6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
When the illegal human experiments of Korea’s biggest Pharmaceutical company go wrong, one of their “undead” test subjects escapes and ends up in a shabby gas station owned by the Park family.
Starring: Jang Se-ah, Jeong Jae-yeong, Jung Ga-ram, Kim Nam-gil, Lee Soo-kyungForeign | 100% |
Horror | 50% |
Dark humor | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Korean: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Korean: LPCM 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There is a very interesting and well done video essay included on Zombie for Sale as a supplement entitled Eat Together, Kill Together: The Family in Peril Comedy, where critic Pierce Conran details what he terms (as indicated by the supplement's very title) a “family in danger” subgenre that has populated Korean cinema for decades. Conran includes a wealth of salient examples in his piece (including last year’s Best Film Academy Award winner, Parasite ), but the most important thing to realize about Zombie for Sale is that the “peril” in this instance is played strictly for laughs. That said, there are certain more serious socioeconomic issues that Zombie for Sale at least alludes to, if not addresses outright, as the film’s focal family, the Parks, are schemers and some might even allege grifters out to better themselves in any way possible in a society that doesn’t always provide them easy access to a so-called “easy” life. While Zombie for Sale perhaps unsurprisingly ultimately features a number of "The Walking Dead" (so to speak), it also has some unexpected plot elements, including a sidebar that almost plays like the zombie version of Cocoon, with elders discovering a "fountain of youth", at least temporarily, after having been bitten by one of the feral shambling creatures.
Zombie for Sale is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains only the following pretty generic verbiage about the presentation:
Zombie for Sale / Gimyohan gajok is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio [sic]* with Uncompressed Stereo and 5.1 Surround sound. The High Definition master was provide by M-Line Distribution.This is another film of relatively recent vintage that I haven't been able to track down much if any technical information on, though in a kind of weird little datapoint, one of the few credits for the film that the IMDb lists is for "digital intermediate producers", which I think may be the only time I've seen that particular credit. In any case, the recent vintage of the film may have helped to support this generally excellent looking presentation, one that offers a really nicely vivid palette, especially in the many outdoor scenes, and some nice fine detail that understandably perks up considerably during close-ups. There's not a ton of grading in the film, though the rain drenched opening is bathed in cobalt blues and some later material after Jjong-bi is more or less taken captive features a prevalence of golden ambers and yellows, but detail levels remain nicely consistent throughout for the most part, with only some intermittent deficits in shadow detail.
Zombie for Sale features both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks in the original Korean, with optional English subtitles. The surround track nicely opens up the outdoor material in particular, and some of the film's fun underscore also is noticeably more spacious in this version. The stereo track still has decent separation, but the music in particular can sound a bit more focused and less dispersed. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and there are no problems of any kind to report.
- Segment 1 (1080p; 1:02)
- Segment 2 (1080p; 1:03)
Zombie for Sale is a rather sweet and often quite funny enterprise, and it manages to build its humor out of both well established characters and some inventive sight gags. Things of course get into almost farcical chaotic territory in the final act in particular, and the film does have a few lapses in internal logic, but anyone wanting a few laughs in an at least intermittently angst ridden context may well find this unusually entertaining. Technical merits are solid, and as usual Arrow has provided some appealing supplements. Recommended.
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