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...)

Movies: Attack on Titan

Movies: Attack on Titan

Introduction

Attack on titan. A title that does not make any sense to anyone at all... is there only one Titan? is Titan a place? Maybe a moon? if you are confused by the name... THEN THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY YOU MAY LIKE THE MOVIE!!! This movie is actually a Japanese Anime that has finished its season one quite a while ago. In fact I believe it is a 2013 anime that ended at 23 episodes in Sep 2013. The anime itself has obviously a more well developed storyline as it is more then 10 hours long as compared to this short short 1 and a half hour movie.

The problem with this movie is that the director of the movie took his own artistic direction to the movie. It will not be like the anime, but whether this is a good or bad thing, it will depend on the audience. Ok so what is a Titan in this movie? Sorry its not the roman Titan that fights with Zeus and Poseiden all that. It is merely this ugly fella

Yum yum little humans!

And what more! Like humans, they come in different shape, sizes, pose, gender, and even ugliness. Only that all those aspects, they have a much bigger range. Except gender.. They are genderless and merely look female or male or a genderless thingy. Of course this is the anime version. To whet your taste bud.. here's the movie one!

Roar! I'm so HOT! Global warming has taken a toll!

Woops! Sorry if you puked or anything... Here's some pictures of the staff to get you back on your feet

Posing! Looking good.... or relatively similar actually...

Ok! Enough of small talk. So is this movie worth seeing? Lets break it down

Storyline 2 (If you really hate people not following the canon) 3 (if you try stay neutral) /5

Lets get it out there at this point of the review. This movie is not going to follow the anime. I would say that besides the presence of the same Titans, use of same equipment, use of same names, it is a pretty different show. In fact, try to look at this movie as an ALTERNATE dimension of their world and maybe it would just be more palatable to you.

That being said, the speed of this movie is slightly too slow. It unfortunately cannot start off running like the usual action movies where at the very beginning there are already action scenes. As a result its a slow start that introduces the background and everything else but in general, it was still too slow for me. Once the action picks up however, it gets a bit more exciting and flowing but there was also quite a slow segment towards the middle of the movie and after that it is mostly action all the way.

However, the storyline as it has to be fitted into 1 hour and 30 mins, suffers from too many jumps and everything finishes a bit too quickly (if you can really consider that the movie finishes).

Character 3/5

There is some attempts at character development and there is effort put in to create a distinction between all the characters in this movie. But its short play time is back to haunt this movie as at the end of the movie, you would probably not feel too much for most of the supporting characters of the movie.

People who follow the anime will at least be able to know more clearly what the significant difference in the characters are but then again, it is still quite different from the movie itself.

Cinematography 3/5

For an action flick, this movie is just missing a bit of the more traditional shots. Sure there is some high speed shots where you can see how fast the characters are flying here and there but there are some parts of the movie that is pretty dark and it is just missing out on extra effort such as epic top down shots and more. 

There is a good feeling of speed and excitement but there is really much more this movie could have done to make every battle that bit more exciting.

Music 4/5

Actually, the movie and sound effects in this movie did do pretty well to add some elements of disgust and fear and excitement throughout the movie. It really did bring out the hopelessness of the world that they live in.

Spectacle 3.5/5

Again from a neutral stand point, this movie does introduce a pretty interesting new world that we live in where nothing is in favor of man kind. So the storyline would be fun for the newcomer. Sadly, the short movie length means everything ends just a tad bit too soon and all the action scenes are relatively short and ordinary. The whole movie could be made to have a lot more exciting action on a more large scale basis but guess that was not the direction they wanted to take overall.

Overall

Storyline: 3 (Too short, not able to tell enough without making sacrifices to depth of story)

Character: 3 (Too short, not able to have the opportunity to build up audience empathy to characters)

Cinematography: 3 (Has some good action shots, but that's about all the shots they have and they are generally a bit short lived and quick to end)

Music: 4 (Good use of sounds and music to bring up evoke audience feelings of disgust and more)

Spectacle: 3.5 (Average on the storyline side, also average on the action side. It gets a .5 as it is a new alternate world which still helps to keep the movie new and engaging)

Overall: 3.3 (Overall, I would say that this is a fair enough action flick, for the short 1.30 hrs movie in the midst of 2 hours action flick, this movie may not be exciting enough to be a must see yet. It's a good way to spend the time if you were looking for something to do and like to see an action movie in a alternate world with some gore and quite a lot of dying. For fans of the anime, you can enjoy this movie, but you must first set aside all expectation that this is the same as the anime. It is probably not a movie that you MUST see at this juncture and you will not really be missing too much by not seeing this movie.)