Seoul Station [Blu-ray] [2017]

This was a truly excellent effort at telling the story set before the phenomenal Train To Busan and though it cannot quite match the live action movie's brutal and quick moving plot or brilliant characters it does have a more slower build up to the mayhem with beautiful animation,more emotion and two real gut punches of shocks near the films climax.A homeless old man dies from a strange illness but does not stay dead for long reanimating as a fast moving zombie who infects many in a short space of time(including his heartbroken younger brother)which begins a quick moving zombie outbreak.Caught up in this are a runaway young woman,her boyfriend,another homless guy and the young woman's father(well sort of but talk about that soon)who either team up or are separated to face this increasingly growing nightmare head on as the zombie horde grows by every minute.As I said Seoul Station takes a bit longer than Train To Busan to get into the outbreak(mainly because this is where the outbreak begins)and focuses on the struggle of homeless people especially the heartbroken brother of the infected man very sadly breaks down first when he tries to find some helpers to cure his brother(and medicine),then when he realises he has died and then to his surprise(before terror)finds him alive but eating someone(and then horribly gets eaten himself),we then get into the rest of the plot with the four main characters as the young woman after witnessing the outbreak as it starts teams up with a homeless man whilst her estranged boyfriend(who tries to pimp her out at the movie's start)and her father try to fight their way through the now infected city to reach her.Both stories so to speak are a bit different with the woman/homeless guy scenes being very scary and quite upsetting as they realise all hope is lost whilst the boyfriend and her father scenes though scary too are more light hearted and action packed with more laughs involved.The voice cast are all superb especially the woman,father and homeless man with the standout moments being in a tunnel where both the lady and homeless guy break down in floods of tears at everything going wrong plus the last sequence which has some barnstorming acting by the woman,father and boyfriend which was shocking and chilling in equal measure.The best moment has to go to that final sequence just mentioned which to start with sees the trio of woman,her father and her boyfriend happily reunited but in a shocker of a twist the father turns out to be her nasty pimp who all the time pretended to be her father(her real father is mentioned),after a brief tussle he murders her boyfriend before chasing the woman down in a deathly quiet few minutes with just him trying to find her(those scenes plus others in places like dark alleys bring back memories of both Resident Evil 2 and 3 video games)before he finally tracks her down and after trying to assault her he gets a almighty shock(the other huge one in the movie)when he finds out she was bitten at some point before hand and dies on the bed but reanimates and gets her ultimate revenge on him and eats him in a jaw dropping climax.Other great scenes include the first zombie(old homeless man),a Train To Busan type horde in the underground station chasing the woman and others,the chilling police station scene(another similar moment to the Resident games),the sequence in the apartment with the boyfriend and pretend father running from a few zombies,the scenes towards the end with a huge group of non infected facing off with the army,the scene after with a brave guy who saves the woman but falls to a grisly death to the zombies below,the emotional scenes before the outbreak with the woman and her boyfriend and the homeless brothers,the bf and pretend father trying to get to his car whilst battling the fast paced monsters and the very upsetting the homeless man dies after trying to prove that his country had done nothing for him and other people.This may not match the sheer terror and utter carnage of Train To Busan but it does its own thing with a slow building and emotional story before it erupts into some chilling vicious action sequences with plenty of fast moving dead heads plus has some corking characters,light hearted moments,not one but two epic twists,luscious animation and effects,upsetting deaths,wonderful voice work and homages to other zombie movies/tv(mainly World War Z,Rec,28 Days Later,Resi Evil,Z Nation and of course Train To Busan)all this adds up to the best animated zombie movie ever(plus one of the best looking animations period)and is a superb set up to a bigger and more brutal tale to follow.

An animated precursor to the events of the thoroughly entertaining South Korean Zombie movie ‘Train to Busan”. Set the previous day to the live-action movie but sharing no similarities with those characters, the plot focuses heavily on social critique of Seoul's social outcasts, particularly the homeless who roam around Seoul Station as they are shown to be the spreaders of the ‘virus’ due to neglect and stigma from members of the public towards them. The movie has quite a dark atmosphere overall and the brilliant animation style suits it perfectly showing the grittier and grimey parts of Seoul. There are some very well done sequences of suspense and edge-of-your-seat moments as the infected chase and trap would-be survivors and sometimes with bloody endings, but nothing graphic at all. It's more serious and darker in tone compared to the live-action follow-up and the plot hits you with an unexpectedly sinister plot twist towards the conclusion of the movie to deepen the downbeat no-hope pattern the plot followed. I got no problems recommending this one to those with or without an interest in animation. It’s solidly put together, offers something a bit more substantial and memorable compared to a lot of zombie movies but still provides enough thrills and excitement to entertain in amongst its moments of gloom and despair.Initially I was disappointed that the UK blu-ray release of 'Train to Busan' featured only a 5 minute sneak-peak of 'Seoul Station' and not the whole feature, but after seeing its quality its worthy of a stand-alone release. Looks fantastic in HD too!

(A full in-depth review of Seoul Station will hopefully be available soon on my own film & TV review site - link in my Amazon profile!)When I first watched Train To Busan in 2016, I fell in love with it. It remains one of my favourite zombie films, one of my favourite films of 2016, and... just one of my favourite films in general. I knew Seoul Station followed Train To Busan rather soon afterwards as an animated prequel, but never got around to watching it. However, with the release of the Peninsula sequel, I thought I'd get a complete experience and watch the films together as a trilogy.Going in, I kept my expectations tempered as most reviews were much more lukewarm towards Seoul Station than they were to Train To Busan. I had a feeling I was in a for a very different beast, and that's more or less what I got. Seoul Station lacks the tight claustrophobia of Train To Busan, instead depicting the outbreak and early stages of the zombie hoards throughout Seoul. In many ways, things are a lot more politically charged here, retaining the same undertones of class conflict and exploring prejudices towards those who are homeless. It's truly bleak too, especially in its last ten minutes. While I obviously don't want to spoil anything, the ending pulls the rug from under your feet with a cruel twist. I wouldn't exactly call Train To Busan's ending a happy one, but it did ended with a note of hope. There's none of that here this time, and you're in for something much more nihilistic.Perhaps the most prominent shortcoming of Seoul Station is in its presentation, rather than its story. See, you'd be forgiven for expecting Seoul Station to be a much more low-key affair with its considerably lower budget than Train To Busan. However, that's not really the case and with the quality of the animation at times, it's hard to escape the feeling that it's ambition exceeds what it could get away with. The animation's fine generally, but it does have its moments where it ends up looking a bit ropey. Maybe it bites off a little more than it could chew, but all the same it's brief enough that it's hardly a bad time. Far from it in fact, and while I wouldn't call this essential viewing, if you have watched Train To Busan and want to spend a little bit more time in its universe, then maybe give this a go.