|
How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 12 November 2013
This article is a review of FLU.
|
“Are you saying this could be Korea’s first avian flu case?” Professor Yang
There must be something in the, ahem, air, as two virus movies are screened in as many years. In 2012 we got DERANGED, and now another slice of genre hokum in the form of FLU. Like it’s cinematic cousin, the zombie flick, the pathogen pic lends itself to having all kinds of allegory/satire/social commentary woven into the narrative fabric. Too often the opportunity is not grasped. FLU is surprisingly liberal and ant-authoritarian, though the thriller mechanics are woefully inadequate.
We are told that the film is not based on real events. The fact that proceedings kick off a year from now might make the initial statement redundant. A container of illegal workers are shipped from Hong Kong to South Korea. One of the denizens of the grim transport vessel happens to be coughing. On the other side, people traffickers open the box to find everyone dead, covered in rashes, perishing miserably. There is one survivor, Monssai. He still looks worse for wear, coughing and spluttering and skin not looking so healthy.
There must be something in the, ahem, air, as two virus movies are screened in as many years. In 2012 we got DERANGED, and now another slice of genre hokum in the form of FLU. Like it’s cinematic cousin, the zombie flick, the pathogen pic lends itself to having all kinds of allegory/satire/social commentary woven into the narrative fabric. Too often the opportunity is not grasped. FLU is surprisingly liberal and ant-authoritarian, though the thriller mechanics are woefully inadequate.
We are told that the film is not based on real events. The fact that proceedings kick off a year from now might make the initial statement redundant. A container of illegal workers are shipped from Hong Kong to South Korea. One of the denizens of the grim transport vessel happens to be coughing. On the other side, people traffickers open the box to find everyone dead, covered in rashes, perishing miserably. There is one survivor, Monssai. He still looks worse for wear, coughing and spluttering and skin not looking so healthy.
|
|
|
Amazon UK
|
Amazon USA
|
Meanwhile elsewhere in the city of Bundang, two Emergency Response Team members are at the scene of an accident where a car has fallen down a shaft. Eh? It is a clunky set up for the upcoming quote-unquote emotional core. Heroic gent Jigu Kang (Jang Hyuk) goes to rescue damsel in distress, Dr In-hae Kim (Su Ae). Do you wonder if she’ll turn out to be pivotal in attempting to thwart the spreading infection? She’s a single mother of Mirre (Park Min-ha), whose job is to be super-cute and bring the two together on multiple occasions. In-hae’s ex is now off in the United States. Americans don’t come off well in FLU.
As the virus spreads (sans incubation period, and death in 36 hours), the authorities response is laughable. Is writer-director Kim Sung-su (MUSA: THE WARRIOR) mocking self-serving inept politicians, or just not bothered to do any research into a governmental response? The quality of the dialogue and story would suggest the latter (lines such as, “These people are my people,” from the President), but the repeated spinelessness of the bureaucrats intimates the former. They decide to quarantine the city. Bundang appears to only have one road in and out. The 472,000 inhabitants are almost written off; concern for the 15-kilometre proximity to Seoul more pressing. A sly nod to the primacy of a country’s capital compared to the rest of the nation.
The populace is funnelled, whether healthy or sick, into a tent zone. Both the Prime Minister and the President are in the same bunker. Wouldn’t they be separated in case one part of the executive branch succumbed? The whiff of ludicrousness is palpable. Meanwhile everyone is hunting Monssai, believing him to be the key to survival, to use his blood to synthesise an antigen. Of course Mirre goes missing too, regularly. Her character is a sentimental crutch of the worst kind. Only having the leads look for a missing puppy would have been more mawkish.
Military brutality and the imagery of mass corpse burnings add comment and disquiet respectively. These ideas are too infrequent to rescue a derivative project. Watch the masterful CONTAGION from director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns to grapple with how to do a virus thriller right.
|
|
We have selected movies below that we think will be of interest to you based on this review.
Using these Amazon affiliated links help us keep Filmaluation free for all film and arts lovers.
Amazon UK
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon USA
|
|
|
|
|