In 2020, Korea pushed further into the Zombie genre with two releases: One was “Peninsula” and the second one was “#Alive” (aka #살아있다). For today’s review we will take a look at “#Alive”‘s zombie apocalypse. It is the first movie by director Jo Il-Hyeong who also wrote the screenplay. He let the movie viewers watch the zombie disaster unfold through the lens of its two isolated main characters.
For Joon-Woo (Yoo Ah-In) it is just another day. He gets up, bathroom time and then straight away he sits at this computer desk and starts streaming. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until he sees weird messages in the chat. And then the whole world goes crazy. He hears screams from outside and explosions. The news are declaring some kind of emergency. And his father is texting him to stay inside. And stay alive. No matter what. For people are attacking each other with a bloodlust Joon-Woo has never experienced. But while time passes and he stays alone in the apartment, the walking dead aren’t his worst worry. With no electricity, water or internet he will run out of water and food. But when he thought everything was lost, he receives an unexpected message. He is not the only survivor. Finally he Joon-Woo finds hope again. He is not alone anymore. But will he and Yoo-Bin (Park Shin-Hye) stay alive until help comes?
To be very direct: I’ve expected more from “#Alive”. And it is certainly not the fault of the actors. They did a great job of portraying their characters. The main reason for my disdain was simply Yoo Ah-In’s character. He had so much plot armor, it is unbelievable. Zombies aside, this kind of person wouldn’t survive in any kind of apocalypse. After he witnesses everything that goes down in front of his apartment complex (people munching on each others and ripping out the goodies) and barely escaping an attack himself after playing the Samaritan – he just sits down to play games. Now, I do understand everyone handles stress and traumatic events differently – but I would hope that most people would have a bit of survivor mindset? Being aware that there possibly won’t be any water and to fill up a bath tub/ bottles/ pots etc. would be a pretty basic thing to do wouldn’t it? Also that electricity will be gone soon and to first eat the fresh food? And this kind of headless and idiotic behavior continues on until he meets Park Shin-Hye’s character Yoo-Bin. Which is when the huge difference of their mindset became grating for me. She is this polished survivalist, who transformed her apartment into a survival zone. You can see and understand how she survived for such a long time. With her joining the story the movie improved a bit , for the sole reason that I wasn’t left alone with Joon-Woo… I honestly do wish that screenwriters wouldn’t dump down horror movie characters. Is it too much to ask for a bit more well-rounded characters? And a good bit of less plot armor? And fact check some stuff before you put it in your movie? Also knowing that the main characters never truly were in danger didn’t really help to induce my suspense. Besides that, the story is pretty basic. Some scenes even felt a bit copy-pasted from other movies. It is nothing frequent viewers of zombie movies wouldn’t have seen before. Though I do guess it might be difficult to serve us some fresh meat.
“#Alive” is a pretty basic zombie movie. It is certainly not the worst zombie movie and certainly not Korea’s worst zombie movie. And it is certainly not the worst way with which to spend your afternoon/ evening/ night/ morning. With that being said, what did you think of “#Alive”? Do you agree with my opinion? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
lovethydrama.wordpress.com 