User reviews

Well, there is no better timing to watch this movie. With coronavirus turning into a pandemic, this movie showed what could have happen if it was a much severe virus. Sometimes, movie is a reflection of reality. Lockdown, panic, violence, anger, sacrifice, humanity, all covered in the movie. Humanity is so fragile, right?

Give a chance to this film. It captures the realism of what would happened in a case of an outbreak in real life... and guess what is happening with coronavirus. Very tense and strong movie which I strongly recommend to prepare you of what will happen if everything goes out of control in a deadly virus...

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.

While watching this one thing keep passing my mind Covid-19. This is the movie which I really can related right now. Even it is true to some extend like speading so rapidly.

It is a must watch movie during Quarantine.

Oh, wow, this was awesome! The Korean answer to 'Outbreak', but so much better without being melodramatic or predictable. The film so well depicts the ignorance of politicians and humanity's incapability of uniting and remaining calm during disasters. This was realistic, shocking and disturbing, and gets increasingly more intense as the film progresses. I did find the convenience element a bit overwhelming, especially with Hyuk Jang and Soo Ae's characters always ending up together despite the circumstances. Still, this was a really good disaster film, and so very possible.

This was so realistic at what COULD play out in a real life scenario, and it's scary to think how quickly both the populace AND the government overseeing them can go off the deep end. It begs the question, given the epidemic, who's right and who's wrong? This movie had phenomenal acting to, the 2 main protagonists were great, and that little girl, wow. Best child actress I've seen in a foreign movie. "Please don't shoot my mommy!" That had me choking back tears!

That this movie is called the Flu internationally, might feel like a win for those who never believed or will believe in the Corona Virus. Now what is depicted here is a dramatization as we know. There are a lot of things that are exaggerated ... not to mention all the drama (with kids and what not). Something that felt forced to say the least (but if it works for you, it'll be quite the dramatic moment).

The movie is 7 years old, but more than relevant in 2020 (and beyond). Who would've known that this movie would have a revival? A lot of cliches are being served, but the movie also depicts a couple of things quite accurately. Like what happens if someone sneezes to the people in close proximity.

Feeling compassion for the main character felt a bit of a stretch mostly for me. Not because of his criminal activities, but how he reacted to his relative and the illness at first ... very irresponsible to say the least. If you can overcome this, there is quite the dramatic "Pandemic" to survive through ...

This story is about a single-minded guy, an extremely selfish doctor and a pandemic.

The way they film how the pandemic get spread is well executed. As a person who is witnessing a pandemic, I have no complain about that. However, from the characters' personality to the ending of the movie, they are not pleasant nor entertaining.

The male lead is all about hooking up with the female lead. From the beginning til the end of the movie, he tries everything humanly possible to please the female lead even if his decision risks everyone's life.

The female lead is the pure definition of selfishness. She utilizes her beauty to manipulate the male lead to do anything she wants. When someone goes against her will, she goes crazy and start to destroy anything she sees.

The ironic thing is that the movie maker was expecting the audience to like the main characters and stand on the main character's side. So, the audience will cry at the ending.

Some people said this is better than "Outbreak". I actually think "Outbreak" is better because I, at least, don't dislike the main characters as much.

I watched it on Amazon for free and I still regret watching it simply because I am more upset than feeling entertained after watching the movie.

Flu is Korea's answer to Outbreak and Contagion, an emotionally manipulative but highly intense and entertaining thriller. It falls down due to some lame cliches, but the incredible pace and tense music keep you glued to your seat. If you enjoy the high stakes of virus movies combined with uncontrolled chaos and mayhem, Flu is for you.

This was a pretty decent little event thriller from Korea. Some of it may strike to close to home with the events surrounding our Coronavirus Pandemic. It was very interesting to see transmission and subsequent spread of the virus and this could be a good watch for people curious about how viruses are spread.

The CGI for explosions and fires was kind of lackluster, the villains over the top, but the story was well told, shot and scripted and was worth the 2 hours. That being said about an hour into the movie I trailed off for a quick nap. I missed some stuff but the movie was moving so fast that it didn't matter too much.

A good flick for the passive foreign movie viewer, interesting viewing for a budding virologist or consumer of Asian cinema. Not an amazing groundbreaking film.

"We're from the government, we're here to help you!" has become a popular ironic meme. For the Koreans, though, it hits twice as hard, as they have not only the ordinary corrupt cops and military personnel, not only the politicians covering their own asses, but also asshole Americans who think they can control the situation by, you guessed it, killing everything. It helps that they are Koreans and not American citizens. And there are, of course, the Koreans: mother fighting to save her 4 year old no matter what, courageous hero who wants to help everybody, especially the cute single mom, all kinds of emotive characters who just have to make funny faces and do dramatic things.

