If cinema has taught us anything, it’s that trains just make everything better. From Agatha Christie to Snowpiercer, and from Hitchcock to Harry Potter… from The Station Agent to Train To Busan… just set stories in and around trains and you’ve got an instant ace up your sleeve.
And zombies just won’t die. Each time you think their time has come, they rise up and find a new appetite to quench thirsty filmgoers’ bloodlust.
Train To Busan is boilerplate zombie cinema done right from top to bottom. It isn’t that there’s a totally new or unique approach with this film, it’s just a really solid take on the classic zombie outbreak scenario. The zombies are fast, our main characters are on a train (perhaps the biggest element that stands out from the typical zombie tale), and the characters are just dimensional enough to engage and keep you on the edge of your seat, praying for their survival or escape.
In what is certainly writer/director Sang-ho Yeong’s highest profile feature to date, he makes a remarkable leap from primarily animated features (The King Of Pigs and The Fake) to a major international box office sensation. And with rising Korean star Yoo Gong (The Suspect, The Age Of Shadows) as his leading man along with a massively marketable hook, it’s no surprise this movie had a high profile. But the critical response (96% on Rotten Tomatoes) was somewhat of a shocker. And I must admit the relentless praise is what shot this film up from “yeah I’d like to see that some day” to “I must see this film immediately” status. While I’m perhaps a little bit disappointed that the film only offered an exemplary take on a well worn formula versus a revolutionary new approach to zombie cinema, there’s little to find fault with in Train To Busan.
The character work is the most crucial ingredient the film gets right, on top of wonderfully executed zombie mayhem. Yoo Gong’s Seok Woo is a divorcee business man whose career brought an end to his marriage and is threatening to end his relationship with his young daughter (Soo-an Kim as Soo-an, a perfectly cast young lady). He’s actually bringing his daughter back to stay with her mother in Busan when the zombie outbreak begins. While this relationship dynamic may be somewhat obvious… it just works. As the stakes increase, Seok’s humanity is gradually restored by the bleeding heart of his young daughter, who has grown to resent his selfishness and greed. In turn, Soo-an’s compassion results in life-prolonging relationships with other survivors on the train. Horror brings father and daughter closer together, and pulls the audience deeper into their plight. The most notable survivor who makes the strongest impression and rises above an occasionally generic cast is Dong Seok-ma (The Good, The Bad, And The Weird) as father-to-be Sang Hwa. A stocky gentleman, Sang Hwa offers a counterpoint to Seok from a character perspective and gets many of the film’s best action beats as a survivor who’s unafraid to do some combat with the undead. All told, the precision of the character work in Yeong’s script balances nicely with the increasing zombie threat to bring a worthy nail-biter to the screen.
The zombie work is also top notch. While it’s clear that the budget for Train To Busan is notably lower than, say, World War Z’s, Yeong still manages a few new tricks with his creatures. The moment of resurrection from human to zombie is distinctly creepy here, with a whipping/writhing motion that feels like some kind of wire work trick but which looks disturbing every time it is used. The wide shots and tight shots of hordes of zombies are impressive as well. Equally important as the creatures and characters is the writing, placement, and execution of the set pieces. And Yeong uses the constricted environment of a train to expertly pace the movie and escalate the stakes from station to station, and train car to train car.
The Walking Dead has taught us that there’s an enormous mainstream appetite for zombie stories. Fans of The Walking Dead would do themselves well to check out Train To Busan as a reminder of how zombie stories are best told.
And I’m Out.
Train To Busan hits Blu-ray and DVD on January 17th, 2017 from Well Go USA Entertainment