Gangnam Zombie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Gangnam Zombie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 26, 2023

Any number of properties ranging from The Walking Dead to Warm Bodies to The Last of Us have attempted to do something innovative with zombie or zombie adjacent material. Suffice it to say Gangnam Zombie has no similar ambitions, and instead goes for the gusto, if that's the right word, in terms of providing one cliché after another, down to and including a structural artifice wherein the film begins in medias res with our hero and heroine attempting to outrun some shambling undead, only to then have things revert back 24 hours so that we get, in Paul Harvey's inimitable words, "the rest of the story". Unfortunately for Gangnam Zombie, the "rest of the story" is one most viewers will have seen countless times before.

For anyone intrigued enough by the film's title to check it out, Gangnam Zombie offers a couple of at least passingly interesting aspects, including the fact that it is overtly placed within the context of Covid 19, and also it's actually an animal attack that begins everything. Otherwise, though, this is pretty standard stuff, though there is perhaps just a little hilarity in the fact that the film posits focal male Hyeon-seok (Ji Il- joo) as a former South Korean taekwando champ who uses his "particular set of skills" to take out various zombies. Ji-Yeon Park is also on hand as focal female Min-jeong, who initially has a love-hate relationship with Hyeon-seok (but guess where that one goes as the story unfolds). As is often the case with horror films in general, and zombie films in particular, the story ends with a little "sting" suggesting that the undead are not quite totally dead yet. Surprise, surprise.

Gangnam Zombie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gangnam Zombie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The closing credits are mostly in Korean, with the exception of a few logos, and the IMDb is without any technical data as of the writing of this review, so I can't provide any authoritative information, but this is a competent digital capture that I'm assuming had a 2K DI. Detail levels are often quite good throughout this story, helped by the fact that a lot of the tale plays out in the bright fluorescent lighting of a modern day office building. The palette is nicely saturated and natural looking. Some of the zombie makeup is a little silly at times, but there are some pretty graphic kill scenes and some other moments, as in "Patient Zero" consuming raw meat on a crowded Seoul boulevard that may provoke squeamishness in some. There are some minor moments of banding in moments like the film's final fade.

Gangnam Zombie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gangnam Zombie features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Korean (unlike a lot of releases of foreign language films from Well Go USA, this Blu-ray does not offer an English dub). There's decent if never completely overwhelming surround activity scattered throughout the sound design, despite the fact that most of the story takes place in the relatively confined spaces of an office building. A pulsing score also reverberates through the side and rear channels recurrently. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Gangnam Zombie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:42)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Gangnam Zombie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It was perhaps a mistake to include the word Gangnam in this film's title, since it will probably unavoidably evoke thoughts of "Style", and that's one thing that this film is missing in large part. You've seen this story countless times before, but if you want to see it again, this disc provides generally solid technical merits for anyone considering making a purchase.