Love Netflix's South Korean Zombie Flick "#Alive"? There’s Already an English-Language "Remake"

Compare the pair!

Back in January, Golden Globe winner Bong Joon-ho said, "once you overcome the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films."

Bong Joon Ho: "Once you overcome the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films" https://t.co/oWOsq8YtW4 pic.twitter.com/mJAJhEIH4U

— Variety (@Variety) January 6, 2020

Then, his film Parasite picked up Best Picture at the Oscars and all cinematic borders collapsed forever!

Kidding!

Though it seems like several centuries have passed since Parasite became the first non-English language movie to take the top prize at the Academy Awards, Hollywood is still committed to its longstanding tradition of unnecessary English-language remakes and adaptations of "foreign" films.

Case in point: Parasite itself is getting an English-language reimagining on HBO.

But here’s a particularly weird example for you: #Alive, the South Korean zombie flick that landed on Netflix this month, already has an English-language version, titled Alone, ready for release.

Backing up a bit, #Alive was released in its native country in June, becoming the first hit film in their cinemas since the COVID-19 outbreak.

It stars Yoo Ah-in (from the excellent Burning) as a gamer who gets stuck in his family’s apartment when a zombie outbreak takes over his town. After growing bored/insane from his locked-down isolation (hello, 2020!) he conspires to break free with help from another survivor (Park Shin-hye) in an adjacent building, despite the zombie horde in the parking lot beneath and between them.

Given the fact that a) there’s not a whole lot else to choose from right now and b) this tale of a viral outbreak forcing survivors to stay indoors is mighty relevant atm, #Alive has been a hit on Netflix all over the world, hitting the ‘Most Watched’ position in many nations since release, including Australia and the United States.

So, no need for an English-language version, right? Well...

The irony (if we’re using that correctly) is that the picture is based on the English-language script for Alone by Matt Naylor (though Naylor himself adapted it with Cho Il-hyung), which is itself going direct to video-on-demand in the US in October. Not Netflix though. For once, the English-language version is receiving the quieter rollout.

Take a look at all the similarities below.

We haven’t seen Alone, which is produced by Lionsgate and stars Tyler Posey and Donald Sutherland, so we can’t say whether or not it’s better or worse than #Alive (though that certainly looks to be the case, given it lacks the vibrant flair of director Cho Il-hyung’s action sequences). But one thing’s for certain: it's not going to be the version of this story people remember most.

Bong’s prophecy may have not yet come to pass in the backrooms of Hollywood studios, but audiences (maybe even accelerated by coronavirus) are more of a global community than America realises. Still, congrats to Matt Naylor for getting two movies out of the one script!

Header Image: Netflix