Ugh, how cliché and outdated of a trope is it for a movie in 2023 to be using the Covid-19 as foundation and focal point for its story. Really, really lousy and lazy concept idea from screenwriter Choe Seung. And I have to admit that seeing that the movie started out with using Covid-19 as the source of the zombie outbreak, I was on the brink of getting up and turning off the movie.
But with it being a zombie movie, of course I opted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that the movie had landed a staggering 3.2 rating here on IMDb in this very moment as I am reviewing "Gangnam Zombie" after having just sat through all 81 minutes of it.
Well, I should have heeded the warnings and not wasted 81 minutes on watching "Gangnam Zombie", because it was a mess of a zombie movie, to say the least.
The storyline was pretty straight forward, a small group of people are stuck inside a mall while ravenous zombies are amassing inside and posing a threat to their lives. Gee, where have we seen this before? Could it possibly have been in 1978 and again in 2004? So screenwriter Choe Seung was just using old tropes that have been utilized in other movies, and to much better end results in those movies.
But wait, it gets better, because apparently some of the zombies, not all, grew vampire-like fangs. What was up with that? Well, I will tell you what was up with that. It was rubbish. And it was the worse sets of plastic click-on toy vampire dentures I have ever seen. It looked so atrocious and it just made zero sense why zombies suddenly would grow vampire fangs. And why just the key zombies in the story? Why not all? Zero sense from screenwriter Choe Seung.
What worked in favor of "Gangnam Zombie" was the sheer pacing of the storyline, because there was a lot of intense action with the infected zombies, and that definitely helped to keep the movie somewhat afloat.
The zombies in "Gangnam Zombie" were a mixed bag of nuts. First of all, it was very hard to abhor from the very oddly jerky and spastic movements that the zombies were making whilst immobile or shambling about. And the fact that the zombies were fast, agile runners just didn't sit well with me. I never liked running zombies. But it should be said that the zombie make-up was actually fair enough. It isn't the typical rotting and decaying zombies with massive traumas, but it actually worked well enough. Well, if you look away from the toy vampire dentures.
And the acting performances in the movie were good. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Gangnam Zombie", but they had some good actors and actresses on the cast list.
Right, well I can tick "Gangnam Zombie" off the zombie movie list now, as I have seen it. However, I am never returning to watching it a second time, because it was a swing and a miss of a zombie movie actually. And if you enjoy zombie movies, you might actually want to skip out on it entirely.
My rating of director Soo Sung Lee's 20233 "Gangnam Zombie" lands on a three out of ten stars, and that was because of the cast ensemble and the intense zombie action that dragged it up from a two star rating to a three star rating.
But with it being a zombie movie, of course I opted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that the movie had landed a staggering 3.2 rating here on IMDb in this very moment as I am reviewing "Gangnam Zombie" after having just sat through all 81 minutes of it.
Well, I should have heeded the warnings and not wasted 81 minutes on watching "Gangnam Zombie", because it was a mess of a zombie movie, to say the least.
The storyline was pretty straight forward, a small group of people are stuck inside a mall while ravenous zombies are amassing inside and posing a threat to their lives. Gee, where have we seen this before? Could it possibly have been in 1978 and again in 2004? So screenwriter Choe Seung was just using old tropes that have been utilized in other movies, and to much better end results in those movies.
But wait, it gets better, because apparently some of the zombies, not all, grew vampire-like fangs. What was up with that? Well, I will tell you what was up with that. It was rubbish. And it was the worse sets of plastic click-on toy vampire dentures I have ever seen. It looked so atrocious and it just made zero sense why zombies suddenly would grow vampire fangs. And why just the key zombies in the story? Why not all? Zero sense from screenwriter Choe Seung.
What worked in favor of "Gangnam Zombie" was the sheer pacing of the storyline, because there was a lot of intense action with the infected zombies, and that definitely helped to keep the movie somewhat afloat.
The zombies in "Gangnam Zombie" were a mixed bag of nuts. First of all, it was very hard to abhor from the very oddly jerky and spastic movements that the zombies were making whilst immobile or shambling about. And the fact that the zombies were fast, agile runners just didn't sit well with me. I never liked running zombies. But it should be said that the zombie make-up was actually fair enough. It isn't the typical rotting and decaying zombies with massive traumas, but it actually worked well enough. Well, if you look away from the toy vampire dentures.
And the acting performances in the movie were good. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Gangnam Zombie", but they had some good actors and actresses on the cast list.
Right, well I can tick "Gangnam Zombie" off the zombie movie list now, as I have seen it. However, I am never returning to watching it a second time, because it was a swing and a miss of a zombie movie actually. And if you enjoy zombie movies, you might actually want to skip out on it entirely.
My rating of director Soo Sung Lee's 20233 "Gangnam Zombie" lands on a three out of ten stars, and that was because of the cast ensemble and the intense zombie action that dragged it up from a two star rating to a three star rating.