Director: Sang-ho Yeon
Writer: Sang-ho Yeon
Stars: Seung-ryong Ryu, Franciska Friede, Joon Lee
Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3elVW8J
Synopsis
Note that this animated film is a prequel to the live-action film Train to Busan. Other than the fact that there are zombies in Seoul, there are no spoilers in this prequel for the live-action film. They both feature unrelated characters in the same universe.
An old man walks through town, and he’s clearly sick. He smells really bad, and people assume he’s homeless. He staggers over to where the other homeless people are and lays down.
A girl wakes up and finds no one else at home. Her rent is overdue, and she can’t find her boyfriend. The girl’s boyfriend is trying to pimp her to guys on the Internet. Her father sees the picture online and wants to find her.
A man has an argument with his boss and then finds the sick old man sleeping on the street. He goes to the hospital to get help. The problem is, he can’t get the man to the hospital. The old man finally dies. When the other man comes back, the old man is gone. Did he get better? He goes off looking for the old man and finally finds him eating a dead child. The old man turns and charges at him…
The girl’s father and boyfriend are out searching for her. They see a woman eating her husband and get trapped inside a bathroom. They beat the woman to death with a toilet tank lid. The girl is in the Seoul Rail Station, and things are quickly getting out of control there, with stampeding crowds and packs of quickly running undead people. She quickly learns that you don’t have to be the fastest runner, just don’t be the slowest! She goes to the police station but ends up locking herself in a cell for her own safety. Of course, one of the men she’s locked up with has a nasty-looking bite wound on his shoulder.
Eventually, Hye-seung gets out of the jail cell and calls Ki-Woong, her boyfriend. Now, it’s all a matter of whether or not they can all get together…
Commentary
It’s interesting to see how the zombie plague from “Train to Busan” got started, but it’s also obvious that none of the characters were going to survive at the end. That’s the trouble with prequels.
The story starts out well-paced and very bleak. It slows down a lot once the military shows up and starts corralling the civilians. Eventually, the two men do find Hye-seung, but things still aren’t always as they seem.