Director: Sang-ho Yeon
Writer: Sang-ho Yeon, Ryu Yong-Jae (Screenplay)
Starring: Dong-Won Gang, Jung-hyun Lee, Re Lee, Hae-Hyo Kwon, Min-Jae, Kim, Gyo-hwan Koo, Do-Yoon Kim
Plot: Peninsula takes place four years after the zombie outbreak in Train to Busan. The Korean peninsula is devastated and Jung Seok, a former soldier who has managed to escape overseas, is given a mission to go back and unexpectedly meets survivors.
Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Peninsula starts as the spread of the virus as become worldwide news, seeing any Korean turned away from any country, with the rest of the world managing to contain the problem. 4 years after the outbreak soldier Jung Seok (Gang) who managed to escape, only he is still filled with pain for what happened on his escape.
Jung Seok is recruited to head back to South Korea with a group of other survivors as they go in search of money, only for the team to come under attack by the remaining zombies and more surprisingly, survivors Jooni (Lee) and Yu Jin (Lee) from the first attacks.
Thoughts on Peninsula
Characters – Jung Seok is a soldier that was part of the rescue off the coasts of South Korea, he lost his family in the events, while ignore others, four years later he is hiding out in Hong Kong, when he is recruited to return to Korea for a job which will give him freedom, here he finds out there is more than just a simple heist going on, he needs to deal with survivors who have turned the land into their own playground. Min Jung is a woman Jung Seok didn’t help in the escape, she has raised her daughters in the world filled with zombies and human threats, trained them to defend themselves and stay alive, she wants them safe, which sees her team up with Jung to plan an escape for them. Jooni and Yu Jin are the daughters who get an explosive entrance as they bring us a completely over the top car chase around the abandoned streets and are open to a new life. When it comes to the human villains we get a group of thug like figures that wouldn’t look out of place in a Mad Max film, with what they are planning withing their kingdom.
Performances – Dong-Won Gang in the leading role does bring us an entertaining hero to watch look make amends for his errors, with Jung-hyun Lee being the strong fighting mother in the film, with Rel Lee and Ye-Won Lee being the entertaining kids that steal the action scenes. With most of the villainous roles being well over the top, being different enough from the first film.
Story – The story here takes us back to the world where the zombie outbreak devastated Korea, with the rest of the world remaining virus free, a former soldier must return to capture his freedom with a heist only to find himself in a battle between a family trying to escape a land filled with an evil tyrant and his sick games. This is a sequel to one of the greatest zombie movies ever, with the only connection truly being the world we are in, none of the surviving characters return, which is a disappointment, and we lose the contained environment, which also made the first one feel so unique and special. Away from the flaws from the first one missing, we do enter into a completely new idea of a world, which does blend the Mad Max and Escape from New York environment, with a heist like story. We do have one big overrunning story of redemption involved here too, which does play heavily into characters decision making.
Action/Horror – The action is bonkers, with massively over the top chase sequences which will see zombies flying everywhere, without having any physics involved with what is happened.
Settings – The film does show us a post-apocalyptic world after a zombie outbreak, which will see the devastation of what has been happening in the world.
Special Effects – The effects are the weakest part of the film, this is because none of the sequences look remotely real with the over the top look to them.
Scene of the Movie – The escape chase.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The effects don’t look great.
Final Thoughts – This is a wildly over the top sequel that doesn’t reach the heights of the original, only for it to bring us a new vision to the zombie world that works well.
