Bando [Peninsula] (2020)

(Google Streaming, December 2021) No follow-up could match Train to Busan’s originality and intensity — even by the high standards of mainstream South Korean cinema, it was a rare treat in an overpopulated zombie subgenre. Loose follow-up Peninsula picks up four years later, in a future where the zombie outbreak has somehow been contained to the Korean peninsula and somehow the zombies haven’t all rotten away in the interim. Finding amusing parallels with quasi-contemporary Army of the Dead, the plot has to do with a very valuable gold shipment ripe to be extracted from the zombie zone. As our heroes assemble and enter enemy territory, various complications arise from the fact that the peninsula is not entirely populated by zombies, and everyone wants a slice of the treasure. After an intriguing setup, writer-director Yeon Sang-ho unfortunately loses himself in uninteresting shenanigans between human villains, captured zombies, “good” protagonists and anti-heroes. It all becomes curiously familiar and dull, but then the videogame segment starts: a very lengthy car chase from the heart of the zombie zone to the extraction point, executed with special effects that are both plentiful and substandard. It’s a terrible and preposterous sequence in many ways, especially if you judge it by the photorealism of big-budget Hollywood movies, but it’s easily what Peninsula has to distinguish itself. The chase lasts a surprisingly long time (especially considering the teeming hordes of zombies and the urban decay of four years of non-maintenance) but it involves light spots, car bouncing around without regards for physics and a climactic rain of zombies freed from a glass barrier. It’s not much, but it’s something. The ending sequence lasts too long after that, and doesn’t manage to make us feel much about the surviving characters. Frankly, if you’re looking for another South Korean zombie film, have a look at #Alive before you tackle Peninsula — if you refuse, prepare to fast-forward through much of it.