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English Train To Busan: A Review of the Critically Acclaimed Zombie Thriller



The original film, directed by animator Yeon Sang-ho making his live-action debut, was set inside a high-speed train from Seoul to Busan. Sources close to the deal told Variety that political allegories of a different kind may emerge.




English Train To Busan




The original film, directed by Sang-Ho Yeon, is a zombie apocalypse thriller that since premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 has become a cult classic among horror aficionados. In the film, a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, and passengers on a train traveling from Seoul to Busan struggle to survive. For my money, Train to Busan is one of the more engaging zombie films of the past few decades and remains one of the best films of the genre to this day. If you happen to check it out, and like what you see, maybe check out the sequel, Peninsula, released in 2020.


Story: Sok-woo, a father with not much time for his daughter, Soo-ahn, are boarding the KTX, a fast train that shall bring them from Seoul to Busan. But during their journey, the apocalypse begins, and most of the earth's population become flesh craving zombies. While the KTX is shooting towards Busan, the passenger's fight for their families and lives against the zombies - and each other. Written by Anonymus


Parents need to know that Train to Busan is an excellent South Korean zombie horror -- with English subtitles -- that features frantic, bloody violence, and intense scenes in enclosed spaces. Despite the intensity it is more of a fun action movie than a chilling horror. Zombies kill many people and they in turn instantly become zombies. The movie features scenes of civil unrest, a train crash, and people falling from helicopters. Most characters are courageous and resourceful. Teamwork, courage, compassion, and communication help train passengers under siege from zombies to get out of desperate situations. A father, Seok-woo (Gong Yoo), takes care of his daughter, Su-an (Su-an Kim), and forms a group with survivors to help others escape. One character lets others die to save himself. Infrequent strong language includes "bulls--t," "bitch," and "arse." A few brands feature in the movie, including Burger King, Audi, and Nintendo.


The zombie genre is so well worn, anything fresh to sink your teeth into is always darkly delicious. As such, writer-director Sang-ho Yeon's smashing together of the disaster movie genre with modern running zombies -- and all the frantic, breathless action they bring with them -- makes Train to Busan a treat for fans of both genres. Here a diverse group of people are brought together to fend off zombies on a very narrow train. This includes Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and his young daughter, Su-an (a brilliant Su-an Kim). Throwing a kid in the mix adds heft to the drama, as does pregnant character, Seong-kyeong (Yu-mi Jung). When key events kick off midway, the realization that you've grown to care for the main gang serves to up the emotional investment as the action continues to escalate.


Setting it apart from most horror movies, nearly all the action in Train to Busan takes place in daylight, adding an eerie, mundane quality. The sleepy train carriages are easily recognizable until the blood baths occur. Masterful touches such as having a baseball team onboard to add a believable reason for the survivors to have access to weapons is simply a delight. More an action thrill ride than a chilling horror, this is a refreshing and exhilarating movie that packs a few emotional punches alongside its blood-soaked action.


Fund manager Seok-woo is a cynical workaholic and divorced father of his daughter Su-an, who wants to spend her birthday with her mother in Busan. Seok-woo sees a video of Su-an attempting to sing "Aloha ʻOe" at her singing recital and succumbing to stage fright as a result of his absence. Overcome with guilt, he decides to grant Su-an's birthday wish. The next day, they board the KTX 101 at Seoul Station, en route to Busan. Other passengers include Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, COO Yon-suk, a high school baseball team including player Yong-guk and his cheerleader girlfriend Jin-hee, elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil, train attendant Ki-chul, and a traumatized homeless stowaway hiding in the bathroom. As the train departs, an ill young woman runs onto the train unnoticed. She turns into a zombie and attacks a train attendant, who also turns. The infection spreads rapidly throughout the train.


