Seoul Station (2016)

[Le Grande Blu]

I was really excited that this was getting a Blu release, as I am a big fan of Yeon Sang-Ho's previous animated features, King of Pigs & The Fake. Seoul Station is very much in the same vein as those two, being much darker in tone with a lot of the director's themes of social inequality, in this case, the treatment of the homeless. An excellent companion piece to Train to Busan then.

What's not so excellent is the transfer - specifically the amount of banding present. I think it's the worst I've seen in any Blu Ray, and it really took me out of the film in places. This may have been forgivable if Studio Canal had included this as an extra with Train to Busan, but as a full priced release it's unforgivable. The one extra, a 15 minute 'Making of' follows the US template of focusing on the famous faces who popped into a recording studio for a couple of days to provide voice 'talent', then turn up on docs like this to windbag about the animation process as it relates to their performance. All in all, a wasted opportunity.