Train to Busan (2016)
Review of Train to Busan / 부산행, directed by Yeon Sang-ho
There are some movies throughout my life that I’ve returned to again and again. I remember very clearly that Parasite has continuously been one of those films, as I first saw it before it released in theatres in New York City. Since then, I have seen the movie about six or seven times. I haven’t been keeping track.
Anyways, I saw Train to Busan for the first time when it came out in 2016. I remember I was reading about the movie in the Korean entertainment outlets, and then I watched it pretty soon after it released online. Then it blew up in the American film scene, and people were beginning to discover the magic of Korean cinema.
Things have obviously escalated since then, as people are obsessed with everything Korean. Having even specialized my blog towards Asian entertainment and literature, I can see how people are becoming more interested by the sheer amount of traffic I have been getting.
I recently was revisiting Train to Busan, thinking about some of the opinions I held when I last watched the film, and that’s what sparked this review to come about.
Let’s get into it before I bore you, shall we?
As the zombie outbreak unfolds in Korea, a story of survival emerges on one KTX train to Busan.
In this movie, our protagonist is Seok-woo, a divorced workaholic who has the chance to spend time with his daughter Su-an. She wants to go to Busan and meet her mother, and he agrees to take her down there after seeing a video of her recital, which she messed up as she didn’t see her father there and got scared.
He buys tickets for a KTX to Busan, and the next day they venture to Seoul Station to head to Busan. As they board the train and get comfortable, a woman runs onto the train, seemingly ill, and then she attacks a train attendant. The train attendant turns into a zombie, and then zombie infection spreads throughout the train.
With Sang-hwa and Seong-kyeong, a couple, a CEO named Yeon-suk, a baseball player Yong-guk and his girlfriend Jin-hee, and two old twin sisters, they hide out in a safe train car and lock the doors. They discover through the Internet that the zombie apocalypse has emerged all over Korea. The government has set up a safe zone in Busan for the survivors.
The train stops in Daejeon, where they realize everyone there has turned into a zombie. They end up in different train cars, and Yon-suk realizes his company was involved with this. They fight through the zombies to get to the front of the train, where there are other survivors, and Sang-hwa, who sacrifices himself, and In-gil are killed as the other passengers tried to deny them entry.
Jong-gil, as everyone is fighting, opens the door and allows the zombies in. Many of the passengers are killed, and the train stops in Daegu. The survivors get off the train, and Ki-chul is pushed into the zombie horde by Yon-suk. Seok-woo and Su-an, along with Seong-kyeong and the homeless guy, are trapped under a train car as Jin-hee is turned into a zombie after Yon-suk pushes her into one.
Yong-guk decides to stay with her and die. Seok-woo and crew are saved by the homeless man, and they get onto another train. There, they find Yon-suk turning into a zombie.
He begs for them to help him, but Seok-woo throws him out and gets bit. He puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong into the engine room, and tells them how to run the train. He thinks about Su-an’s birth, as he is turning, and throws himself off of the train.
Su-an and Seong-kyeong come across a blockage, and they have to stop the train. They get off of it and walk towards Busan, where snipers are waiting. They are about to kill the two, but Su-an, singing the song her father didn’t get to hear, saves them as the snipers realize they are human.
Overall Thoughts
People love Train to Busan, but every time I come back to the movie I think it’s a tad bit too cliche for me. I think the emotional arcs of the movie are great, and those are excellent hooks to get people to overlook its flaws.
However, I am a plot driven person, so I can’t overlook how the movie doesn’t really go a great job in transcending the typical zombie tropes into something that’s unique or new. Choosing the setting of the train though does make it more compelling in the vein of Snowpiercer, albeit a bit predictable.
I get that we didn’t have a lot of Korean movies like this at the time, which is why people probably also were obsessed. I don’t know if I fully agree with calling it a classic, but it was a step forward in Korean cinema to be more adventurous in the genre. It’s not groundbreaking for the genre though—just for Korean mainstream film.
I don’t hate the movie, I only think it has some flaws. Most movies do. After all, I do keep coming back to it throughout the years for a reason.
Go watch this one if you are interested! Taste is certainly subjective.
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