REVIEW: Gangnam Zombie (2023)
I think we have now officially had enough of zombie movies from Korea, right?
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What could be more Korean in horror than zombies, right? At this time, they are the masters of zombie movies. And that’s the problem. They ran out of ideas a few years ago, so now we get stuff like this. And this isn’t pretty.
PLOT
Amidst the backdrop of the tail-end of the COVID-19 pandemic, two lowly criminals who appear to be stealing costume jewelry from a shipping container are bitten by a crazy cat and turn bloodthirsty.
Within the space of 24 hours, they manage to infect the entire building that houses dozens of small businesses, including the office of a YouTube prank channel where Hyeon-suk and Min-jung work.
Luckily Hyeon-suk is the runner up of the national Taekwondo championships, so he is able to defend them both against the rather small zombie horde that doesn’t really understand how to act like zombies.
Then again, maybe they aren’t zombies? Just because the title says they are, it wouldn’t be the first time a movie title has lied to the audience.
TALKING POINTS
There is nothing nice to say about this movie. Even when I look at the positives of short running times - and this movie has one at around 80 minutes, it commits a cardinal sin: it repeats footage! Nothing is worse than when a movie recycles the same scenes just to pad out the running time.
The action, which should be the core component of a movie like this, is terribly over-edited. The taekwondo fight scenes have no impact. The shots cut so frequently that most impact strikes are missed, and there is a lack of sound effects that would have added some extra oomph to the scenes.
I’m confused why “zombie zero” (ie the original zombie) is so obsessed with hunting down the main guy, and also why does he appear to get stronger and stronger throughout the movie?
Also, why are the zombies so stupid? They are easily distracted by a portable radio playing rock music to notice the two fresh victims walking near them. Aren’t zombie supposed to hunt fresh blood first, then respond to sound?
What was with the stupid intro making reference to COVID, and then not doing anything with it? If the assumption is that the outbreak was caused by a mutated COVID strain, then why call the movie “Gangnam Zombie”? Also, just putting a few establishing shots of Gangnam is surely not enough to title the whole movie after the location? Almost the entire film is set in an office building!
At least the cast is pretty, but that’s about it.
What are my overall thoughts?
Korea has lost its touch at both horror and zombie movies. This makes the movie #Alive feel like a masterpiece. I really can’t do any more zombie movies from Korea, not if they are going to be this bad.
Using the Great Horror Or Stupid Trash (GHOST) rating, this movie barely scrapes by with 1 ghost.
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Genre Comedy Horror
Director Lee Soo-sung
Starring Ji Il-joo, Park Ji-yeon
Original Title 강남좀비
Country of Origin Korea
Release Date January 5 2023