Seoul Station (Yeon Sang-Ho, 2016)

Synopsis
Seoul Station (2016) is an animated movie which is the prequel of Train to Busan (Wikipedia, n.d, para.1). The movie starts in front of Seoul Station's terminus building, as a wounded old guy wandered around and collapsed (Tsui, 2016, para.5). Then it begins with the zombie apocalypse. Hye-Sun, Ki-woong and Suk-gyu, who are the main characters, were escaping from the zombies' attack to meet with each another. There were many victims who had sacrificed themselves to help Hye-Sun surviving the zombies' attack. The movie ended up with plot that revealed the dark side of humanity, where people who seemed to be trustworthy could betray you anytime.

Review
Seoul Station is the first animated zombie movie that I have ever watched. There are certain scenes in this movie which I find them interesting. The first scene is when the policeman, Hye-Sun and the guys were trapped inside the cage at the police station. This happened when four of them tried to safeguard themselves from the zombies by locking themselves in the cage. At earlier time, the policemen seemed to be annoyed by the unfavorable odour from the guys who came in with Hye-Sun, reporting about the zombies apocalypse. The policemen despised on the guys based on their appearance, which then induced sense of superiority. But afterwards, they were all trapped inside a confined space, being helpless and vulnerable. This scene shows that every human being is mortal when confronting with disasters, regardless on how much you earn, how well-educated you are or what social class you are in.

The armed soldier who shot down the old guy at the quarantine area is the second scene that caught my attention. As the old guy had nothing else to lose, he was determined to reunite everyone in the quarantine area to break through the barriers. When he climbed up to the bus, a bullet mercilessly penetrated through his chest. The army then threw smoke grenades into the quarantine area, attempting to halt the unfortunates from crossing over the barriers. The unfortunates retreated and became the feast of the zombies. This scene had portrayed the reality in which the authority always turns over a deaf ear towards the voice of the underprivileged one. As they are already suffocating to live, the authority still suppress them instead of understanding their situations.

Suk-gyu who at last revealed his identity as a sexual predator is the third scene that draws my attention. Suk-gyu claimed that he himself is Hye-Sun's father when he approached Ki-woong. Throughout the movie, Suk-gyu did look like a father who was worried about his daughter's safety. He fought the zombies side-by-side with Suk-gyu, as if he was the real father. When Hye-Sun reunited with Ki-woong at the office, they then realized that Suk-gyu was baiting Hye-Sun from the beginning. The movie had successfully surprised me because a guy who helped out Ki-woong so much was just to rape Hye-Sun. It is undeniable that human-being are more evil than the zombies in this movie. As zombies attack the victims out of their instinct, Suk-gyu cheated and hurt everyone just to fulfill his desire of raping women. This scene reflected the reality where selfish people use devious tricks just to reach their goals.

In the mean of time, there are two scenes which I find them to be unsatisfying. The first scene would be the scene where Hye-Sun accidentally dropped her phone when she dashed into the cage at the police station. The phone's screen was cracked. When Ki-woong tried to contact her, the phone did not ring. But after Hye-Sun fled from the cage and picked up the phone, it could still function. The initial scene conveyed a message which contradicted with the following scene. I found this scene to be confusing as I assumed the phone to be broken initially, but it worked perfectly afterwards even with a massive screen crack.

Hye-Sun fell off the stairs while escaping from the crowd of zombies is the second scene that I find it unrealistic. Initially the scene focused on her legs where she was running down the stairs,  I was anticipating that she would have fallen down very soon. As she really slipped and fell on the ground, the zombies dramatically stacked together and some were unable to chase after Hye-Sun. She was then escaping again without any sign of her hurting herself from the initial fall. I find this scene to be exaggerating as Hye-Sun was destined to fall and escape from zombies who tried to jump on her. Hye-Sun should at least looked like she had hurt herself after that fall to be more convincing.

Overall, this movie had brought up a few moral values. The first one would be "do not judge a book by its cover". People who could not communicate in a decent way does not mean that he or she is of no use. Same goes to people who dress nicely and talk properly, these do not prove that he or she must be a good person. The second value would be do not give up easily. One of the guy who was locked in the cage with Hye-Sun and the others, mentioned that "we all will die". He gave up on saving himself and got bitten by the infected policeman. On the other hand, normal people must fight to survive, creating unexpected bonding as the undead population - which is the blood sucking zombies grows (Luiz, 2017, para.3). The last value would be human are mortal. Man, woman and child would cease at any time , with or without your knowledge. There was one drunken man who was bitten , and also the kind guy who tried to save the severely wounded old man at the train station. We are all weak when confronting with disastrous events.


Reference
1. Luiz, H.C. (2017). [Review] 'Seoul Station' is a worthy companion to 'Train to Busan'. Retrieved
    from
    http://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3423862/review-seoul-station-worthy-companion-train-to-
    busan/

2. Tsui, C. (2016). 'Seoul Station' ('Seoul-yeok') film review. Retrieved from
     https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/seoul-station-seoul-yeok-film-915964

3. Wikipedia. (n.d). Seoul Station (film). Retrieved from
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Station_(film)