump scare kind of movie which may be the overall aim of the producer.

The bad point is the anime drawing and method is somewhat bit distracting as characters are clearly animation and not entirely human like at times. In a time whereby animation aims to be life like, this is a slight step backward.

Also, action scenes are just slightly underwhelming and never actually reaches the level of excitement of Train to Busan.

Music 4/5

Music is pretty good in this movie and it really helps to immerse and set the scene of the movie. They didn't try to do anything particularly special with the movie though hence keeping the score at 4.

Spectacle 3/5

In this movie's case, its unfortunate that it came after Train to Busan as it is clearly a more lower budget version of the movie. On the other hand, had there not been the Train to Busan, most likely there will not be as much as a hype to see this movie in the first place.

Like the Train to Busan, this movie does not JUST focus on the zombie survival method but rather more on the human / inhuman aspects of what would happen in a zombie apocalypse and its trying to tell us just a little bit more then how to survive. Hence the storyline aspect feels a bit more fleshed out and interesting.

Like what was said previously in the Cinematography section though, its action scenes does pale in comparison and it just does not have the same impact as the Train to Busan which is unfortunate given that you could actually do a lot in an animation. Guess CGI may actually be less resource intensive then animation or there is really a clear difference in budget.

Overall

Storyline: 4 (Surprisingly interesting and has good twists, but just took a bit longer to get exciting) 
Character: 4 (Good mix of characters with believable backgrounds)
Cinematography: 3 (Movie did attempt to make good shots, but it just did not go all the way and stand out above the crowd)
Music: 4 (Music is quite strong and added to the overall experience)
Spectacle: 3 (Its no Train to Busan and the score suffered if you would compare. Nonetheless, the storyline is still good enough as an alternative zombie story in korea)

Overall: 3.6 (It's a fair enough score... obviously with the weaker budget and lack of big names there are some hits to the overall quality of the movie. Nonetheless the storyline is still good enough to entertain someone who has seen the Train to Busan and is interested in how the other cities may have been like in the same situation. If you didn't really see it, or are not the animation loving type though, you can really go ahead and give this a miss as it does not really add anything to the world. It's also not a very strong action movie so don't go into this movie expecting human VS zombie type of action. If you are picking between this movie and Train to Busan however, go for Busan. This movie is only 1 and half hour long so try not to over expect...)