Seoul Station

• Korean: 서울역
• Written and Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
• August 18, 2016 (South Korea)
• Based on the 2016 film Train to Busan by Park Joo-suk

Voice Cast

• Hye-sun-Shim Eun-kyung
• Suk-gyu-Ryu Seung-ryong
• Ki-woong-Lee Joon
• Volunteer-Lee Sang-hee
• Mr. Kim-Jang Hyuk-jin

When a zombie plague erupts in Seoul people are forced to struggle to survive.

In a mood for some horror animation I stumbled across Seoul Station which is described as a prequel to Train to Busan. I watched this without having watched that and found it accessible. This is less a prequel and more a story occurring in that very same universe.

I am guessing that Train to Busan like Seoul Station is a mix of zombie horror and social commentary. If I had known that before watching I would have been turned off because those types of movies tend to have the messenger/commentary drown out the horror along with any story. I want scares with maybe some themes or life lessons rather than themes or life lessons over scares.

In some ways the story starts kind of like a lazy drama that mistakes personal problems or major dysfunction for character complexity. In those I find myself praying for death-mine or theirs. Something to release me from my suffering! Seoul Station never drowns you in the issues of the characters but visible or not they do inform the story. This gets into homelessness, how people keep repeating the same mistakes, and the indifference of society/government to the plight of others. Maybe even touches on sexual abuse.

While not necessarily a slice of life it was about the lives of the characters which is used to explain why they react this or that way. Even the characters that never get named such as a homeless man that is part of the story until very close to the end gets defined enough that their actions make sense. There is young Hye-sun who ran away from her life as a prostitute. She now lives in Seoul with her boyfriend Ki-woong but he intends to pimp Hye-sun out again because they’re broke. Yikers! This is not for kids.

It manages a shocking twist when the man we believe to be Hye-sun’s father and who has been going through great lengths to find her turns out to be HER FORMER PIMP! A totally unexpected turn. Up until that point they had never talked. Her boyfriend Ki-woong had only ever mentioned her father in the frantic calls but never handed him the phone. I was knocked back though thinking now I think they might have pointed at it during an early phone call he made. All his efforts had been just to get her back so he can have her pay off the money she owes. As messed up as it is, it makes sense in the logic in the world is falling apart. He’s a greedy person, and this is his motivation.

The character designs are good. There is not heavy gore with the zombies taking a mostly traditional look. Aeni style animation blends computers and traditional animation. If it suffers anywhere in that aspect is when they try to be too dynamic with the camera shots. I applaud the attempts, but when they have a camera in front of running or moving people and it’s moving ahead of them to keep them always in the shot as they’re chased it looks like the animated characters are flopping their arms in a Steven Seagal-esque style. It looks fake and breaks the illusion that the rest of the animation manages to immerse you in. 

For me the finale subverted expectations. I was of the mind at least one cast member was going to survive but nope. Ultimately, the story is about the girl and the tragedy of her life with the climax being she finally gets revenge on her pimp.

Running animation aside my major gripe about this is I had to watch it with subtitles. Purists might think of me with some derision but with animation I want to focus on the art while also paying attention to the story. Looking at the bottom of the screen while action occurs prevents giving adequate attention to both.

Seoul Station is a zombie horror film more about the people than it was about the zombies. No real scares but definitely entertaining.