‘Practice to Busan’ Followers Will Love This Netflix Horror Present With 80% on Rotten Tomatoes

Between the huge library of current Korean content available on Netflix lately and the brand new collection vying for our consideration semi-weekly, it is simple for older tales to get misplaced within the button-pressing shuffle. 2021’s restricted collection The Silent Sea is a type of neglected gems, a harrowing conflict of dystopian dread, claustrophobic ambiance, and grotesque horror thrills — and an 80% positive critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, besides. Properly price your consideration, be it by way of a binge session or at a extra sedate tempo to match the collection’ creeping menace, The Silent Sea is an particularly interesting possibility for followers of director Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan, the 2016 horror epic extensively thought-about the magnum opus of contemporary zombie movies. Though these tasks hail from totally different creators (author Park Eun-kyo and director Choi Dangle-yong helmed The Silent Sea), they share deeper similarities than you might assume. For one, each embody an apocalyptic setting, a mutating virus, life-or-death stakes, extra ethical quandaries than you might shake a stick at, and the identical main man.

What Is ‘The Silent Sea’ About?

In 2075, humanity exists a heartbeat away from extinction. Environmental modifications have contaminated nearly all of Earth’s consuming water and sparked a planet-wide drought. Human beings cannot survive quite a lot of days with out correct hydration, and regardless of how frantically our most sensible minds attempt to invent a viable answer, they cannot manufacture sufficient to go round; the quickly rising dying toll is already within the thousands and thousands. Nonetheless, a Korean space agency known as the SSA has one ultimate possibility up their sleeves. The SSA deploys a crew of scientists and navy troopers to Balhae Station, a complicated analysis middle on the moon. Led by astrobiologist Music Ji-an (Rebel Moon‘s Bae Doona) and Captain Han Yoon-jae (Gong Yoo), their orders are to retrieve a top-secret experimental substance that may create an countless provide of secure water.

Balhae was deserted years earlier after a radiation accident claimed the lives of 117 personnel, one in every of whom was Song’s sister. Satisfied that the SSA is withholding details about what really occurred, Music’s curiosity overcomes her preliminary reluctance. The scenario solely grows extra suspicious when their newly appointed pilot crash lands their area shuttle miles away from Balhae. And if being stranded on the moon’s floor with a damaged shuttle and an injured crew is not dangerous sufficient, as soon as the crew explores Balhae station, they uncover a whole lot of corpses that died by drowning — not a radiation leak. What’s extra, the station is not as empty as they thought. An unnaturally powerful creature residing inside Balhae appears decided to cease their mission at any price. Oh, and people corpses? They unfold a deadly airborne virus.

‘The Silent Sea’ Is a Claustrophobic Nightmare within the Greatest Means

The Silent Sea‘s eight episodes may take a sluggish burn path to its horror vacation spot, compared to Train to Busan, however having roughly eight hours at its disposal as a substitute of two hours advantages this sort of venture. Park and Choi weave suspense, thriller, and thriller cornerstones into their sci-fi horror, in addition to environmental, philosophical, and socioeconomic commentary, with out ever as soon as feeling slowed down. The Silent Sea‘s opening episode is likely to be tinged with a funereal air, however the collection’ defining options would really feel missing if it did not have sufficient runtime to ascertain this example’s impossibly excessive stakes. The identical goes for the damaged folks pushing their approach by way of their doomed, stagnating world and towards the smallest flicker of hope. Both projects hinge upon the other ways flawed people react after they’re dealing with down the top of the world.

Likewise, when The Silent Sea‘s tone shifts from a pensive sci-fi thriller to a nail-biting thriller, it runs headfirst into its grim ultimate stretch with out passing Go or amassing $200. If Practice to Busan traps people and zombies collectively on a cramped moving train, then The Silent Sea crushes its ensemble into one location with an intimidating foe and a virus that brutally warps the human physique. Music, Han, and the remainder of their group are always weak, making an attempt to outrun their pursuers, discover and safe the liquid pattern, and repair the station’s damaged communications community. Worse nonetheless, sure characters cannot be trusted. There’s greater than a touch of Ridley Scott‘s Alien in each the Balhae setting and the way its terrors unfold by way of always escalating apprehension and a restrictive ambiance. The collection feels like a metaphorical noose tightening round your neck.

Each Gong Yoo Efficiency Is Value Watching

It could be fairly remiss to compare Train to Busan and The Silent Sea with out mentioning their most blatant connection: Gong Yoo, a star of Korean movie and tv who virtually doubles as a residing legend at this level. Additionally identified to worldwide audiences for his memorably short-and-sweet function because the Recruiter in Squid Game, The Silent Sea presents viewers who’re much less aware of his physique of labor a distinct viewing expertise. Han is a stoic, agency chief who prioritizes the mission above anybody else’s private issues. That stated, and with out going into express spoiler territory, his motivations for accepting the SSA’s supply are simply as private and profound as Music’s motive; they simply take a distinct familial form. Due to his underlying compassion, Han shortly transforms right into a self-sacrificial hero.

Any Gong efficiency is just too good to overlook, even when a sure story would not match his other career heights. Fortunately, The Silent Sea backs up his presence with a forged of different trade veterans (Bae Doona and Kim Solar-young are simply as iconic, if no more so) and the excessive manufacturing commonplace we have come to anticipate from Korea’s Netflix collaborations.

The Silent Sea is offered to stream on Netflix within the U.S.

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