Alive (2020 film)

#Alive (Korean: #살아있다; RR: #Saraitda) is a 2020 South Korean zombie film directed by Cho Il-hyung, starring Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye.[2] It is based on the 2019 script Alone by Matt Naylor who co-adapted his script with Cho. It is set during a zombie apocalypse, and revolves around a gamer's struggle for survival as he is forced to stay alone at his flat and even confront the zombies trying to break in.

Alive
Theatrical release poster
Hangul살아있다
Revised RomanizationSaraitda
Directed byCho Il-hyung
Produced byEugene Lee
Saemi Kim
Saerom Kim
Screenplay byCho Il-hyung
Matt Naylor
Based onAlone
by Matt Naylor
StarringYoo Ah-in
Park Shin-hye
CinematographyWon-ho Son
Production
company
ZIP Cinema
Perspective Pictures
Distributed byLotte Entertainment
Release date
  • June 24, 2020 (2020-06-24) (South Korea)
Running time
99 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
Box officeUS$13.4 million [1]

The film was released in South Korea on June 24, 2020.[3][4][5][6][7]

Plot

Joon-woo is a gamer who spends his days doing live broadcasts and sulking in his apartment. One day, players begin asking for help and urging Joon-woo to look at the TV. Joon-woo turns on the TV to see a live broadcast of a mysterious pathogen spreading across Korea, and Joon-woo looks outside to see people eating each other and running, in particularly a schoolgirl biting her mom and later eating her. Joon-woo, shocked at the revelation, barricades himself inside his apartment. He lets in a local tenant but is revealed to be infected, and Joon-woo locks him out.

As the days pass and more people get infected, Joon-woo runs out of food and water, hallucinates about his family, and one day listens to a broadcast of his family being eaten, which is heard by the infected. In a fit of rage, Joon-woo kills an infected, before a hoard forces him hide among the discarded rubbish and he barely makes it back to his apartment.

Driven by loneliness, Joon-Woo is preparing to kill himself. He broadcasts a farewell message and prepares to hang himself but is stopped by a laser pointer. Realizing that there is another person that have survived, he freed himself and sees a lady, Yoo-bin, who lives in the opposite apartment. They quickly meet daily, and as Joon-woo was hungry due to lack of food, Yoo-bin tried to see how far 2 apartments were, and threw a baseball tied to a string to her balcony fence. But the baseball only reached not even half of the distance. Afterwards Joon-woo used his drone to carry a string from his apartment to Yoo-bin's and hence Yoo-bin is able to pass food to Joon-woo via a homemade zipline. However an infected managed to climb up the apartment via the string made from the baseball that Yoo-Bin threw and use it to climb up Yoo-bin's window, but Joon-woo uses his drone to distract the infected, and Yoon-bin kills it, at the cost of Joon-woo’s drone

As Joon-woo slowly runs out of food, he began searching for neighbouring rooms to see if there's any food supplies and makes it to another room, where he sees a walkie talkie and some foodstuffs left behind by the owner. Joon-woo sends a talkie and some food to Yoo-bin and they begin to talk via walkie talkie, but infected hoards soon flood the area, having tracked Joon-woo and Yoo-bin from the drone. Realizing that they are going to die, they made a plan to reach Joon-woo's apartment eighth floor that Yoo-bin claims there is no one and is safe. Yoo-bin mountain climbs her way down and with Joon-woo's help, they made it to eight floor. But there was a lone zombie that alerted a horde and with their lives seemingly in desperation, they are saved by a man, who gives them food and water but his real intentions are proven when he knocks the two out, intending for Yoo-bin to be infected by his zombie wife (he needed someone alive to feed her) that was in a locked room but Joon-woo manages to wake up in time and threatens him with a gun (having picked it up while they were running) and Yoo-Bin manages to break free from the zombie wife's grasp and the man is killed by his wife.

Joon-woo, watching the man die, shoots him and his wife out of mercy but the gunshots attract the infected. Thinking that help will never come, Yoo-bin requests to be killed before the infected reach the apartment floor. But just as Joon-woo was preparing to mercily kill Yoo-bin, can't bring himself to do it, and instead hears a rescue helicopter flying around their apartment. Both of them decide to make it to the rooftop. However, the infected follow them, but as they are about to die, the military shoots the zombie horde down and Joon-woo and Yoo-bin are loaded onto the helicopter. The final scene shows them on the helicopter, as a voiceover by an anchorman explaining that the military are making their way to survivor areas since data connections had started to stabilize and survivors can use their SNS back to give their location to the military.

