”Get on board to stay alive’
Train to Busan – original title: Busanhaeng – is a 2016 South Korean action horror film written and directed by Sang-ho Yeon. It stars Yoo Gong, Dong-seok Ma, Yu-mi Jeong, Ahn So-hee, Kim Soo-ahn and Jung Yu-mi.
Plot:
Sok-woo and his daughter Soo-ahn are boarding the KTX, a fast train that shall bring them from Seoul to Busan. But right at the moment of their departure, the train station is overrun by zombies, killing the train driver and several others. With the driver-less KTX now shooting along the tracks to Busan, the passengers have to fight for their naked lives against the zombies…
Reviews:
” … like most Korean blockbusters, the production cannot resist showing off its visual and special effects clout, resulting in a bombastic stunt toward the end that’s incongruous with the film’s lean, gritty style. Likewise, the screenplay piles on the hysteria and the schmaltz in the last leg, and the hitherto restrained cast have no choice but to dial up performances to a borderline farcical level.” Maggie Lee, Variety
“Visually, Yeon takes the zombie hoard and portrays it almost like a wave. Individual zombies, though very fast, pose little threat by themselves, but in large numbers they pile into locations, falling in streams over ledges and through holes and building on top of each other whenever an obstacle gets in the way. Coupled with the motion of the train, this creates some memorable visuals within the cars.” Pierce Conran, Twitch
“Train to Busan is largely set on board the express, but as it is forced to make stops along the way, Yeon gets an opportunity to move to grander set-pieces, including aerial shots which give context to the scale of the outbreak. Many of these exterior scenes are more reliant on CGI, which is ironically where the film starts to lose steam. The CGI itself is competent and creative in places, but ultimately, the film works best when the passengers are on board battling it out for survival.” Jason Bechervaise, Screen Daily
