I am Movie Monkey and am a true film addict.
Hope you enjoy my reviews. May contain spoilers.
Train To Busan
- Genre: Horror
- Release Date: 20th July 2016
- Director: Yeon Sang-ho
- Starring: Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Su-an, Kim Eui-sung, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee.
Train to Busan is a horror film which is set in South Korea and is in Korean with English subtitles. I generally don't tend to watch many subtitled films as I sometimes find the need to keep your eyes constantly on the television can get annoying after a while.
You could look away for a few seconds and miss a vital part of the dialogue that is detrimental in your understanding of the storyline. However I thought I would give this one a go and it wasn't long until I realised that I was in it for the long haul and would be watching the whole thing.
The storyline follows a young girl, Su-an and her Father, Seo Seok-woo along the journey to the titular destination, of Busan.
Seo is a workaholic executive and spends very little time with his Daughter who by and large is brought up by his elderly Mother. Su-an is desperate to visit her Mother on her birthday, as since she now lives with her Father she doesn't get to see her as often as she'd like.
Seo is reluctant to take time off work to escort her on the train journey but she manages to talk him round and the next morning they set off early.
However a local biotech plant has a chemical leak which causes a zombie apocalypse. Seo and Su-an board the train but unfortunately for them, so does an infected person.
It's not long before all hell breaks loose.
An onboard staff member finds a lady convulsing on the floor and as she tries to help her, the other passengers watch the news channel on the train tv, showing footage of street riots and carnage as City's around the world are taken over my zombies.
As Su-an and her Father travel along the railway track, they make allies with other passengers as they all fight for survival on a train that is slowly becoming overrun by ravenous, snarling zombies who are desperate to take a chunk out of them. Together they manage to hold the zombies back by blocking them in to the carriages that they are in.
Courtesy of YouTube
After not being able to contact anyone at Busan station, the train driver decides to stop the train at a different station along the route instead. The plan is for the military to board and secure the train but the passengers are to immediately disembark the train once it stops.
Seo makes a phone call to an old friend who happens to be an army Lieutenant and asks him if their new destination is safe. He says it is but they will all need to be taken into quarantine upon their arrival. But when the train arrives at the station and all the non infected passengers exit, they walk through a deserted station and find no one around. That is until they come across a hoard of zombified army personnel who chase them back onto the train in a very tense scene.
Some passengers fall victim to the zombie hoard but others, including Seo and Su-an manage to make it back to the train, albeit on different carriages.
Seo knows that he needs to get to the same carriage as his Daughter in order to protect her so he, along with the few allies he is with, makes the dangerous trip through the zombie infested carriages, brutally picking off any infected person who tackles them.
The driver prematurely stops the train due to a shipping container blocking the tracks. He advises that they can either stay there in the hope of being rescued or they can attempt to find another working train that they can travel in instead. They choose the latter but it turns out to be easier said than done.
They manage to obtain another train but not before a few others meet their end.
Seo gets bitten and has to say goodbye to his precious Daughter who he leaves in a pregnant woman's care. They are the only two survivors from the whole train.
At the end of the line the two females exit the train and tentatively walk through a tunnel, unsure of what they will meet on the other side.
A group of Soldiers who are stationed at the tunnel are unable to visually verify if they are infected or not and are therefore ordered to shoot them dead. It is only upon hearing Su-an singing a lullaby that they realise they aren't infected and let them through the barriers and into a safe haven.
This movie far exceeded my expectations. I'm not altogether sure what I was expecting to be honest but I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed it.
I do tend to have a thing for zombie and apocalyptic type films anyway and I'm glad I stuck this one out and didn't turn it off early due to the subtitles.
I got used to reading them after a while so I think if anything, it has taught me not to automatically dismiss a movie just because it's in a language I don't know and I need to read the subtitles in order to understand what's going on.
This movie was so jam packed with great scenes that I've kept my recap relatively short as there was just too much going on to include it all.
The acting was great and the effects and stunts were brilliant.
Train To Busan is a must watch for anyone who enjoys good zombie movies; don't be put off by the subtitles!
Movie Monkey Rating: 4.5/5
Koreans are great at producing films and series about zombies. I don't know if zombies are just very popular in that country, or if this is a coincidence but they have produced Train to Busan, Alive, and Kingdom... all of them are cool and all about zombies ^^
I don’t think I’ve seen those other two movies yet so I’ll have a search for them. Thanks!
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