Gamgi (2013) Reviews

• This movie is a definite must watch...

  paul_haakonsen2013-12-05

  I have always enjoyed Asian movies, and Korea really do manage to release some really impressive titles from time to time. I hadn't really expected anything in particular from "The Flu" ("Gamgi"), and I was blown away by the intensity and gripping storyline that director Sung-su Kim managed to present here. Where as "Outbreak" from 1995 was great and the more recent "Contagion" from 2011 failed to impress, then "The Flu" steps right up here and proves that Korea can be a force to be reckoned with in terms of pandemic and epidemic outbreak movies. And in my honest opinion, then "The Flu" surpassed "Outbreak" by far and turned out to be a much more enjoyable movie altogether. The story starts off in Hong Kong where a group of people are illegally transported to Korea hidden in a container. Amidst the hopeful illegal immigrants is a sick individual. Upon arrival in Korea and when the container is opened, a ghastly discovery is made as the people inside are all dead. A new and high contagious and deadly virus manages to spread like a wildfire quickly bringing a whole city to its knees, forcing the Korean government to isolate and quarantine the population. Unable to find a cure to this deadly illness, time is running out and tensions within the quarantine zone are running high. Actually there are many more layers to the storyline, but that is as an overall whole the outline of the main storyline. This is not only a movie about a pandemic outbreak, but also about the crisis of such an outbreak on governmental level, citizen level and family level. And it works out so nicely, because the directed really is skilled at what he is doing. The movie is running high on tension and drama, which is quite nice, and it helps the movie to keep a great pace and you get attached to the characters in the movie and want to see what happens next. A movie is nothing without a good cast, and "The Flu" really had some nice talents on the cast list. Soo Ae (playing Kim In-hae, mother of Kim Mi-reu) really filled out her role amazingly and put on a rather impressive performance. And right up there alongside her was Hyuk Jang (playing rescue worker Kang Ji-koo) with an equally convincing performance. And they had really great on-screen chemistry. However, I was especially impressed with young Min-ah Park's (playing Kim Mi-reu) performance, for a child actress, then she was amazing in her role. There is a sense of grand scale on the movie, as you do buy into the seriousness of this outbreak that brings an entire city to its knees and threatens to sweep out to the rest of Korea. And there are many outdoors scenes in the city that really help add to this. And I will say that the camera-work and cinematography in "The Flu" was right on all throughout the movie. "The Flu" is the type of movie that you have to watch, regardless of whether or not you like Korean movies or movies of this particular genre. It is altogether a great and high entertaining movie.

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• Korea's answer to 'Contagion' and 'Outbreak' doesn't shy away from melodrama - but still is a tense thrilling disaster movie staged with impressive clarity on a huge scale

  moviexclusive2013-10-01

  The simply titled 'The Flu' bears the honour of being the sophomore South Korean disaster film to be built around a pandemic, but that probably won't be immediately apparent judging from how accomplished Kim Sung-soo's film is. Whereas such genre films tend to struggle between keeping an intimate focus on some key characters and retaining the larger expanse of the calamity, this one is staged with impressive clarity from start to finish, never once losing its grip from a tense thrilling ride. Careful not to bite off more than he can chew, Kim confines the pandemic to Bundang, an affluent suburb of Seoul. A quick prologue establishes how a ship container of illegal immigrants from Hong Kong arrives in the city, all of whom are dead from a lethal airborne avian flu virus - save for one very sick man. No thanks to one of two handlers sent to pick up the immigrants, the virus finds its next host to take root, eventually spreading to the people at the pharmacy where he tries to get medicine - and thereafter to just about anyone and everyone with close contact to his bodily fluids. Some quick thinking on the part of the authorities - or for that matter, Kim - means that Bundang is swiftly quarantined from the rest of the country, so that unlike its more ambitious Hollywood counterparts 'Contagion' and 'World War Z', it has no need to address just how the pandemic is affecting populations at different ends of the globe. Instead, a smaller but tighter narrative ensues, as soldiers and other Government security personnel swoop in to set up quarantine camps to separate the visibly infected from those without any signs or symptoms - and in the process get rid of the disease-ridden members of the populace. On a national level, Kim casts a critical eye on the responses of the President and his councilmen, to whom life-and-death decisions are not just made for the greater good but also with the consideration of political mileage. Despite the obvious - and rather strained - hysterics especially towards the end, this dimension of the story is an altogether interesting angle - not least for the fact that it also illuminates the hypothetical tension which may arise between the Koreans and the Americans, the latter of whom have considerable presence in the country as part of the United States Pacific Command. By and large though, the story is driven from the point of view of three key characters struggling to survive amid the chaos and confusion within Bundang - there's the Emergency Response Team worker Kang Ji-goo (Jang Hyuk), immunologist Kim In-hye (Su Ae) and In-hye's precocious young daughter Mi-reu (Park Min-ha). In several meet-cute moments before the epidemic becomes full blown, Ji-goo gets to rescue In-hye from a freak car accident, go beyond the call of duty to save In-hye's belongings from the scene of the accident, and play the surrogate father figure to Mi-reu. Admittedly, Kim throws in a fair number of narrative contrivances in order for some generous melodramatic posturing. It probably won't come as any surprise that Mi-reu will get separated from In-hye early on during the melee to engender a mother-daughter reunion, or that Mi-reu will catch the virus at some point such that In-hye's quest to locate and develop the antibody isn't just a professional mission but a personal one as well. And yes, like 'World War Z', this one is all about finding the cure to end the bloodshed, which in this case lies in the lone illegal immigrant who survived the perilous journey that was responsible for bringing the virus to the city. Yes, those who do not like their drama with a heavy dollop of theatrics will probably be cringing in their seats, simply because Kim isn't a director who deals with much subtlety. Every opportunity to tug at his audience's heartstrings or arouse their sense of indignation is played up to maximum effect, right down to the absolutely manipulative finale where Mi-reu becomes a walking placard of a plea for humanity to prevail. Despite the heavy-handedness, there is a pulsing urgency to the proceedings that grips you from the start, and we suspect casual viewers will still likely - as we were - to be swept up by the emotional intensity of the film. It does help that Kim inserts moments of levity from time to time. Mi- reu's bonding with Ji-goo before the start of the pandemic establishes a pleasantly amusing rapport between the two, which of course is milked for sympathy later on. But there is always Ji-goo's daft male colleague for comic relief (played by veteran actor Yoo Hae-jin), who never fails to bring a smile with his desperate antics to win the attention of the ladies he assist on the job - no wonder then he gets a humorous coda at the end that sees him helping a snooty but pretty lady free her skirt caught in the door of a public bus. This being his first film after a decade, Kim - best known for his work on the historical epic 'Musa The Warrior' - shows that his cinematic sensibilities as a director of large-scale action sequences has not dulled. In particular, the extended standoff between the remaining residents of Bundang and the military demonstrate a certain boldness in imagination and execution, on a scale rarely seen in Korean cinema. Put aside the fact that it plays too often to an Asian audience's taste for hand-wringing, Kim's virus disaster film is a grand accomplishment on many levels, especially in how it portrays the scope of the catastrophe both on a larger and much more intimate level. It is riveting stuff indeed, like a shot of pure adrenaline to the arm.

