Peninsula Review (2020) [NC16]

Disclaimer : This movie is rated NC16 for horror and distrubing content.

4 years after the highly successful Train to Busan movie, the story continues in a sequel movie, entitled “Peninsula”. For those who are not sure what Peninsula means, allow me to save you some time to google it by giving you the simple definition of peninsula. Peninsula is a piece of land almost surrounded by water or projecting out into a body of water. It is slightly different from island as island is completely surrounded by water. Hope this sets the picture for you before watching the movie. Back to the movie, the story does not retain any of the cast from the first movie, but instead, the movie introduced a brand-new cast with a slightly different storyline with no train involved this time. Many viewers may have high expectations for this movie, seeing that this is a sequel movie. I have seen several mixed opinions when comparing it with Train to Busan. However, I am just going to focus on this movie solely for its storyline and not compare it with its prequel, as the only characters that remains the same are the zombies. So, to all the Gong Yoo’s fan out there, sorry, he is not turning back to human. Alright let’s go straight to the movie.

Storyline

The story began during the zombie outbreak 4 years ago where a Marine Captain Jung-seok (Gang Dong-Won) is driving his elder sister (Jang So-yeon), her husband Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon) and his nephew Dong-hwan (Moon Woo-jin) to a ship leaving the Korean Peninsula, which is being occupied by the zombies. On the way, he encountered a family with a young child who is desperate for a hitch. However,he ignored the family’s pleas and drove away. In a cabin of the moving ship, an infected man turns into a zombie and infects numerous people, including Dong-hwan. Jung-seok then decides to leave Dong-hwan and his mother behind unwillingly and stops Chul-min, who returns after getting some supplies, from entering the cabin.

4 years later in Hong Kong, Jung-seok, Chul-min and two other Koreans, are involved in a secret operation that would require the four of them to return to the quarantined peninsula and retrieve an abandoned food truck which contains bags of cash, totaling US$20 million. The idea of having US$2.5 million each got into their head that they were willing to risk their lives for that huge sum of money. The four began their operation the next day and they managed to find the food truck. Unfortunately, they triggered the nearby zombies and they dashed towards Jung-seok and Chul min. Will they get out of this zombieland alive or will they joined the group of zombies as zombies? Find out the answer when you catch the movie.

Overall, the storyline has several plot twists that caught me off guard. There were moments where I felt that they will never make it out alive, but something just happen just in time to save them, or maybe not. There were some pretty intense moments, mostly from the chasing scenes by the zombies. However, most of the horror scenes were actually not created by the zombies, but instead, I was more terrified by the survivors in the zombieland. Yes, there were actual survivors in the peninsula. First plot twist in the movie. I’m pretty sure most of you have known about this plot twist already so to those who did not catch on, treat this as a little preview for you.

Characters

While this movie may talks about the zombies trying to infect humans in Peninsula, the main character Jung Seok played a huge role in this movie. His combat skills and aiming put him in an advantage over the rest of the group while being chased by the zombies.

Speaking about the zombies, as compared to the zombies in Train to Busan, the zombies in this movie were definitely faster and stronger, with a very strong desire to hunt down the humans. The numbers did not look good for Jung Seok, but he did received help from the survivors. The survivors were fantastic as to speak, as they were highly skilled and daring when encountering those zombies. If I were to ask you to bring someone along with you to go through any sort of life-threatening conditions, be it a zombie apocalypse or being stranded in a remote island, these survivors would probably be your answer. However, survivors are humans after all and they may not be all good or in the right mindset, especially after living in that terrifying place for 4 years.

Gang Dong-Won as Jung Seok in Peninsula

Overall, the main characters, the survivors and the zombies put on a very good fight between one another as the humans fight for their survival while the zombies fight to get those humans alive.

Special Effects

In terms of special effects, the driving scenes were very eye-catching. It felt as though I was watching fast and furious or Initial D one more time, but in a very different setting. There were many car drifts and mutliple hand brakes being pulled which makes the car looks very durable and perfect for this kind of zombie encounter. While the car looks spectacular, I would not want to own this car as it would mean I’m in grave danger.

Other than the driving scenes, the zombies looked very realistic, which adds onto the existing horror scenes by making them terrifying. The movement and action performed by these zombies were also top notch, which makes this whole entire piece of land impossible to escape for Jung Seok. Great work to the special effect team for their wonderful work.

Memorable moments

Similar to my previous review on Birds of Prey, I am going to list out all my memorable moments in this movie and let you decide for yourself whether it was memorable for you too. Leave a comment if any of the memorable scenes I mentioned was your memorable scene.

1. Saving of Min Jung (Lee Jung Hyun) by Jung Seok
2. Car Chasing scene by Sergeant first class Hwang (Kim Min-jae)
3. Arena scene between humans and zombies
4. Arrival of UN Chinook
5. All of the flares shots scenes

Movie rating : 8.5 / 10 (Successful sequel movie with several great plot twists. Strong characters, both humans and zombies, made the encounter thrilling and intense. Heartwarming ending which may bring about a few tears, but seems draggy as though a plot twist is going to happen. Hard to surpass this movie with another sequel, but the world is full of surprises.)

Movie Duration : 1hr 56 mins

#Peninsula #Traintobusan2 #Koreanhorror #Horror #FirstpostCOVID-19movie