Movie Review: Train to Busan (2016)
In the month of October, it's a great time to visit and revisit our favorite horror movies. This review is about Yeon Sangho's Train to Busan, but to call it simply a horror movie would be a drastic understatement. Zombie movie enthusiasts are well aware of how the the genre sometimes has a tendency to put more thought into the gnarliest way to show a spatter of blood and guts before fleshing out its characters into people audiences can empathize with, and Train to Busan manages to find the happy medium between scares and real emotion, ultimately making it a near perfect cinematic experience.
Train to Busan begins with workaholic Seokwoo (Gong Yoo), who's largely absent in his young daughter Suan's (Kim Suan) daily life. This is communicated by how he gives her a Wii for her birthday, which he proudly presents without realizing he'd already gotten her one, and it's then that she asks to go to her mother in Busan. Seokwoo objects, of course, but Suan assures him that she'll be fine on her own so she won't inconvenience him and his busy work day. He's later advised by his mother to take Suan to Busan himself and use it as an opportunity to make amends with his ex-wife. So this perilous journey is preceded by the solemn, yet optimistic, setup of a distant father potentially ready to take action to mend his fractured family—an attempt to restore something pronounced dead.
As the hour-long KTX ride from Seoul to Busan begins, we're introduced to several other sets of characters—a man doting on his pregnant wife, a high school baseball team, a pair of elderly sisters, a solitary homeless man, and an incorrigible COO—and this is what makes Train to Busan really special. We're offered a unique opportunity to view the same situation from many different perspectives, and the story becomes not just one of survival for Seokwoo and Suan, but of the connections made when the situation urges divisiveness.
Zombies, in concept, are scary because they come in hordes, and zombies in Train to Busan do this at about 10x the speed we're used to seeing. The story ramps up quickly as a newly bitten girl jumps on the train just as it's leaving. Only minutes later, she bites an attendant, and that's all it takes for it to spread to the rest of the train car. The bite kills and infects within seconds, and there's special attention paid to the frankly realistic depiction of a zombie's mindless recklessness that exceeds animalistic, and the lack of inhibition is especially terrifying in a space this small. The claustrophobic setting and constant movement of the train, as well as the ever-growing pileup of writhing corpses, makes for a high-octane thrill ride, and it only digs deeper from there.
Social commentary comes in the form of people's individual tendencies to either rally or isolate in times of trouble, and the most stark contrast of these behaviors is in Suan and the relentlessly selfish COO, Yonsuk (Kim Euisung). Seokwoo chastises Suan for wanting to help others, telling her that, "At a time like this, you should only look out for yourself." Seokwoo's lifestyle has been earned through self-prioritization, though it's cost him his marriage and threatens his relationship with his daughter, but this way he knows he can survive. Meanwhile, Yonsuk stands as Seokwoo's Ghost of Christmas Future, which he probably doesn't realize; he's a high-up businessman who's more than willing to literally step over other people if it means he'll come out on top.
But while Seokwoo is the main character, it's Suan who is our hero. Seokwoo looks out for himself and Suan, but it's her passive kindness and willingness to connect with others early on that saves them time and again. As the story progresses, Seokwoo’s priorities shift as he continually finds himself in different situations where he has no choice but to rely on others and to help them in return. He joins forces with expecting father Sanghwa (Ma Dongseok) and baseball teen Yongguk (Choi Wooshik), both of whom also have someone they want to protect, and the three of them need to lean on each other in order to reach the train cars containing their loved ones.
When discussing this movie with The Kraze’s Editor-in-Chief to get another fan’s perspective, Meighan made it very clear that zombies truly are just the tip of the iceberg with the repeated declaration, “I have too many feelings about Train to Busan.” While it’s true that Train to Busan is great for horror fans, there’s really something there for everybody. Zombies are little more than part of the setting; the story is driven by the honest portrayal of ways normal people’s behaviors change in response to crisis. Dire straits can easily turn people to monsters—especially in the face of actual monsters—and it takes real strength to retain enough humanity not to leave others behind.