Joon-woo is a Vlogger who spends his days doing live broadcasts and sulking in his apartment. However, one day, the people watching one of his live broadcasts start asking for help and urging Joon-woo to look at the TV. Joon-woo turns on the TV to see a live broadcast of a mysterious pathogen spreading across Korea, and Joon-woo looks outside to see people eating each other and running, in particularly a schoolgirl biting her mom and later eating her. Joon-woo, shocked at the revelation, barricades himself inside his apartment. He lets in a local tenant but is revealed to be infected, and Joon-woo locks him out. As the days pass and more people get infected, Joon-woo runs out of food and water, and one day listens to a broadcast of his family being eaten by the infected, which is heard by the infected. In a fit of rage, Joon-woo kills one infected, before a hoard forces him hide among the discarded rubbish and barely made it back to his apartment. Driven by loneliness, Joon-Woo was preparing to kill himself. He broadcasts a farewell message and prepares to hang himself but is stopped by a laser pointer. Realizing that another person survived, He frees himself and sees a lady, Yoo-bin, who lives in the opposite apartment. They quickly meet daily, as Joon-woo was hungry due to lack of food, Yoo-bin tried to see how far 2 apartments were, and threw a baseball tied to a string to her balcony fence. But the baseball only reached not even half of the distance. Afterwards Joon-woo used his drone to carry a string from his apartment to Yoo-bin's and hence Yoo-bin is able to pass food to Joon-woo via a homemade zipline. However a infected who seemed to have retained his intelligence manages to climb up the aparment via the string made from the baseball that Yoo-Bin threw and use it to climb up Yoo-bin's window, but Joon-woo uses his drone to distract the infected, and Yoon-bin kills it. As Joon-woo slowly runs out of food, he begans searching for neighbouring rooms to see if there's any food supplies and makes it to another room, where he sees a walkie talkie and some food stuffs left behind by the owner. Joon-woo sends a talkie and some food to Yoo-bin and they begin to talk via walkie talkie, but infected hoards soon flood the area, having tracked Joon-woo and Yoo-bin's scent. Realizing that they are going to die, they made a plan to reach Joon-woo's apartment eighth floor that Yoo-bin claims there is no one and is safe. Yoo-bin mountain climbs her way down and with Joon-woo's help, they made it to eight floor. But there was a lone zombie that alerted a horde and with their lives seemingly in desperation, they are saved by a man, who gives them food and water but his real intentions are proven when he knocks the two out, intending for Yoo-bin to be infected by his zombie wife that was in a locked room but Joon-woo manages to wake up in time and threatens him with a gun, and Yoo-Bin manages to break free from the zombie wife's grasp and the man is killed by his wife. Joon-woo, preparing to mercy kill Yoo-bin, can't bring himself to do it, and instead heard rescue helicopter flying around their apartment. Both decide to make it to the rooftop. However, the infected follow them, and as they are about to die, the Korean Military shoots the zombie horde down via helicopter, and Joon-woo and Yoo-bin are loaded onto the helicopter. The final shot shows them on the helicopter, as a voiceover by a anchorman explains that the military are making their way to survivor areas.
Cast
Yoo Ah-in as Joon-woo
Park Shin-hye as Yoo-bin
Lee Hyun-wook
Lee Chae-kyung
Jeon Bae-soo
Production
Development
#Alive is a zombie thriller based on the original script "#Alone" of Hollywood screenwriter Matt Naylor, who worked on the Americandocumentary seriesSmall Business Revolution: Main Street and the short filmWhat It’s Like. Director Cho Il-hyung and Naylor adapted the screenplay together for the Korean market. In 2019, ZIP Cinema and U.S producer, Perspective Pictures, joined the production with Lotte Entertainment distributing the film.
Casts
On July 11, 2019, Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye joined the cast, followed by Lee Hyun-wook on September 16. The read-through of the script occurred on September 27, 2019.
Filming
began on October 1, 2019. Filming took place in Gunsan and wrapped up on December 12, 2019.
Release
The film was released in South Korea on June 24, 2020.
Reception
Box office
On its opening day in South Korea, #Alive drew in a total of 204,071 viewers and took 62% of the box office, marking the highest first-day viewership of any film since February 2020 prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Korea. It holds the highest number of first-day admissions next to The Man Standing Next. On the fifth day of its release, #Alive surpassed 1 million admissions, and during the first weekend of its release, it garnered 1,001,802 viewers, securing the first place at the box office for its first weekend. It's the first film to surpass 1 million since February 2020.
