Hot on the infected heels of last year’s smash-hit Korean zombie movie Train to Busan comes an animated prequel from the same director, Yeon Sang-ho. Seoul Station, however, is an entirely different creature from its bombastic predecessor. Set at the outset of the epidemic that prompted so much chomping of flesh further down the line, it follows the attempts of former sex worker Hye-sun to reunite with her callow boyfriend Ki-woong, before either of them get bitten. A full-on lockdown imposed by the callous Seoul authorities, seemingly unable or unwilling to distinguish between man or monster, complicates matters.
Where Busan was a brash and frequently deafening spectacle, this is notably more downbeat, cast in a muted, perma-grey hue and focusing on those desolate souls trapped in life’s margins. At times it is oppressively morose, but it has a nice dusting of social realism to go with the violence, and reaches an agreeably nasty conclusion.
