Oddly enough I hadn't even heard about "#Alive" before getting the opportunity to sit down and watch it. And even more surprising is that I am a huge fan of zombie movies, so the fact that "Alive" had eluded me was odd.
Nevertheless, this being the year that the highly anticipated "Peninsula" - the sequel to "Train to Busan" - also coming out, it was a little bit strange to find another zombie movie from the South Korean cinema. Not that I mind that, no, no, no. Not at all. In fact "#Alive" (aka "#Saraitda") actually turned out to be more enjoyable and entertaining than "Peninsula" was. Yeah, I know, right...
Anyway, I will say that "#Alive" is not your average run-of-the-mill zombie movie. And I love the way that the movie starts out and just throws the audience right into the action. That was just glorious. I liked that so much, because the zombie action is what is enjoyable, not the things leading up to it.
The acting in "#Alive" was good, and the lead actor and actress managed to carry the movie quite well, especially since there were hardly any other performers in the movie with dialogue.
The zombie make-up and effects were good, and taking into consideration that this was in the beginning of an outbreak, you shouldn't expect to see fully decomposed shambling corpses. Normally I am not overly keen on running and agile zombies, but I will say that it actually worked out well enough in "#Alive", for some reason.
If you enjoy zombie movies, then you definitely should take the time to sit down and watch the 2020 movie "#Alive" from writer and director Il Cho, because it does bring new contents to the zombie genre.
I am rating "#Alive" a six out of ten star. Quite worth the time, money and effort, and a well-worthy addition to the zombie genre. So it seems that 2020 did end up with a proper zombie movie after all.
