Prompted by Jason Di Rosso's interview with co-writer/director Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan (2016), Peninsula (2020)) who has made yet another zombie flick. Choi Kyu-seok helped him out with the script. Jun Ji-hyun (Assassination (2015)) led. Generally underbaked.
For generic reasons of revenge mad genius bio-scientist Koo Hyo-hwan cooks up a "virus" and a "vaccine" and proceeds to inconvenience not only the attendees of a biotech conference (where the colony concept is explained to us by Steve Jobs-ish CEO Kom Jeong-tae) but also the civilians in the shopping mall in a high-rise building in Seoul. The survivors/counter-revengers, quasi-led by strong-willed scientist Jun Ji-hyun, dwindle by the numbers. Much of the plot hinges on highly suspect reasoning; for instance, how do the responders even know there's a vaccine? Quite often the players (human and post/sub-human) hang around, inexplicably inert, waiting for a cue. Pretty much all of the characters suck. The ending threatened a sequel. Bring me the zombie king.
I wish the Koreans would get around to remaking Shaun of the Dead (2004).
Clint Worthington at Roger Ebert's venue: two-and-a-half stars. The zombie genre has seen a lot of innovation including the conceit used here. Seongyong Cho: two-and-a-half stars, "another typical zombie movie which does not surprise me a lot." Fungal not viral.