Cast
  • Yoo Ah-in as Joon-woo, a gamer who struggles to survive a zombie outbreak. He almost hung himself after losing hope when hearing his family are killed by zombies, but he refound new hope after knowing there is another survivor called Yoo-bin. Special weapon : drone
  • Park Shin-hye as Yoo-bin, a mysterious lady who helped Joon-woo survive. She seem frequently killed zombies who trespassed her house using her hand axe and booby-trapped door. Special weapon : hand axe
  • Lee Hyun-woo as the infected tenant whom Joon-woo let in.
  • Lee Chae-kyung as the policewoman who was killed by the infected.
  • Jeon Bae-soo as a man who saved Joon-woo and Yoo-bin, but actually wanted to feed his zombified wife using their bodies. Special weapon : smoke bomb

Production

Development

#Alive is a zombie thriller[8] based on the original script "#Alone" of Hollywood screenwriter Matt Naylor, who worked on the American documentary series Small Business Revolution: Main Street and the short film What It’s Like. Director Cho Il-hyung (also known as IL CHO) and Naylor adapted the screenplay together for the Korean market.[9][10] In 2019, ZIP Cinema and U.S producer, Perspective Pictures, joined the production with Lotte Entertainment distributing the film.

Casts

On July 11, 2019, Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye joined the cast,[11] followed by Lee Hyun-wook on September 16.[12] The read-through of the script occurred on September 27, 2019.

Filming

Principal photography began on October 1, 2019. Filming took place in Gunsan and wrapped up on December 12, 2019.[13]

Release

The film was released in South Korea on June 24, 2020.[14][15][16]

Reception

Box office

On its opening day in South Korea, #Alive drew in a total of 204,071 viewers and took 62% of the box office, marking the highest first-day viewership of any film since February 2020 prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Korea.[17][18][19] It holds the highest number of first-day admissions next to The Man Standing Next.[20][21]

On the fifth day of its release, #Alive surpassed 1 million admissions, and during the first weekend of its release, it garnered 1,001,802 viewers, securing the first place at the box office for its first weekend. It's the first film to surpass 1 million since February 2020.[22] After topping the charts its first three weekends, it has since clocked up 1,901,099 admissions in its home country.[23][24][25]

Critical Response

On Korean review aggregator Naver Movie Database, the film holds an approval rating of 7.09 from critic reviews and 5.57 from the audience.[26]

References
  1. "#Alive". Korean Film Council.
  2. Choi, Ji-won (May 27, 2020). "Yoo Ah-in, Park Shin-hye team up in zombie horror film '#Alive'". The Korea Herald. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  3. "충무로 배급사들 신작 개봉 시기 놓고 저울질". Sports Khan (in Korean). May 7, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  4. "유아인X박신혜 '#살아있다' 6월 말 개봉확정…런칭포스터 2종 공개". The Korea Herald (in Korean). May 18, 2020.
  5. "Despite appearances, #Alive is most definitely not a zombie movie". Korea JoongAng Daily. May 27, 2020.
  6. "Korean zombies will make you feel '#Alive'". Korea Herald. June 16, 2020.
  7. "In '#Alive,' two survivors struggle to escape zombie-hit homes". Korea Times. June 16, 2020.
  8. "유아인X박신혜 '#살아있다' 6월 말 개봉확정…런칭포스터 2종 공개". Korea Herald (in Korean). May 18, 2020.
  9. "#ALONE". Perspective Pictures. 2019.
  10. "충무로 배급사들 신작 개봉 시기 놓고 저울질". Sports Khan (in Korean). May 7, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  11. Conran, Pierce (July 18, 2019). "Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye Sign on to #Alone". Korean Film Council. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  12. "[단독]'타인은 지옥이다' 이현욱, '#ALONE' 캐스팅..유아인X박신혜 호흡". Asiae (in Korean). September 15, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  13. "박신혜, 영화 얼론(ALONE) 촬영 모습 공개… "군산에 사랑가득했던"". Newswork (in Korean). January 13, 2020. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
  14. "코로나19 이후 '얼론' '반도' 재난 영화 몰려온다". Yonhap (in Korean). April 15, 2020. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  15. "Zombie Thriller Starring Yoo Ah-in, Park Shin-hye Due out Next Month". The Chosun Ilbo. May 20, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  16. Kim, Ji-hye (May 27, 2020). "유아인X박신혜 '#살아있다', 6월 24일 개봉 확정". SBS Fune (in Korean). Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  17. "'유아인 원맨쇼 통했나' #살아있다 개봉 첫날 20만…코로나 극장가 활기" (in Korean). Hankyung. June 25, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
  18. Liem, Vivien (June 26, 2020). "Ahead of 'Peninsula', another zombie thriller dominates South Korean box office". The Star.
  19. "Zombie flick '#ALIVE' sells more than 200,000 tickets on opening day". The Korea Times. June 25, 2020.
  20. "#살아있다, 개봉 첫날 20만 동원…코로나19 사태 후 최고 오프닝" (in Korean). Aju News. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
  21. "Movie lovers start to return to theaters thanks to '#Alive'". Joongang Daily. June 25, 2020.
  22. "[공식] '#살아있다', 코로나19 속 개봉 5일만 100만 돌파…'유아인X박신혜 특별한 감사 인사'" (in Korean). My Daily. June 28, 2020.
  23. "유아인X박신혜 '#살아있다', 손익분기점 돌파…VOD 서비스 1위" (in Korean). Joy News24. August 4, 2020. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  24. "#ALIVE (2020)". Korean Film Biz Zone.
  25. "[HanCinema's News] "#ALIVE" Opens on South Korean VOD Services". HanCinema. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
  26. "#살아있다". Naver 영화.
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