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Seoul Station Movie Review

Seoul Station is a 2016 South Korean animated zombie film directed by Yeon Sang-ho. It is a pretty strong, brutal genre flick.

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A man desperately searches for his runaway daughter as the government struggles to shut down the area around a zombie outbreak. This movie is a prequel to the best Yeon Sang-ho film that is of course the terrific ‘Train to Busan’. It is mind-blowing that the director managed to release both movies in the same year. Although I prefer the live-action original, this is still a very good addition to this story.

It is basically an origin story and it works in that department, but it’s also very much different from its predecessor. In fact, it is tonally much more in line with the director’s first two pictures ‘The King of Pigs’ and ‘The Fake’ released in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Although I don’t like those movies all that much and I found this one way too dark, the social commentary was better handled here and the movie’s sense of chaos and utter despair was superbly achieved.

The female protagonist has such a tragic backstory and the whole father-daughter storyline was quite moving. The boyfriend is a terrible character and so easy to hate. The movie is primarily concerned with the societal problems of South Korea, ranging from prostitution to class issues to the way the government never gives back anything to its people.

You’d think that Korea is a terrible country to live in judging by Yeon Sang-ho movies, but even though this film is also extreme, it fits the horror genre so well, thus becoming an elevated example of the zombie genre that is usually much more concerned with just the action set pieces.

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The action that we get here is pretty good, but again Seoul Station is mostly focused on the human problems, leading to such a heartbreaking conclusion. The first half is only okay, but the second half is where the real meat and emotions of the story are. The animation to me continues to be the weakest link for this director as it’s rather pedestrian and lacking stylization, but I guess that fits the harshly realistic narrative on display.

Seoul Station is exceedingly dark, brutal and nihilistic as most Yeon Sang-ho movies are. In that respect, it’s wildly different from Train to Busan despite it acting as a direct prequel to that great movie. But it still mostly works because it deals with important social issues of South Korea while still being visceral in the zombie genre elements. The ending is particularly striking and tragic.

My Rating – 4