Movie Peninsula has unveiled behind-the-scenes stories of production that embodies post-apocalypse.
Set 4 years after Train to Busan, Peninsula depicts the final struggle of those who are left on the ruined land. The movie deals with the post-apocalypse worldview for the first time in Korea. Director Yeon Sang Ho worked hard on the pre-production process to give shape to the land that was destroyed after the disaster. From the pre-production stage, the art team and the VFX team invested nearly a year in creating a visual that has never been seen before. He explained the core of the space setting, saying, “We gathered ideas and actually created them to materializes a familiar yet never-seen background.”
Incheon Port, the first thing Jung Seok sees upon returning after 4 years, is one of the representative places that realistically materializes neglected and abandoned spaces. From wild, unmanaged grasses, unordered cars on the street, polluted streets without any human traces, to huge ships that are spotted on the land or floating uncontrolled in the ocean, the scenery was created from the idea of 4 years after the disaster. Realistic details were brought to life by how the things that should belong separately to the land and the sea are mixed in the streets.
Movie Peninsula features a number of familiar urban landscapes, including Guro Digital Complex, Omokgyo, and Sebitseom. Director Yeon Sang Ho had put in careful efforts to work on VFX even before the shooting, scanning the actual images of the Guro Digital Complex, where the truck that Jung Seok and his crew needs to find is located, and creating the entire city with visual effects.
One of the filming sets that both the production team and the actors admired is the mall, which serves as a hideout for Unit 631. After pondering on “how will survivors survive when the post-apocalypse comes,” director Yeon Sang Ho used a shopping mall that combines complex elements after a long meeting with the art team. While collecting images of abandoned shopping malls around the world, they took hints from spaces filled with water on the floor and actively reflected them in the 631 Unit’s set, and even waterproofed the place to fill the large space with water.
The underground parking lot of the mall was actually filmed at a real underground parking lot, where the actual cars were set up, and 10 five-ton trucks of dirt were poured in. In all, they managed to create the real underground parking lot that shows the cars tangled up as the soil was pushed in due to the flooding. Also, the interior of the shopping mall was made to look dry and impoverished, reflecting the psychology of Unit 631, who lost their humanity.
Peninsula will be released on July 15.
