#Alive (#살아있다, #Saraitda) is a 2020 South Korean zombie film. It's directed by Cho Il-hyung, based on a script by Matt Naylor (the same script was adapted into a 2020 American film, Alone), and stars Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye. It was released in South Korea on 24 June and globally released by Netflix on 8 September.
Oh Joon-woo is alone in his apartment when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. He barricades himself in as the infected overrun the neighbourhood. Then he meets Kim Yoo-bin, a survivor from the opposite apartment, and the two of them make an attempt to escape.
Contains examples of:
- Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Downplayed. Joon-woo has no real way to barricade his apartment and the lock at his door is busted, so he puts the empty fridge into the doorway. He still has to forcibly push it toward the door when zombies try to get in, but at least there is something helping him staying safe. On one particular night, when a single zombie does bungle into his apartment, the tight space between the fridge and the walls is all that keeps it from getting any further inside.
- Action Girl: Yoo-bin is far more competent and motivated than Joon-woo, having also easier time taking down zombies. Even when she's facing various hurdles later in the story, she never suffers from Chickification.
- Action Survivor: Joon-woo is a video game live streamer who survives the zombie apocalypse.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Subverted. In fact this is how Joon-woo kills his first zombie; he doesn't kill it himself but simply throws it out of his apartment, where a much bigger zombie proceeds to smash it into a pulp. Though this is the one and only time where a zombie actually kills another zombie, so it's possible the big zombie thought the smaller one was human.
- Apocalyptic Log: Joon-woo records video diaries during the zombie apocalypse for his subscribers, though he slowly becomes more unhinged, starving and breaks down after he hears his family killed in their last voicemail to him. The last message, he cannot even say anything, only giving a smile to the audience before turning it off and going to the noose he has rigged up. Luckily, Yoo-bin saves him. Then it turns out the military saw the messages and come to save the pair at the end, with other survivors recordings leading to them being saved as well.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: Just as Yoo-bin and Joon-woo manage to enter an elevator, the zombie horde on their tails manages to bust through the reinforced glass door of the apartment complex.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Masked Man saves Yoo-bin and Joon-woo from a horde of zombies and offers them food, but he drugged their drinks, ties them up and locks Yoo-bin in a bedroom. It turns out the Masked Man was keeping his zombified wife in said room, and fed her living humans to keep her alive.
- Bittersweet Ending: By the end Joon-woo has lost his entire family, but he and Yoo-bin are alive and the military are rescuing other survivors.
- Bungled Suicide: If Yun-bin didn't interrupt him, Joon-woo would completely mess up his own hanging. Since he obviously didn't took any measurements, he ends up simply suffocating after pushing away the stool from beneath himself, rather than breaking his neck. Good thing, for it gave him enough time to save himself.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Double Subverted. There's no cell phone signal in the apartment block, but when Joon-woo leans out the window with a selfie stick, he's able to get a signal for just long enough to receive a voicemail from his parents. However, he still can't use it to call for help.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The policewoman's gun is a literal example. The policewoman drops it before her death early in the film. Much later Yoo-bin picks it up, and during the climax it delays the zombies long enough to save Yoo-bin's and Joon-woo's lives.
- Joon-woo's video messages. The Korean military use it to track him down and save him and Yoo-bin when the infected close in on them.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- As useless as it might seem, Joon-woo being a streamer ends up saving his and Yoo-bin skins multiple times. He uses his filming drone on two separate occasions (getting a cord to Yoo-bin apartment and then distracting a zombie trying to attack her) and his ongoing, daily online journal is what prompts the military to send rescue.
- Yoo-bin is an alpine climber. She has all the gear and experience needed for Fast-Roping.
- Damsel out of Distress: Twice, just to show how resourceful Yoo-bin is. Chickification? What's that?
- She on her own gets out of her apartment once it is no longer sustainable, Fast-Roping to the parking lot, getting through a horde out there and then inside the Joon-woo's building.
- When the Masked Man tricks her into drinking spiked water, she still didn't down an entire glass herself and then successfully fights against his zombiefied wife, despite having her own hands tied.
- Devoured by the Horde:
- The implied fate of Joon-woo's family, especially given their final phone message.
- The policewoman. At first it's just two of her zombified colleagues, but the gunshots attract an entire swarm after her.
- Dramatic Irony: In the opening, Joon-woo's mother is going to get groceries. This not only means she ends up being Devoured by the Horde, but there is also barely anything to eat inside the apartment.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Combination of hunger, dehydration, ennui and simple despair eventually drive Joon-woo to hang himself after three weeks of being besieged. Yoo-bin stops him while he's in the middle of it.
- After realising there is no way they can escape or hide from the horde in the finale, Yoo-bin hands the revolver to Joon-woo and tells him they can at least die on their own terms rather than be eaten alive. However, she can't self-terminate, and he just can't bring himself to pull the trigger on her. Eventually the stand-off is dissolved by the sound of a chopper.
- Establishing Character Moment: Yoo-bin saves Joon-woo when he attempts suicide by using her laser pointer to alert him to her presence, then uses a sign on the wall to call him an idiot.
- Shortly after, we see her makeshift door trap as she prepares her hatchet, then see her drinking water. When she sees her plant and she looks over the marked water rations per day on her bottle, she gives some of the water to the plant.
- Golf Clubbing: The only thing that even resembles a weapon at Joon-woo disposal are his father's golf clubs. They are about as effective as you expect, but at least put distance between him and charging zombies.
