Gangnam Zombie (2023): Worst Zombie movie ever?

Greetings!

Okay, sorry if the title put you off. Perhaps you've seen the movie and felt I was too harsh to have tagged it like that.

Gagnam Zombie is a Korean horror/Action/survival movie released in 2023.

To be very honest, I loved the first scenes of this movie before the zombie breakout. I was enjoying the fun in the comic displays from the Boss in the office and the Landlady of the Gangnam Plaza until they decided to spoil the fun for me with a very poorly written zombie attack. Oh yeah, I have watched a lot of zombie movies and TV shows, and to be honest, not all of them follow a particular zombie behavior — such as zombies that run very fast, the ones that behave very stupidly, and the ones that only come out at night because rays of sunlight scare them. Maybe I expected the ones in this movie to fall within those categories, which they actually did, but it was badly plotted.

The storyline is a bit cool, especially with the comedic scenes.

The movie started with two armed robbers who went to rob containers of jewelry. They succeeded, but one of them got bitten by a cat they found in the container, and the person got infected with the zombie-like unknown virus. He attacked the second person, and that was it. His next scene was when he was caught eating raw animal flesh, but the police couldn't catch him because he ran off so quickly.

Hyun-Seok, a very handsome guy, works in one of the offices in the big Gangnam Plaza under a very unserious boss who has refused to pay the office rent and owes the staff salaries. The landlady is the type that doesn't take nonsense, but despite her no-nonsense lifestyle, they’ve been outsmarting her and owing rent. In the office, Hyun-Seok has a crush on the only lady there, Min-Jing. He always gets jealous whenever their boss makes advances toward the girl. I loved their scenes together because they were so catchy and funny — those were the only scenes I enjoyed.

Then, there was a zombie breakout. The guy who was earlier bitten by the cat — the zombie guy — showed up in the plaza and began to bite people. The ones bitten turned within minutes and began to hunt for others, which is a normal zombie characteristic. But one of the things that turned me off even more was how all the zombies were still in their right senses and fighting karate. I overlooked this and continued watching.

A lot of drama unfolded, especially with how the boss in the office was all about making videos to upload to their YouTube page. In the process, he even sacrificed members of the staff to avoid being bitten. The landlady insisted that no one should call the police because she didn’t want the value of the building to reduce.

Towards the end, it was just Hyun-Seok and Min-Jung (his crush) that were remaining, and there was no escape route because all the places in the plaza were filled with zombies. They started fighting their way out and, so poorly, they were doing lovey-dovey gestures in the midst of a zombie survival run. Those scenes were so unappealing. For God's sake, they were being chased, and their only thought should have been survival, but the writer still plotted it to have them exchange romantic gestures in the middle of a crisis.

Okay, fine. As if those were not enough, Hyun-Seok was bitten towards the end, and after the farewell talks and crying, they found out that the bite wasn’t real — it was a denture(artificial) mouth(set of teeth ) that had fallen out. This raised a lot of questions because no one knew how that came about, and the movie ended without an explanation. Poorly written script!

If not for the comic part, I would have rated it 0/10, but because of that, I’m going to give it 1.1/10.

The characters were excellent in their roles, especially the main characters such as the boss, Hyun-Seok, Min-Jung, and the landlady. The main zombie guy was also good, but the zombie characterization was totally off.

Below is the trailer; https://youtu.be/zAF2VSF7dxA?si=oLE-wBfSBjBw-zA2

Thumbnail: IMDb

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