Sarah Knows Nothing About Movies- #Alive Review

Ah, the world is horrible isn’t it? The USA is on fire in every way possible, Covid-19 will not stop being a lil bitch, I don’t even know what my government is doing anymore, and JK Rowling persists in being a transphobe. It sucks. And sometimes, when the world sucks, you just need to kick back with a good film where much worse things happen. When all my classes at the school I teach at went online, I watched Titanic. Things are actually going a lot better personally- the school is doing in-person classes again, and I actually SOCIALISED on the weekend- but still, I know it’s not good for a lot of you out there. So maybe the tragic sinking of a ruddy great boat in the Atlantic Ocean just isn’t a bad enough situation to watch. If that’s the case, or if you just love Korean zombies as much as I do, let me recommend #Alive.

#Alive (#살아있다) is the latest in a weirdly specific genre of Korean zombie films and TV. I have already been very boring about how much I love Train To Busan (ohmygoditssogoodwatchitwatchitwatchitwatchit), though I may not have mentioned my similar zeal for the Netflix drama series Kingdom, which has Korean zombies IN OLDEN TIMES. Ugh, just so much fun. Train to Busan actually spawned a semi-sequel this year as well in Peninsula, which did extremely well at the Korean box office, though I didn’t go to the cinema to see it as I was worried doing so might infect me with a dangerous global virus. Peak irony, I know. #Alive is the next movie to take an interesting new direction with the undead, and before you get annoyed, yes the hashtag is in the title of the film and no, it’s not as annoying as that would seem. It’s actually there to reflect a key element of the movie: that the main character is a gamer who gets trapped in his flat in Seoul whilst the zombie apocalypse rages outside. The hashtag comes through his desperate attempts to communicate with the outside world before he loses all electricity and Wi-Fi, and it ends up having a fairly pivotal role in the story. See, it’s not just a marketing thing, calm down. Again you might be sensing a little bit of art imitating life here-someone getting stuck in one place because a dangerous infectious virus is destroying things outside it? Can’t imagine what that feels like. But this is not some thrown together gimmick- the film actually wrapped in December 2019. Somewhere there is a writer who must be feeling incredibly smug (well, 2 actually: Matt Naylor and director Cho Il Hyung), because this film is not only really good fun, but also packs an added punch of being eerily prescient.

As outlined above, the story in #Alive is simple: young gamer is stuck inside his flat as zombies rage outside. Gamer must figure out what the ever-loving fuck to do next. I’ve always had a preference for films with these kind of one place/one idea set-ups: it’s why I love Train to Busan so much, along with movies like Before Sunset or Reservoir Dogs. I think it’s sometimes referred to as a ‘fishbowl’ narrative, though on googling it I come up empty so that may well be bullshit. Basically, this is a film that takes place in one apartment complex, largely in one apartment, and sometimes in the corridors and outdoor space between it. This device brings a great focus to the film’s characters: for example, our main guy Joon-woo is shown to be lazy and feckless as we watch him get up late, slowly realise what’s happening through his phone and his window, and then curse that he did not buy the groceries his mum asked him for. The female lead, Yoo-bin, can be instantly understood as extremely resourceful and resilient when we meet her in her well rigged booby-trap of a living room, her resources all measured out and a handy axe at the ready. This film is not a Swiss watch: it’s rooms with people in them and monsters (largely) outside.

And oh boy let me talk about the monsters. As someone who is by no means a zombie aficionado, Korean zombies seem to be done in a way that I just really enjoy. There are no slow walkers here: all the undead are working hard on their cardio and running like there’s no tomorrow, presumably because in an apocalypse there isn’t. They all have fantastic bloodied, blackened and veiny faces with foaming teeth and rolling eyes (hair and makeup team, take a god damn bow), and the actors who play them use more snarling, twitching and contorting than I’ve seen from the non K-zombies out there.

And this movie, like the other examples I’ve mentioned, has no problem giving us little vignettes of horrifying moments to show us how nasty these guys really are. I think the best instance of this in #Alive is in the opening, when a lost looking girl calls out for her mother, and, upon finding and embracing her, precedes to eat her. Grim. That’s one unique facet of this film that I haven’t seen in the other zombie fare: here, the monsters retain their humanity for a few minutes after being bitten, and retain some of their human instincts and skills after, ahem, ‘turning’. This makes for two particularly great set pieces in this movie. The first, though stereotypical, is a very well-done version of the ‘please let me in and help me and I swear that’s not a bite I’m totally fine’ scene. In the opening section of the movie, a panicked Joon-woo lets in a distraught neighbour whose brother has just gotten a lot more vicious. Assuming the guy is OK because he’s human and panicky, Joon-woo lets him use his loo. I won’t explain the whole sequence, but let’s just say his decisions get smarter as things move along. The second sequence involves an enthusiastically deceased fireman noticing Yoo-bin in her flat, and using his skills to start climbing up the railings to where she is. Shudder. Again, I won’t spoil the whole thing, but hoo boy. Makes you want to rent the highest flat you can find.

The claustrophobia of this film is ingenious in making us question what exactly it is about this kind of isolation that is terrifying. Is it what could happen outside, what could happen inside, or what could become of everything if you survive both? With little dialogue, and for a significant amount of the film little interaction, the film lets these questions play out through our observations of the character’s small, yet significant actions. This stark canvas also lays the emotions out much more impactfully: the moments of horror cut much deeper, and the little joys are so much sweeter. The performances of Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye as Joon-woo and Yoo-bin only enhance this: these are not bombastic actors, but subtle ones, unsurprising for me given how amazing the former was in Burning. The tight location format also ramps the tension and viscera of the action when it does come: I wouldn’t say this is the goriest zombie film ever, but you still do not want to hang around with a large group of these guys if you want to keep yourself un-bloodstained. I realise that I haven’t explained the relationship between Joon-woo and Yoo-bin, and I won’t reveal too much except to say that they begin as distant strangers, but do not end as such. They are two people who see an inherent value in staying alive (see, that’s where the title comes from!) and make a great action pair in trying to achieve this.

A welcome addition to my odd little love of specifically Korean zombie stuff, #Alive is a bloody (literally) thrilling adventure and a surprisingly poignant look at the internal effects of isolation and fear. It was all the more spookily relevant for me, as, being set in Seoul,

Joon-woo’s phone was the same brand as mine, had the same screen set up and made the same messaging tones as mine does. Also he eats the exact ramen I have in my room at one point. It was weird. Anyway, if you don’t mind dealing with a film featuring a lockdown, and hoardes of cannibalistic dead people feasting on the living, I would strongly recommend #Alive. It’s well made, fun, and amazingly insightful into the 2020 psyche. And hey, if you want a film with people having a worse time than you, I sincerely hope that this fits that description.