Yeon Sang-ho, director of the incredible South Korean zombie movie Train to Busan, has a new Netflix TV series on the way. Hellbound is premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and the first trailer has been released.
The show is based on a digital comic Sang-ho co-wrote with illustrator Choi Kyu-seok, about people who’re being hunted by demons summoned by some religious sect. The TIFF website‘s listing for Hellbound describes The Hell as a “storyboard”, and notes that these digital comics, or webtoons, have become incredibly popular in South Korea. Sang-ho actually got his start making anime movies the King of Pigs and The Fake, so this project brings both his worlds together.
TIFF says this trailer is a pre-credits scene, likely meaning it’ll be one of the first things we see when the show premieres on the streaming service. It features a man looking anxious and scared in a coffee shop, before he’s chased out by three grey, CGI monsters. No further context is given, and though the effects are a little ropey, it does enough to make you sit forward.
The description from TIFF calls it “a series about a nation coping with a new phenomenon of ‘sinners’ literally condemned”. Yoo Ah-in, star of Netflix horror movie #Alive, plays Jung Jin-soo, the leader of a radical cult that summons the monsters in the trailer.
The rest of the synopsis reads: “Investigating the phenomenon of ‘proclamations’ and ritualistic murders is police detective Jin Kyung-hoon (Yang Ik-june). Examining the mysterious sect are broadcast journalist Bae Young-jae (Park Jeong-min) and lawyer of the accused sinners Min Hey-jin (Kim Hyun-joo). Together, these three investigators search for answers in this wildly original commentary on the growing anxieties of a nation.”
Peninsula, a Train to Busan sequel written and directed by Sang-ho, came out in 2020. An English-language remake directed by Timo Tjahjanto, the filmmaker behind Indonesian action movie The Night Comes For Us, and produced by James Wan is currently being developed.
Hellbound will be six episodes long, and it’ll premiere on Netflix September 19.