A blocked track at the East Daegu train station forces the survivors to stop and search for another train. Yon-suk escapes after pushing Ki-chul into the zombies, then later does the same with Jin-hee when they run into each other on the tracks. Heartbroken, Yong-guk stays with Jin-hee until she turns and kills him. The train conductor starts a locomotive on another track, but is also thrown to the zombies while trying to save an injured Yon-suk. A flaming locomotive derails and traps the remaining survivors, but Seok-woo finds a way out. The rest of the group is trapped again by falling debris. The homeless man sacrifices himself to buy time for Seok-woo to clear the debris and Su-an and Seong-kyeong to escape onto the new locomotive. After fighting off zombies hanging onto the locomotive, they encounter Yon-suk, who is on the verge of turning into a zombie and is begging for help, having been bitten when the conductor saved him. Seok-woo manages to throw him off, but is bitten. He puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room, teaches Seong-kyeong how to operate the train, and says goodbye to his daughter before throwing himself off the locomotive. Due to another train blockage, Su-an and Seong-kyeong are forced to stop the train at a tunnel just prior to Busan. The two exit the train and continue following the tracks on foot through the tunnel. Snipers are stationed on the other side of the tunnel and are prepared to shoot at what they believe to be zombies, but they lower their weapons and rush towards them to help them when they hear Su-an singing "Aloha ʻOe".


Formidable antagonists that they are, the zombies of Train to Busan are nonetheless a backdrop to the human drama that unfolds on the train as it speeds through the South Korean landscape. The allegorical weight of Train to Busan reminded me of the recent Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013), an international collaboration among South Korea, the Czech Republic, France, and the USA. Train to Busan is less heavy-handed and less dour (though not, in the end, less bleak). But, like Snowpiercer, it is about much more than people struggling to survive on a speeding train.


And then, many of the most powerful subsequent scenes visually dramatize the passengers struggling with all of these impulses: to act selfishly, to help others, to blindly follow someone who sets himself up as a leader, to follow the crowd. These struggles are played out literally around the train doors, as some of the clear lines of distinction between infected and uninfected become blurred.


In one memorable scene, the core group of survivors tries to keep out the infected at one end of the train carriage while trying to break through the door at the other end after the rest of survivors, led, of course, by Yong-suk, have barricaded them out for fear of infection.


South Korea is a destination which is gaining more and more popularity among travelers worldwide. As such, making your way from Seoul to Busan on a modern KTX bullet train has recently become somewhat of a route classic, taking you across the country from north to south in record-fast travel times. Among the simplest ways to get around in Korea is taking fast and modern trains, below we have put together answers to commonly asked questions about the Seoul - Busan rail route.


'Train to Busan' takes an awesome approach. Like the sequel '28 Weeks Later,' it demonstrates the terrifying scenario of a quickly-spreading zombie outbreak. We initially follow it through the eyes of a selfish businessman and his daughter. He and his wife have been separated. His wife now lives in Busan while he and his daughter live in Seoul. For his daughter's birthday, he plans to take her on the first train of the day to Busan, drop her off to spend time with her mom, then return to Seoul for his ever-so-important work.


Just as the train is about to leave the station, there's a commotion outside. It sounds like protesting and rioting, but with the train about to depart, no one seems too worried about it. Before the doors close, a young woman races aboard as fast as she can and stumbles into the bathroom. As the train rolls away, an attendant offers to help the infected girl that promptly bites her, starting a chain reaction of biting that results in entire passenger cars quickly becoming chock full of zombies. Like fellow Korean film 'Snowpiercer,' there's a world of danger outside the speeding train, but there's also no safety within the train itself.


As the train rolls along, we're introduced to an ensemble of characters: an entire high school baseball team, said high school team's lone cheerleader, two elderly sisters getting out of the city together, a stubborn man and his pregnant wife, a greedy businessman who only looks out for himself, a quiet filthy man who appears to live on the streets, and a few other train attendants. As the excitement begins, a great amount of these characters are bitten and turned. No one is safe as this evil army grows in numbers within the careening bullet train.


Unlike most zombie movies, not a single bit of the film is set during the night. As such, it's a bright film with plenty of lighting and colorization. Much more color is present than you'd find in most horror films. The palette consists mostly of primaries. The contrast is consistent throughout. The only time that we get deeper black levels is when the train passes through long mountain tunnels. At those times, there's still a decent amount of light present in order for us to still see the characters in the should-be pitch blackness. This turns the blacks into grays, but that's certainly a directorial decision for the sake of being able to see the on-screen action. 2ff7e9595c


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