Train to Busan (2016)

Review

"I'll take you to mom no matter what." - Seok Woo

Workaholic father Seok Woo begrudgingly decides to take his pre-teen daughter Su-an to visit her mother in Busan. They board a high speed intercity train and just as it is about to get underway a young woman staggers onto one of the carriages, unfortunately this chick appears to have a leg wound. With the train underway it's not long before news agencies are reporting that a "violent riot" has broken out in, well, pretty much every City across the country. Social media is starting to trend the word "zombie", as train travellers check their smartphones.

Our lady with the leg injury, who quite possibly doesn't have a ticket, is starting to show some disturbing behaviour, including apparently dying, coming back to life, and attacking fellow passengers who in turn go through their own metamorphosis, just like a caterpillar really, if for the moment we can think of butterflies as flesh eating ghouls. Anyways Seok Woo and other survivors are barricading themselves in "safe" carriages and are learning first hand exactly how zombies operator. Can they make it to the apparent safety of Busan or are they destined to join the growing undead army. One heck of a brilliant flick ensues.

Been a while since I dialled into K-horror, think the last one I watched was A Tale of Two Sisters, and have been waiting over a year for an opportunity to catch a screening of Train to Busan. The movie earnt huge reps from overseas markets so anticipation was reasonably high and wouldn't you know it Busan dropped on my queue out of the blue. So this is the first of our "It Streamed From Beyond" reviews, and got to say the movie rocked. This is the movie that World War Z should have been, an out and out attempt to unnerve the audience.

Guess we should get the zombie antics out of the way first as this is probably the aspect that most people are going to judge the movie on. Yes we are talking fast movers of the sprinting variety and there was that whole World War Z almost insect like group activity that was sort of cool. But added bonus to this movie was the weird unnatural body contortions the zombies were doing, which kind of brought to mind the weird jerky movements of various dark haired female protagonists in those Japanese revenant movies. So if after something slightly different in your zombie look and feel then you are in the right place.

The plot rocks as well, besides everything pretty much taking place on a single train in limited carriages we do get the odd excursion off train to visit various train stations and yards. It's all solidly intense with our survivors gradually being whittled down and the viewer hoping various favourites will survive to the end credits. The movie is pretty much defined by the train journey with all roads leading to Busan ultimately. There's enough happening however to keep us enthralled as the travellers gradually discover that things are a lot worse than fist imagined. Naturally the undead present a huge external danger but they also present an internal danger with parts of the train having been overrun; this is very much a siege situation as the survivors barricade themselves into a single carriage and battle for their lives.

Naturally, this being a zombie flick and all, the zombies aren't the only danger facing our lead characters, yes there is a human element as well. One businessman is so panicked at the thought of his own likely fate that he is prepared to do anything to survive; including directly causing the death of a number of other would be survivors. His panic is infectious with a mob situation developing during a couple of scenes, and naturally with a mob there has to be a few outsiders who bear the brunt of the mob's ire. As opposed to the majority of zombie flicks however, Busan isn't holding up the military or social elite as prominent dangers.

Where Busan really gives that crystal ring, to paraphrase Stephen King, is with the handling of the "hero's progress" which is rocking the house down. Seok Woo begins the movie as a salaryman dedicated to his job at the cost of his family. He eventually realises his family's importance before finally coming to the realisation that self-sacrifice is a requirement as he risks his life a number of times to save others. So in essence, and trying to avoid spoilers here, Train to Busan can be viewed as a tragedy as well as a horror flick. Those are solid writing skills from scribe Joo-Suk Park who seems to understand not only the horror constructs required by the sub-genre but also the requirements of constructing a good movie script. Park makes the journey to Busan an allergy of Seok Woo's journey to self-discovery along the way.

Director Sang-ho Yeon has this one hog tied and branded, if you are one of those viewers who doesn't like to read subtitles then I would still implore you to catch Busan if only for the visuals the Director has going down. There's some tourism worthy shots of South Korea, a lot of grim railroad infrastructure and the superbly managed train carriage scenes of mayhem and destruction. Yeon never lets the pacing slow during the action scenes but spends enough time in between those scenes to get us rallying behind well-constructed characters that you hope will survive the journey.

The Director really comes into his own with the handling of the support cast. From a college baseball team and their "cheer leader" to the gruff Sang-hwa everyone is used to perfection. Pregnant ladies are always going to be something difficult to deal with in a horror flick, should they be put in harm's way? - and even more problematic are old ladies, you really don't want to see them come to a bad ending. Director Sang-ho Yeon knows the boundry lines, between solid horror and outright explouitation and tranverses his movie along those lines without putting a foot wrong. Not everyone is going to make it to the end credits, and this being a zombie flick death isn't going to be easy, Yeon keeps things on a tight rein and allows his characters to develop their own traits.

While I would like to congratulate every single member of the cast I'm not entirely sure what constructs good acting in the Korean industry. Okay that probably sounds a tad racist, but what the hey I thought everyone delivered a solid enough performance but am definitely not a student of Korean culture, popular or otherwise. Special mention of Soo-an Kim (Su-an) who holds her own with the adult cast members

Clearly I'm going to throw a full recommendation at this movie, push family and friends out of the way kids to catch a viewing as soon as possible. I saw the movie via online stream, hey all legal folks I paid for the service, but for sure am going to go get me the Blu-ray on release date next week. One of the best zombie movies of the last few years, Train to Busan is in the must watch basket. Get on the groove train for the movie; you're going to have a real good time.