Brief Story Line
Four years after the insident of the first movie, Korea (now known as Peninsula) was locked down to avoid the virus spread. A group of survivors who fled to Hong Kong led by Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won - Golden Slumber, A Violent Prosecutor etc) and his brother in-law Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon) were trying to locate valuable items in Korea.
Unbeknownst to them, some group of military survivors led by Captain Seo (Koo Kyo-hwan) and Sergeant Hwang (Kim Min-jae) were guarding the territory while collecting various things that could still be used. In his mission Jung-seok also met with a survivor named Min-jeong (Lee Jung-hyun - Battleship Island etc) who was keeping her daughters Jooni (Lee Re - Hope, Memories of the Alhambra series etc) and Yoo Jin (Lee Ye-won) as well as her father in-law (Kwon Hae yo - Juror 8 etc) safe.
So could Jung-seok finish his task and get to safety while being chased by swarm of zombies? Find them all in this intense zombie movie.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, that first movie which I saw 4 years ago left a deep impression to me until now. I remembered how it was such a roller coaster of emotions and so much intense feeling throughout the whole movie. Therefore I could not help to compare it with this sequel. The early moment actually did give me something to look forward to as I thought it would be similar. But as the story continued, I got the sense that the story was heading into a different direction. And to be honest I got a real mixed feeling about it.
On one hand I could understand the logic of what would happen after four years, but somehow it made me feel like I was watching The Walking Dead series. And when I got to see Captain Seo & Sergeant Hwang, I felt the movie was transformed into Mad Max. But aside from the unoriginality (and perhaps rather weak plot), the intensity was still very strong. The action sequence were great to watch, with some wonderful car chase scenes that left me breathless.
There were also few touching moments especially in the beginning and towards the end. The characters of two girls Jooni and Yoo Jin (played nicely by Lee Re and Lee Ye-won) were likely to add emotions for audience. The main lead here was Gang Dong-won who was totally awesome in action sequence while Lee Jung-hyun also surprised me with how well she was in the action part. Oh Koo Kyo-hwan and Kim Min Jae performed their roles as villains perfectly and successfully made me hate them from the start.
Just like in the first movie, the zombies here were a lot and very quick. The story was mostly set at night so the zombies were not as clearly seen. Btw, I am not sure if it's because I watched the film on my TV but I was rather surprised by the seemingly low quality of the visual effects because I could see very clearly the car chase scenes were done using computer. The computer animation looked too obvious. Perhaps it would be different if I saw this in theater (especially with amazing sound effects). But since we are in unique situation, I should still be grateful that I could see this movie in the comfort and safety of my room while it's still playing in cinemas.
As a sequel to that amazing movie, I personally felt this one was not as good as its predecessor. While that one has some humane feel with nice dramatic touch, this film seemed to focus on the action (albeit awesomely done) but did not really leave a mark on my heart. However, as a zombie action movie this one did its job. Fans of such genre would definitely still enjoy it like I did. So if you have watched Train to Busan, then it would not be complete if you do not see the sequel. And if you have the courage to go to cinema, then you could definitely watch it there, but if you are like me and my wife who prefer to be careful, then you could watch it on Catchplay.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Side Note: If you are First Media subscriber, you could get free single rental that you could use to rent this movie like I did.
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