Movie Review - #Alive

Back in March when the COVID-19 pandemic had forced governments to tell citizens to stay at home and basically quarantine themselves, it was reported that Steven Soderbergh's film Contagion (2011) had jumped into the top ten on Apple's iTunes. HBO Max reported that Contagion had been the most viewed title for two weeks straight. It was seen as the perfect metaphor for what everyone was experiencing from a scientific community dealing with a worldwide pandemic. In the seven months since, Hollywood has had to deal with the damage that the coronavirus has brought to the industry and economy. In that time, many have also wondered how Hollywood will comment or reflect this time period in future films or even television programs. This film was produced and even shot in December right before COVID-19 was discovered, but, like Contagion, it's a perfect metaphor for what a lot of people are experiencing from the perspective of not the scientific community but the average person who had to stay at home and quarantine themselves.

Yoo Ah-in is the young South Korean actor who became spotlighted on a more global scale after his starring role in Burning (2018), the first film from South Korea to be shortlisted at the Oscars. Yoo's performance was particularly affecting and his obvious sex appeal was certainly outstanding, He has a very healthy film and TV career that goes back 15 years. He's been steadily working and starring in a lot of projects, including Veteran (2015), a film that's one of the top-grossing in Korea, and something like this, as well as Burning makes me curious to see more from him. Here, he plays Oh Jun-u, a young man who might still be in high school or maybe university. He lives at home with his family. He likes to play video games. He has a bit of a social media presence and he also has a drone that he can remotely fly.

One day, he wakes up and his family has left to go shopping. While playing video games, his friends tell him to turn on the TV news. When he does, he realizes that all Hell has broken loose. Jun-u lives in his family's apartment, which is about four or five stories up. From his balcony, he can see people are running in mass through the streets. It's hysteria everywhere, as it becomes apparent that a zombie outbreak has occurred and rampaging very quickly in this crowded city and just as crowded apartment complex. Again, it's another version of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). Reanimated corpses who specifically are human cannibals hunger only for living flesh and don't seem to possess much intelligence beyond raw, animal instincts. Yet, this film seems to take its queue from recent offshoots like Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), which instead of the slow-moving corpses has the fast-moving, rage monsters, which can infect others through their ravenous bites and who chase and attack people ferociously.

Jun-u sees the zombies swarming outside on the street and even within the apartment complex. He has no choice but to lock himself in his apartment and barricade the door and windows, essentially quarantining himself in the apartment. What follows is seeing how a man in quarantine survives when he can't go outside and he's running low on supplies like food and water. It will probably resonate with those who went through the pandemic, having to obey the stay-at-home orders that most states implemented.

Directed and co-written by Cho Il-hyung aka Il Cho, just watching a quarantined guy could get boring, but the film does provide some thrills here and there to keep the audience engaged. Il Cho also provides some good acting moments for Yoo to excel. He goes through a range of emotions and we're pulled along with him. Of course, Il Cho has crazy, zombie action. It's not as crazy or as action-packed as Train to Busan (2016). It's not as horrific as Romero. It does get to a point where the film shifts and feels like a video game. It then shifts again and feels like an episode of The Walking Dead. It might be jarring in the end, meaning not as coherent in tone, but it's still thoroughly entertaining.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 38 mins.

Available on Netlfix.