Flu (2013)

Number Rolled: 19

Movie Name/Year: Flu (2013)

Tagline: Death goes viral.

Genre: Action & Adventure

Length: 121 minutes

Rating: NR

Production Companies: iLoveCinema, iFilm Co.

Producer: Ok-kyung Bang, Tae-sung Jeong, Teddy Jung, Seong-jin Kim

Director: Sung-su Kim

Writer: Yeong-jong Lee, Sung-soo Kim, Jae-ho Jung

Actors: Hyuk Jang, Soo Ae, Andrew William Brand, In-Pyo Cha, Hee-joon Lee, Sang-Yeob Lee, Jung-min Park, Min-ah Park, Boris Stout, Kahlid Elijah Tapia, Hae-jin Yoo

Blurb from Netflix: When people in a South Korean suburb start dropping like flies from a deadly airborne respiratory disease, the area is quarantined and chaos reigns.

Selina’s Point of View:

I’m going on vacation this weekend, which means I need to rush to get all my work done before I leave. As a result when we rolled a foreign film, I was not happy. I had NO desire to sit through two hours of subtitles. Especially subtitles for a Korean movie. The Korean language flows so fast that sometimes it’s difficult to read along and it requires several rewinds to get the whole story. Altogether, for a two hour foreign film from Korea, I’d set aside six hours to ensure I have time to watch it, re-watch it, research it, and write the blog.

So yeah, I groaned.

Turns out, I didn’t need six hours. The story was so in depth and the characters were so interesting that I zoned into the movie at a level I don’t think I’ve ever reached with a foreign film. I don’t think I missed any of the subtitles, but if I did it didn’t matter because the actors were so on point that I almost didn’t need subtitles at all.

Even the child actress, Min-ah Park (Mrs. Cop, Pots of Gold, Feast of the Gods), rocked her part.

The film reminded me of Outbreak (1995), but it was a lot more in depth and the brutality scale was turned WAY up. I found it completely terrifying. At some times, my mouth was hanging open; at other times there were tears in my eyes. This movie exceeded expectations so much that I’d have to put it among my favorites.

Cat’s Point of View:

This movie was not what I expected, at all.

With the state of the world these days, epidemic and pandemic movies have grown in popularity. This film does follow some of the expected themes, as such; but also takes it down to a more personal and emotional level.

While the recipe does make the movie somewhat predictable, I still found myself having a rather visceral reaction. I had periods of ugly crying. I’m not even going to try to deny it.

This was rather impressive for a subtitled movie. Sometimes reading the dialogue can be distracting from what is going on with the scenes. That wasn’t the case for me. The cast was phenomenal and drew me right in so that I hardly noticed that I was reading what they were saying rather than understanding their words.

I’ve also got to say that the little girl in this movie was just about the most adorable munchkin ever. I believe that young lady will have quite the career ahead of her, if she continues to pursue acting as she gets older.

The suspenseful sense of dread was on point here. I’d definitely recommend this movie to those that enjoy the genre.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 45%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 60%

Netflix’s Prediction for Selina – 5/5

Selina’s Trust-the-Dice Score – 5/5

Netflix’s Prediction for Cat – 4.5/5

Cat’s Trust-the-Dice Score – 4.5/5

The Random Rating: R

P.S. There’s an extra scene during the credits.

Movie Trailer: