A scene "Seoul Station," directed by Yeon Sang-ho / Courtesy of NEW



By Park Jin-hai

Yeon Sang-ho, director of the box-office hit zombie flick "Train to Busan" that has attracted more than 10 million viewers this summer, is back with another zombie story ― "Seoul Station."

Unlike "Train to Busan," which portrays a scared father and a happy ending, the animated feature "Seoul Station" is a return to his original roots, and the fame that the internationally acclaimed director has built for his works ― bloodshed and cruelty in real life seen in "The King of Pigs" (2011)" and "The Fake" (2013).

Unlike Train to Busan, where ordinary citizens race to find a haven in Busan, the setting of Seoul Station is extended and grimmer, with characters that make the very bottom of the social ladder ― the homeless, a runaway girl and her pimping boyfriend ― all of whom have no home to go to.





Poster for "Seoul Station"



The film starts with an aged homeless man who has bloody wounds on his neck and shoulder limping into Seoul Station. From station officials and a welfare-preaching university student nearby to aid workers at the shelter for the homeless, all turn a blind eye to the old man, because he is homeless. Only the dying man's less intelligent friend, who is also homeless, runs for help, but to no avail. The dead man becomes a blood-sucking zombie and makes the entire city a living hell.

The runaway girl, Hye-sun, who fled a brothel, has an argument with her boyfriend, Ki-woong, who tried to get money by pimping her out. Hye-sun walks out of a hotel they stayed at overnight and gets swept into the mob fleeing the walking dead. Hye-sun's father, who has come to find his daughter, and Ki-woong search for her and the trio are cornered. They are caught between the undead and security forces that make barricades and shoot water cannon, and finally fire artillery at those who climb onto the police bus, ironically calling them "insurgents."

Seoul Station outwits Train to Busan and is embedded with many metaphors that constantly pose questions to viewers about who is to blame for the ultimate apocalypse and who those zombies are in the real world.

When the film is finished, the 93-miute animation makes viewers feel like the live-action zombie flick is more or less a fairytale compared with Seoul Station.

The director said that Seoul Station and Train to Busan both focus on the same key word, "home," adding that the former shows the bare face of what home and family mean in modern society, while the latter focuses on what they ideally should be.

The model house where the shocking final showdown takes place in the film best represents the home the director intends to portray, which is not as a real home with families but as a house with exterior frames.

Actor Ryu Seong-ryong, who voiced the role of Hye-sun's father, said during a press conference: "In the end, the film gives a painful lesson that the most dreadful are not those zombies out there but people."

Seoul Station will hit local theaters on Aug. 18.