I think I might be the last person I know who haven't watched Train to Busan when 2016 ended. I've been meaning to watch it as soon as I got a copy, so when the streaming service iFlix heavily advertised its premiere in their lineup, I was pretty much just waiting to click on the play button. Of course, it took five separate viewings to watch the entire film, but at least I'm now here writing about it.
Fund manager Seok-woo is busy with his career... so busy he doesn't know what to get his daughter for her birthday. Su-an requests to go visit her mother in Busan, which he reluctantly agrees to, with the two boarding a train the following day. When an infected passenger starts spreading the zombie virus on board, their trip turns into a nightmare. They encounter other passengers, such as bus line CEO Yon-suk, high school baseball player Yong-guk and his crush Jin-hee, and married couple Sang-hwa and Seong-kyong, who is pregnant.
Given the positive response to its special screening at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Train to Busan gained traction and quickly grew in popularity worldwide. It spawned memes for different scenarios, a sure indication that it has made its mark in pop culture. Like always, I had to wait my chance to watch it in one form of home media release, since I couldn't watch in the cinema.
On paper, Train to Busan isn't really an original concept. In the recent decade alone, there's plenty versions of the zombie apocalypse to be found in pop culture... with versions that range from the comedic (Zombieland), to the dramatic survival story (The Walking Dead), to actual practical survival-how-to's (The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks), and, of course, to the world-ending variety (World War Z). You can even find stories that depict the perspective of an infected (Warm Bodies and The Girl with All the Gifts). And if you're looking for a story of the claustrophobic nature of surviving on a train, the sci-fi gem Snowpiercer is the best example you can look to. But there's no denying that Train to Busan succeeded on its own merits, despite rehashing familiar themes and narratives.
While serious in its telling, Train to Busan never takes itself too seriously. It knows that the audience would be familiar with how a zombie apocalypse works, so it focuses instead on the train's passengers trying to survive until a safe haven can be found, if one even exists. The zombies are fast in their transformation and fast in their movements, especially when prey is in the vicinity, giving the film a frenetic pace, with the uninfected running or fighting for their lives from one car to another on the train. Its cast, both the terrified uninfected and the transformed infected, commit to their respective roles. Much effort was taken for the latter group to showcase a cohesion in movement, from the contortions they are prone to experience during transformations to the jerky yet swift movements when chasing down survivors. It makes for a viewing experience that in turns builds on the dread and thrills with chase or fight scenes (I spent my viewing time waving at the screen whenever I want a character to move faster).
If there's a drawback to watching the film, it's probably the fact that the characters eventually fell into the usual zombie survival film tropes. This means none of the characters are particularly memorable for bringing something new to the genre, and you can easily guess how some of them would act in certain situations. But I don't think Train to Busan aims to overreach artistically, and even if their characters are stereotypical on some levels, the assembled cast were more than up to the task of bringing what the screenplay asked of them. And when you're dealing with a popcorn film, that's definitely a win.
Train to Busan succeeds as a blockbuster film... one that delivers on the promise of a rollicking good time even as you want to jump out of your seat (or, on occasion, scream out in surprise). It did very well in building dread, in serving scares and in getting viewers to care about some of the characters. It's not a movie that demands you to overthink, but still succeeds at not being mindless. And while you know that the body count was bound to be high and that only a precious few would reach its end, you would still find it in yourself to watch it till the end, because it's that much fun to watch it.
And for a zombie movie, that's a very good thing.
Happy viewing!!Labels: Action, Adventure, Drama, Film, Horror, iFlix, Must-Watch, Train to Busan