- Idiot Hero: Joon-woo isn't particularly smart or resourceful and makes plentiful mistakes. Yoo-bin even openly invokes it at one point.
- Imagine Spot: Once he's starved and dehydrated, Joon-woo has a hallucination of his family returning home, intact, as if nothing happened. He knows this is going only in his head, but is desperate enough to play along with his imagination.
- Improvised Weapon: At one point, Joon-woo hurls a bicycle into a crowd of zombies and uses it to block their push. He then tries to use a fire hose blast, but since water pressure dropped days earlier, he achieves nothing and is forced to flee.
- Interrupted Suicide:
- Joon-woo tries to hang himself. Yoo-bin signals to him just in time to stop him.
- When they are contemplating suicide in the finale, they are interrupted by military helicopters flying nearby, prompting them to at least die trying to reach the rooftop.
- It Can Think: Zombies in this film are still dumb as rocks but they are capable of retaining basic memories from their past.
- One zombie retains the memory on how doors work and actually gives up when it seems to be locked (it's not but Joon-woo is holding it shut).
- Another zombie is a former fire fighter and retained its knowledge of rope climbing.
- Once zombiefied, the policewoman keeps looking toward Joon-woo's apartment, clearly remembering he was there and shouting when trying to help her.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Yoo-bin is a fit alpine climber that's assertive, motivated and plans ahead. Joon-woo is a ditzy streamer that's emotional, has no real skills to speak of and is quick to panic. He makes it through the story mostly due to her help.
- Mercy Kill: Yoo-bin shoots the dying masked man and his zombified wife.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The masked man tries to talk Joon-woo this way, insisting that both of them still being alive means they already had to kill someone to make it this far. He's completely wrong in his assumption, which renders his speech ineffective.
- Not What It Looks Like: The Korean poster has Joon-woo reaching out of his apartment while his phone is on a selfie stick, surrounded by zombies in all directions, looking like he's trying to take a selfie, Jackass-style. The scene does take place in the film, but he's desperately trying to get some reception on his phone.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Joon-woo hears screams and roars outside as someone bangs on his door. He looks out and sees... there's nothing there.
- Our Zombies Are Different: They are fast, they retain at least some degree of their prior skills and knowledge, they spread through bites and it doesn't take any expert marksmanship or weak points to kill them. It is unclear if they are of the Technically-Living Zombie variety, but it's likely. They also have issues with object permanence, as seen with the zombiefied woman from 8th floor - once her face is covered with a blanket and Yoo-bin stops moving, she stops attacking, not "remembering" her anymore.
- Properly Paranoid: Turns out Yoon-bin was right and the masked man is not to be trusted, as the water he gave them really was spiked with sedatives.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The zombies have red eyes, thanks to all the extensive hemorrhaging they suffer from while turning.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Zig-Zagged. The policewoman gets swarmed precisely because she has to manually load the chambers of her service pistol. It is still a gun, however, more than capable of taking down zombies.
- Slept Through the Apocalypse: Joon-woo wakes up by 10 AM and then proceeds with his "morning" stream, ignorant to world around him. Zombie Apocalypse reaches his neighbourhood minutes later, already in full swing.
- Sole Survivor: Joon-woo is the only one of his family to survive.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Even when bullets put into limbs don't kill the zombies, they still stagger them and render them barely mobile due to the sheer force of impact and damage done. It is best seen in the finale, after the soldiers riddle the charging horde with bullets: majority of zombies are still twitching, but the sustained damage renders them a non-threat.
- Tears of Blood: As the infected man who invites himself into Joon-woo’s apartment shows, one of the symptoms of infection is bleeding from the eyes.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Double Subverted. Yoo-bin is suspicious of the Masked Man and doesn't drink the water he offers her and Joon-woo until he drinks it too. Then it turns out the water was spiked - he just never drink more than the first sip.
- There Is Another: For the first act it seems Joon-woo is the only human alive in the entire neighbourhood. As he's about to hang himself, Yoo-bin announces her presence with a laser pointer, which is enough for him to regain hope. They later find a man on the 8th floor, who provides them with sanctuary.
- Together in Death: The man from the 8th floor is reunited with his wife... after she tears his neck arteries open. For what is worth, he's glad it's over, holding her tenderly as she eats him alive.
- Tragic Monster: The masked man lost his newborn and is keeping his zombiefied wife locked in the child's room. It's not hard to see why he was driven into insanity by such events, especially since he still considers his wife alive, just very sick.
- What You Are in the Dark: The masked man offers Joon-woo safe passage and all his food. In return, all he has to do is let his zombified wife eat Yoo-bin. It works about as well as you’d expect.
- Women Are Wiser: Not only Yoo-bin has it all figured out and is thorough in her survival plan, it get further contrasted with the hot-headed and not-that-smart Joon-woo. This is best seen when she doesn't even touch the glass of water offered by the masked man, expecting a trap, but Joon-woo quickly gulps his down without suspecting anything.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: The zombie outbreak is measured at 50 thousand infected. Either the intention is a Cosy Catastrophe affecting a single city district, or someone missed a decimal or two.
- Zombie Infectee: The guy who barges into Joon-woo's apartment turns out to be infected. He turns while still in the apartment, so Joon-woo has to literally throw him out.
- Zombie Advocate: The masked man considers his wife sick and hungry, but otherwise still deeply loves her.
