Train to Busan (2016)

★★★½
A Netflix staple for the last three years, Train to Busan offers not only a thrilling take on the zombie movie, but also a welcome alternative to arrogant Hollywood personalities who have become so insufferable as of late that one is forced to look elsewhere for big screen entertainment. This movie has everything you could want from this genre, and more. It’s exciting and gory, but also surprisingly emotional and very original. Yes, an original zombie movie. Though it uses the running variety popularized by 28 Days Later, it stages most of the action on a train and uses the location to its full advantage. It’s pretty exhilarating.

South Korean cinema had flown under the radar for some time. During my non-stop indie film college years (1994-2000), when I tracked the release of many obscure titles, I just didn’t notice much from South Korea, if anything. Ki-duk Kim’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring introduced me to this world. I have since become a fan of his work and of Park Chan-wook (Oldboy). Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan gives us many reasons why we should not lose sight of what South Korea offers. If Hollywood elitists insist on alienating half their audience with vapid political posturing, then at least we know that we can rely on other countries to fulfill our cinematic cravings.

Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is a banker who is obsessed with his work and pays little attention to his daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an). One day they board a train to Busan to visit her mother. A homeless man (Choi Gwi-hwa) rushes aboard and appears distraught but says nothing at first. Also aboard is a bite victim who dies and suddenly attacks a train attendant. They then attack the passengers and what follows is a grisly and chaotic situation on the train. With the train in motion and the outside world experiencing problems of its own, the remaining characters have few options to fend off the zombie horde, which increases in size very quickly.

We get to know many of the survivors on this train. There is a school baseball team along for the ride. Player Yong-guk (Choi Woo-shik) and cheerleader Jin-hee (Sohee) stand out as characters to watch. The burly everyman Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seo) develops a tense partnership with Seok-woo due to his profession’s predatory banking reputation, which may or may not be fair. Yon-suk (Kim Eui-sung) is a rich tycoon who quickly reveals himself to be interested in self-preservation at the expense of others. There are still more people who enter the narrative. The movie fleshes them out (no pun intended) and juggles them all handily. The nature of the story necessitates that many characters, both extras and established, will fall victim to the zombies. Like the Japanese film Battle Royale, Train to Busan invests the time to humanize the surviving passengers and ensures we know who they are. A good film can skillfully kill off characters, but an excellent film will take the time to let the plot go to work on the characters and allow them to emerge from the action with distinct ways of understanding the situation and dealing with it. Then it will kill them off.

The train limits the options for the survivors, but writer Park Joo-suk lets his imagination run wild. He probably took numerous train rides to study how every space could be used advantageously. Everything from luggage compartments to restrooms is put to use, in some ways obvious but other ways ingenious. The zombies, a quick and snarling bunch, are exceptionally dangerous. I emphasize that because the glut of zombie movies on television and the big screen have made them a common sight. Some can even talk (Warm Bodies, which I want to make clear is a good movie, and book). If zombies have become less scary, then Train to Busan reminds us that they were once considered formidable villains, as George Romero’s films attested many years ago now. Yeon Sang-ho’s movie can be seen as an attempt to re-establish just how menacing these creatures are. Sure, World War Z got there a few years before, but let’s face it: World War Z, while good, is a watered-down PG-13 actioner. Yeon’s film would get an R rating if the MPAA had screened it.

Train to Busan absolutely nails it. It is exciting, gruesome and violent, but it also has a heart. Seok-woo, introduced to us as a yuppie concerned with his job performance, really comes through and strengthens his relationship with his daughter. There are surprising twists and turns, but moments of sadness as well. Yeon develops his characters so completely that as the body count rises, so too does the uncertainty of the ending. Just how many people will be allowed to walk away once the train reaches its destination? I mentioned Battle Royale once before, and I’ll refer to it again. If you recall who was left standing at the end of that movie once the dust settled and experienced a sense of loss because of those who didn’t make it, then you’ll have an idea of where this movie is going. Given the scope of the catastrophe, how could it end any other way?

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