Doomsday Reels: Train to Busan
Train to Busan (2016)
The Director
Sang-ho Yeon
The Actors
Yoo Gon (Seok-woo), Su-an Kim (Soo-an), Yumi Jung (Seong-kyeong), Dong-seok Ma (Sang-hwa), Woo-sik Choy (Yong-guk), Sohee (Jin-hee)
The Trailer
The Cause
Zombie Virus
The Story
"A man (Gong Yoo), his estranged daughter and other passengers become trapped on a speeding train during a zombie outbreak in South Korea." - Google search result for "Train to Busan synopsis"
The Rundown
Zombies are overexposed. We all know this, though some of us are more capable about shutting the hell up about it than others. What once was a pariah sub-genre is now the new hotness and even though that's produced more than its share of absolute garbage it has allowed for bigger more original ideas from more storytellers. Nonetheless they are overexposed and nobody likes the popular kid so normally forgiving horror fans become super critical of zombie movies. Is it incredibly hypocritical to judge zombies on a sliding scale because they're popular? Sure, but who cares. Nobody said we couldn't be contradictory for arbitrary reasons. We contain multitudes and shit.
The unfortunate side-effect of being super snobby about zombie movies is that when one comes out that makes us feel love again, we tend to revert to our overly forgiving horror nerd selves and praise what is simply a good movie as the greatest thing ever. This creates false expectations in others and they double down on hating something they would otherwise be lukewarm on. It's a terrible cycle. My advice to you, discerning viewers, is to cut that out.
I get it, the market is oversatured and that's always frustrating and annoying but it's not as if they ever stopped making good zombie movies just because they make too many on the whole. Your point is valid and understood but you sound like that guy who says he doesn't read comic books because they're low art but really likes "graphic novels." Don't be that person, everyone hates him.
Train to Busan has been the most recent recipient of the "I don't like zombie films, but-" treatment and while I love a crossover hit, this kind of talk just builds up false expectations in those who haven't seen it and ultimately hurts the bottom line. If you genuinely don't like zombie movies at all, this isn't the one that's going to rock your world, but if you're just tired of watching boring rehashes of the same idea in your zombie movies this might make your heart go two sizes. I mean, it's still a rehash of older ideas, but it's not remotely boring.
Train to Busan is a new installment of a sub-sub-genre that I just made up called the Korean Train Apocalypse (the only other film in the genre is the beloved Snowpiercer but if Dragon Apocalypse gets a category so does this one) directed by Sang-ho Yeon who had only directed animated films up to this point.
The story concerns an overworked single father (Yoo Gong) who has become estranged from his young daughter (Su-an Kim) because he's always working and never there for her on an emotional level. The daughter convinces the father to take her on the train from Seoul to Busan, where her mother lives, for a visit. The day they leave happens to be the day that the dead return to life and start devouring the living. Now our two leads are trapped on a train going across the South Korean countryside in hopes of reaching a nebulous safe-haven in Busan. That's the whole plot.
The zombies are your standard 28 Days Later/Dawn of the Dead remake turbo zombies seemingly lifted straight out of World War Z and dropped here. There's no big metaphor behind the undead (there's a single mention of their existence being blamed on something to do with the main character's investment firm, but it's a footnote at best) but that's fine because while zombies are wonderful to use as a metaphor, they also just work as scary monsters who want to eat you like Draculas, Wolfmans, and large men who murder naked teens with a variety of sharp objects.
Train to Busan is a by-the-numbers horror movie but this isn't to say that it's shallow or hollow, it's a wonderfully movie filled with nuance and depth. The characters are archetypes but they're sketched in such artful strokes that they feel real. There's little to no gore involved (this may be the first zombie movie I've seen where not one single zombie is killed) but there is a tremendous amount of blood and that coupled with the herky-jerky movements and looks of sadistic gleeful rage on the creatures' faces makes it feel very visceral.
Train to Busan pulls, intentionally or not, from a lot of different movies to make up what it is. The aforementioned Dawn of the Dead remake and the original Night of the Living Dead certainly influenced the film, but I would say that the Spanish found-footage zombie film [REC] is cut from the same cloth, and there are elements of films like Miracle Mile and Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.
Train to Busan doesn't follow in the footsteps of Romero, the zombies are just zombies but as with something like The Walking Dead they serve as a catalyst to bring out the real monsters of the piece: us. Every zombie movie features at least one character with a selfish attitude that lies and gets other people killed but Eui-sung Kim's weaselly businessman is more real than the guy who hides his zombie bite.
Kim's character doesn't have a lot to do in the first hour of the movie but his few character beats in the first act hint at what's coming. He's not an evil man, he's just frightened, but it's his fear for his own life that makes him do evil deeds. It's not that he doesn't care for the lives of others, it's that he can't allow himself to be put into unnecessary danger by their bad instincts. This attitude is reflected by Yoo Gong's protagonist who has a similar mindset but is kept from giving in these ideas by his daughter, who cares very much for the well-being of others at risk to herself.
Neither Yoo Gong nor his daughter are entirely right, selflessness certainly gets a lot of characters killed in this movie. But Eui-sung Kim's survival instincts, while ironclad on a logical stage cause far more deaths and are ultimately the undoing of everyone.
The message of the movie is about sacrifice, that which is helpful and that which isn't. Yoo Gong is not a neglectful father, he cares very much for his daughter and works constantly to provide for her. But in working so hard to keep her safe he has neglected to truly be a father to her. It's this priority of survival over caring that informs the journey these two characters undertake. Soo-an's selflessness puts her in danger but it pays off in the long run while the selfish nature of most of the other passengers pays off immediately but ultimately causes much larger problems.
This isn't an original concept, I daresay it has been hammered into the ground in the post 9/11 filmscape, but it's a good message. It's not exactly a message of hope, there's not very much of a sense of karma to Train to Busan and the movie is very humorless and bleak to the end credits. The victories of the characters are usually pyrric and the film establishes a world too broken to ever render a truly happy ending.
As stated above, there's nothing original about this movie. It's so full of cliche that it's practically elemental, but originality is over-rated and strong story-telling is better than uniqueness any day. The story progresses at a wonderful pace, hitting all the necessary beats of horror and drama quickly and efficiently without futzing about with filler. This is a lean movie and its setting provides a great vehicle for the story it tells. The literal "on-the-rails" quality of the train setting delivers a static location that can basically travel along with the plot to all the necessary story beats, a combination of journey and setting that do wonders for the narrative structure.
Regardless of these wonderful elements, the film wouldn't succeed without a team that knows how to handle the material. To see what I'm talking about, check out the movie Quarantine 2: Terminal from 2011. That movie follows a similar narrative structure and setting but its' a boring, shitty movie that is a genuine chore to watch. The two films serve as how-to and how-not-to examples of how to tell a story.
Train to Busan is well-acted and beautifully shot, though some of the computer generated effects have that sheen of artifice that a practiced eye will recognize immediately. This isn't the best zombie movie in years, but it's a very tight and quality-made film that's worth seeing. Don't get your hopes too high but go in knowing that what you're getting is just a very good version of something you've seen many other times. Shake off your zombie fatigue and just enjoy the movie for what it is.
The Shill
Train to Busan is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant as well as Netflix.
Next Time on Doomsday Reels
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