Divorced
businessman Seok-woo (Yoo) hasn’t been the best of fathers lately. He reluctantly
decides to return his upset daughter Su-an (Su-an) to her mother in Busan. As
they get on the train at Seoul, there are reports of violence erupting in the
city. The train leaves the platform just as the chaos arrives and martial law
is declared. Of course this isn’t violence – this is the zombie apocalypse
Korean style – the result of biotech gone wrong. However, an infected person
has managed to get on board, and that’s where the fun begins…
The zombies are gloriously over the top
Evil Dead type zombies – jerking wildly, spasming like ‘80s breakdancers on the
floor and rampaging through each carriage like a feral mass of teenage girls at
a Justin Bieber concert. The action sequences are incredible – straight out of
a video game – and there’s palpable tension in every scene. This is the film that World War Z could have been.
After an ill-fated stop at the next
station, it becomes clear the train must head to Busan at all costs. Think Snowpiercer with zombies, and Raid style
action sequences, and a richly veiled layer of supporting characters that never
allow the film to have a boring moment. The zombies can’t open doors, and can
only attack what they can see, so there’s some amusing improvisation on the
train, allowing brief respite from an impending, bloody death. As with any good
zombie film – it’s often the humans you need to worry about, and Train to Busan gives us a bad guy for
the ages, as well as some true heroes. But when there’s nowhere to escape, not
everyone is safe.
Not just satisfied with dishing out the
best zombie movie since Zack Snyder’s Dawn
of the Dead remake, Yong Sang-Ho gives us layers of poignant drama here. The
theme of the banality of evil is touched upon – a worker part of the offscreen
‘biotech incident’ struggles with guilt as he says ‘we only do what we are told
to’.
Relationships are explored – father and daughter,
husband and wife, upper class and working class, showing us people’s true
colours when confronted with extreme circumstances. (That colour is usually red
and being splattered along the carriage floor.) Although by cleverly showing
their vulnerabilities too, it’s hard to simply judge them. One scene in the
film concerning the actions of a disheartened older lady sent gasps and cheers
through the packed Vue cinema screen at Frightfest, one of many iconic moments
this film produces.
Forget snakes on a plane, Zombies on a Train
is the best batshit crazy idea in ages and one the best zombie movies ever
made.
TRAIN TO BUSAN / DIRECTOR & SCRENPLAY:
YEON SANG-HO / STARRING: GONG YOO, JUNG YU-MI, MA DONG-SEOK, CHOI WOO-SIK / AN
SO-HEE / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 28TH
