Train to Busan

Directed by: Sang-ho Yeon
Release Date: 2016

With no expectations, I was satisfied from the jump. A solid zombie story with melodrama thrown in? I'm in!


We meet a father who has joint custody of his daughter with his ex-wife who lives in Busan. He's an absentee father. It's his daughter's birthday and he duplicates a gift that he'd already given her for a Korean holiday. She wants to see her mother and tells her father she can take the train alone. Of course, he won't let ride the train by herself so he joins her for the most insane train ride of their lives.

In true zombie fashion, little elements provide the watcher with clues that people are sick in some way. Think 28 Days Later, but on a train. The action ramps up pretty early and each escalation makes you anxious with each shot. Setting this zombie attack on a train provides the film with great tension. The zombie makeup was on point, with the eye discoloration, the darkening of the veins, and the limbs making bone breaking sounds. The sound design added to creating all the anxiety for the characters on the screen, trying to make it out alive with this zombie attack. The colors also made for a cinematic experience. The break between the zombies and the people, we were able to see the landscape of Korea either by the sun setting or showcasing the beautiful greenery that exits there. Truly a pretty picture to see. With the director's background in animation, all of the visual aspects of his storytelling translated perfectly for this kind of film.

People enclosed in these tight spaces create strong tension. They do things that affect other people because they are surviving. In this case, the father's daughter calls him out for being selfish. He's only trying to protect his daughter while she's thinking of other people in a crisis. This message about how folks react in a crisis reminded me of the AMC show, The Walking Dead. You soon realize the walking dead are not the zombies. Train to Busan uses that message in a different way. With people turning on each other because they don't want to be infected, we know the end result and we are rooting for their demise! It's a horror film trope. Like waiting for Michael or Jason to kill off the awful characters that have sex in their films. It's a trope but it works well here.

The melodrama also provides another layer to this zombie flick. Similar to Shaun of the Dead, we are rooting for this father and his crew of misfits to make it out alive. We start to side with his crew with each death that occurs. And each death is heartbreaking. The saccharine score tries to elicit that emotion from the viewers but it works. Every aspect of this film works and I'd see this film 5,000 more times for free. It's that good.

I'm glad I got a win because I've been watching some horror duds lately.