Review of Train to Busan (2016) by Brandon W — 26 Sep 2016

Train to Busan is Yeon Sang-ho's first live action film, and it stars Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, and Jung Yu-mi in a South Korean zombie movie about a father and daughter going on a vacation to Busan to visit her mom, and then all of a sudden, zombies start coming out and eats people, turning them into zombies, and now they are more determined to go to Busan.

I've been hearing about this a lot vaguely like on YouTube comments, and video titles that's related to this film. So I wondered what the fuss was about and looked it up, then when I was the trailers for the movie, it got me intrigued in it and I wanted to see it.

What I didn't realize however, was how much I had a blast watching this. The acting is pretty great as I know that they are emoting to the film, despite the fact that I have no idea what they are talking, which I had subtitles for it.

The plot they have, for all the zombies I've seen, is a really different approach to what they've done, and people say that it's Snowpiercer with zombies, it's not quite that, but I can see why people think so.

The zombies in this have the same style as the zombies in World War Z, but it was done better that I actually find them terrifying when they get up and just start running as fast as they can. It's very refreshing to see the characters not have any weapons that can defeat the zombies, but more or less defend themselves, and it made me worry more for the characters that are developed really good in a three-dimensional way thanks to the well written script by Park Joo-suk.

It's exciting to watch, I had no idea of whether they will survive, and the make-up effects on the zombies look so good that I find them more realistic than other zombie films that they look CGI. I know there were some thought-provoking moments that tells about what life in Korea is a bit like, and it's not too obvious about what it's trying to say as it kept it subtle.

There are some moments in there where I actually got a bit teary-eyed as I care about the characters a lot in this and just wanted them to make it. In terms of zombie films in general, Train to Busan is terrifying to watch even though it wasn't trying to be one of those horror films that you see these days, and I just haven't seen it like that in years.

It's also a lot of fun to watch that I'm glad that people are giving this film recognition that it deserves.