#Alive (2020)
★★★½ — #Alive (2020)
Released in 2020 and produced by Lotte Entertainment, Zip Cinema, and Perspective Pictures, #Alive arrived at a peculiarly resonant moment. A South Korean zombie horror running just 98 minutes, it follows a young man sealed inside his apartment as an unidentified virus tears through the city outside, his digital lifelines cut and his supplies dwindling. The film was based on a script by Matt Naylor, adapted for a Korean setting by director Cho Il-hyung (credited simply as Cho Il), and it found a significant audience when it landed on Netflix shortly after its domestic release, becoming one of the more widely seen Korean genre films of that year. Given the timing, with much of the world's population sitting at home watching the outside world look increasingly alarming, the premise landed with an uncomfortable familiarity that no marketing department could have planned.
Cho Il-hyung was working in relatively mainstream commercial territory here, and the film has the polished but unremarkable look of a well-funded genre production aimed squarely at a broad audience. South Korea had already demonstrated, many times over, that it could produce horror and thriller work of genuine distinction (fans of the country's output might want to take a look at my thoughts on Memories of Murder (2003) or The Handmaiden (2016)), and #Alive sits somewhere in that tradition without quite reaching those heights. The zombie subgenre, in particular, has been well served by Korean cinema in recent years, and if you want a companion piece from the same year, my review of Peninsula (2020) covers another Korean take on the undead with a very different set of priorities.
The film rests on the shoulders of its two leads. Yoo Ah-in, a well-regarded actor in South Korea with a substantial body of television and film work behind him, carries the first half of the film largely on his own, and the role demands a kind of sustained, low-key desperation that is trickier to pull off than it looks. Park Shin-hye joins proceedings as a survivor in a neighbouring block, and the dynamic between the two gives the film its second wind. Lee Hyun-wook, Jin So-yeon, and Kim Hak-seon round out the cast in smaller but important roles. The performances are grounded and believable, which matters a great deal in a film that depends on you buying into the mundane texture of everyday survival rather than set-piece spectacle.
Arguably one of the most realistic zombie films. In a zombie apocalypse I think there would be 3 types of people. - those that fight and pillage - those that immediately oof themselves - those that just hide in their homes until they basically starve This film is about the latter. It makes the story a little slow to build but it's a super interesting take on the zombie genre. In terms of the zombies these ones were also more realistic than usual. Like it wouldn't just be a light bonk on the head to despatch of one. Even one zombie is a major threat. Overall it's a really decent zombie film but fans of the genre might not enjoy.
For me, that point about the zombies being a genuine, serious physical threat is one of the things that stuck with me most. So many films in this genre treat the undead as little more than an inconvenience to be swatted aside, which drains any real tension from the whole enterprise. When a single infected individual becomes a life-or-death problem, the stakes feel grounded in something like reality. The slower build will test some viewers, and I understand why genre fans expecting something closer to the breathless pace of, say, Peninsula might feel a little short-changed. But there is something quietly effective about a zombie film that asks what most of us would actually do, and honest enough to admit the answer is probably: lock the door and wait. That is not a glamorous survival strategy, but it is an honest one.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2020 | Watched: 2025-05-17
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for #Alive (2020) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from South Korea: Memories of Murder (2003) · Peninsula (2020) · Lost in Starlight (2025) · The Handmaiden (2016)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)