This is about the gist of the film. The rest is the virus, which is a non descript avian flu which causes rash, coughing blood and death soon after. I wish this could have focused more on the actual impact of the virus on people and society. Instead it keeps the camera on the hero and the single mom, with occasional lapses to other characters. As such, it is more a disaster movie than a contagion one. It is also educational, when you see how easy it can get from a civilized society to soldiers burning bodies and killing people who want to get away from the quarantine zones dead in the streets.

Bottom line: entertaining and fun most of the time, a good Korean movie, but it came very close to being much much better.

I know some people who simply will not watched a movie with subtitles. Personally I barely notice them as I've one of those Star Trek implants, well maybe I don't however I can get very engrossed in a movie with subtitles and Flu managed that. This is very much a Korean version of Outbreak or Contagion, it has some stereotypical Korean characteristics, humour, drama, the textbook Asian emotive expressions - there's always some guy in a suit with a straight face raising his deep voice in a very controller manner to show he is serious - and honourable. Anyway I digress despite having a few ludicrous plot turns the Flu is a Korean epic executed with such great gusto, and done quite well, that you can't help but be pulled into it's South Korean Independence Day minus the aliens feel. It's popcorn all the way and the show is completely stolen by an actress who's not even listed here who played 4 year old Mirre; you're a stone cold killer if you have dry eyes at a certain point. Pleasant surprise epic disaster type movie.

Flu is a good movie or actually you can say great movie created by the Korean.I am not a native speaker; I even don't know Korean language at all. I watched whole movie with subtitle ON to understand it but though I am not a native speaker so I can't say much about acting of the actors. Actually if you saying about the acting I actually like the work done by the little girl in this movie, she had done a great work and others actors acting I don't like it that much it is so-so performance on the movie. Other than acting I would say everything is great story is good, direction is good. Story of the movie start with car accident where actress of the stuck and hero of the film save after that the main movie start when container full of people are transported from the Indonesia and container come with dead people those people are dead because of flu except one guy who spread the flu and flu start spreading all over the city and after that they show on the movie how they stop the flu. In end of the movie little dramatic or no need of those scene actually which makes the movie kind of boring rather than that whole movie is awesome

Korean disaster movies give you more than you pay for and this is no exceptioin. It's a cleverly constructed story that brings everything together. It's much more than a rehash of Contagion or Outbreak. There is a confinement leading to a grand show down with some political commentary. The central characters are pivotal in the plot. A rescue worker, a doctor and her daughter. Some of the action and fighting is a bit over the top. With what is going on in Wuhan now this is an eerily prophetic movie.

It's an entertaining movie even though people are dying from the flu. I'd watch it again. Kind of long though

Count the amount of times characters take their masks off for absolutely no reason or act irrational and incompetent risking lives.

Really annoying but if you are into disaster movies, give it a go.

First of all, it's a good movie. It hits all the usual K-Horror tropes with actors who can act. On top of that, it possess that rare gem, a child actor who isn't annoying! She's funny and adorable and believable and I enjoyed her scenes.

So far, so good.

Then the flu hits epidemic proportions and things go to hell. Think "The Last Man on Earth" with better CGI, and government officials as weaselly and amoral as the officials in "Torchwood: Children of Earth."

Then the evil genius put his/her finger on the mom-button and left it there. If I had ANY idea of the mom-button pushing for the last half of this, I would not have watched it.

For those with no mom-buttons to push, I recommend this movie. It's terrifically frightening in a "this could happen tomorrow in real life" sense. High production values. Good acting. Good FX. Quality all around. Just beware before you press Play.

I'm generally a fan of Korean movies but this one is terrible. The exposition is a parade of clichés. The quirky buddies meet the feisty but sexy lady (who has a cute daughter). Then everyone in Bundang, a satellite city of Seoul, gets the flu and starts dying. Of course this is a rip-off of every Quarantine/Contagion movie you've ever seen but it's got none of the character/plot or budget to pull it off. The director is from the A.D.D. school of direction and although Jang Hyuk does good work as the fireman it's wasted. None of the actors embarrass themselves here to be fair. But there's no time for character development which is problematic as the movie has no plot instead relying on personal drama to carry the day. Sure an advanced ability to suspend disbelief is often a necessity in Korean movies but the idea that a virus could be contained in Bundang is just plain silly. About the only thing that amused me in this movie was the undercurrent of xenophobia. Of course Vietnamese workers are the source of the deadly virus (the Vietnamese provide a growing emigrant workforce as well as mail order brides in Korea) and the scene where the "good" Korean President threatens to shoot down the "bad" American jet bombers (ordered to bomb a mob threatening to break the quarantine cordon)doesn't say much for a generation that prefer to ignore how the Korean War was won. In a country where few will have seen Contagion and xenophobia is considered a virtue it's hardly surprising this movie has found popularity but for a foreign audience this movie is best avoided.

Stopped watching after 10min, could get better after but i just couldnt stand for the too forced scenes, not really necessary if this supposed to be a action/thriller movie, is more like and low budget comedy