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• Marvellous Stuff. An easy entry into foreign cinema for all.

  horizon20082014-01-29

  Proving once again that other countries can easily match Hollywood, or outdo them, The Flu is a great little (well actually quite big) flick that starts off as some light- hearted caper and develops into a blockbuster. I enjoyed every minute of it. This year brings the Raid 2 movie and what will Hollywood be able to match that with? Not much I suspect. Really, if people only knew what lay behind those subtitled releases (that so many refuse to watch) they'd discover more fantastic cinema than they could ever handle. Yes, The Flu is actually quite heavy on the Americanized style, but maybe this is good, as it would be a great flick to start getting into foreign cinema for the uninitiated. There's a bit of the soundtrack too that sounded very like it was taken from 28 weeks later haha. But this one shouldn't be missed. And watch until the end for the shots after the credits have rolled.

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• Great!

  cinematic_aficionado2013-11-27

  A deadly flu, is about people. Persons become exposed, some contract it and all react differently to it. An influx of illegal immigrants in a Korean city, opens Pandora's box and unleashes a virus in town. As is common, bureaucracy gets in the way and safeguarding is delayed. There is plenty of tension and drama without the Hollywood tendency for sensationalism. At the heart of the story is a female doctor, her daughter and a member of the fire brigade. When the outbreak is out of control it is clear that no one is safe. The central theme of the story is the dual battle of the female doctor; the struggle to develop an antibody and keep her daughter safe. As it is always with people, choices and preferences often override any moral considerations. Right and wrong in a deadly situation become very blurred. The movie is very effective in displaying the tragedy of uncontrolled death and the powerfulness as well as folly of being human. Courage, helpfulness, mindlessness, bureaucracy. Perhaps the lady doctor's efforts might form the main body of this movie, although the gravity is carried in her adorable daughter's tiny shoulders. Her forcefulness and vulnerability will take the audience to a mighty emotional journey.

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• The Flu is entertaining but not highly memorable

  Argemaluco2014-04-13

  I have to say from the beginning that The Flu is the Korean version of Contagion, that intense thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh which realistically depicted the development of an outbreak in the United States. Fortunately, The Flu isn't a simple copy, but an (unofficial) adaptation with good performances and solid direction which puts us in the middle of the action, the drama and the stretchers. In the last 5 years, we have been seeing Korean films which emulate North American formulas; for example, Sector 7 (a copy of Alien and Leviathan), The Tower (a copy of The Towering Inferno) and Tidal Wave (natural disasters). The Flu is an addition to that group, and even though it is not very memorable and it doesn't add very much to the formula, it kept me entertained focusing on a group of characters representative of the genre: the noble doctor who has a powerful personal motivation to find the cure; the altruistic hero ready to sacrifice everything for the people he has an affection for; the inefficient politicians who endlessly discuss the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of persons to save millions; in summary, all the necessary ingredients in order to reach entertaining levels of drama, tension and urban devastation. Without forgetting, obviously, a bit of political commentary relative to the difficult international position of South Korea; the fact that the most ruthless characters are North Americans mustn't be a coincidence, because they are always ready to trample the human rights for the sake of "national security". On the negative side, The Flu has some redundant scenes which lose strength with every repetition, and the ending feels too cloying. So, in conclusion, The Flu isn't a very original or memorable film, but I think it deserves a moderate recommendation because it managed to keep me interested.

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