Review #207: Train to Busan (2016)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #62: Train to Busan (2016)

I think this might be my new favorite zombie film? Maybe. I'm not sure. Return of the Living Dead is up there for being an absolute campy blast to watch, Army of the Dead is somewhere at the top too despite everyone else in the world being crazy and not liking it, but Train to Busan just squeezed its way up there like so many zombies fighting to get into the next train car. I'll have to give it some more time and re-watches to be sure.

Train to Busan follows a busy hedge fund manager who realizes he's been too absent of a father to his daughter, and agrees to go with her to visit her mother in Busan on her birthday. Little do they know, a zombie outbreak is beginning, and when an infected individual manages to get onto their train just as it's leaving the station, this father has to decide whether to keep living for himself or start caring about the people around him.

First I'll say: this film has a lot of heart. The family story definitely takes a bit of a backseat compared to the zombie apocalypse, but it's also definitely a throughline that leads into the ultimate conclusion of the film. I really felt like Seok-woo grew as a character from beginning to end- he was absolutely a jerk at the beginning, and then he starts to grow bit by bit (largely from his interactions with Sang-hwa), and by the time he's starting to reach the end of his character arc he's contrasted pretty starkly with Yon-suk, who is essentially the same character Seok-woo was at the start of the film. It's really a beautiful progression and emotional plot, and although I saw it coming from a mile away, hearing Seok-woo apologize to Sang-hwa as they hold the door shut against the zombies really tugged at my heartstrings.

I also love how the writing of this movie handles its zombies. The zombies are terrifying, and all of the performances from the various actors knocked it out of the park (no pun intended) with the frenetic physicality of these fast-moving, bloodthirsty monsters- but I especially love how it does a great job of establishing rules for how they work (their aggression is extremely direct- meaning, if they don't detect prey, they chill out and just kind of stand around- and also they have very poor eyesight, hinted at by their dull eyes) and then it makes those rules meaningful. It was such a fun segment of the film when the characters realize that they can sneak past zombies when the lights go out as the train passes through a tunnel, and so they use that to their advantage, making use of the timing and layout of the train to get to safety.

But the best thing- the #1, absolute best feature of this entire movie- is how the zombies behave as some sort of flailing, body-horror-esque hivemind in regards to how they behave in groups. I don't know how to explain what I mean by that except to share two examples: The first was a striking visual that was only on screen for a moment, at about the 24:30 mark. It's when the zombies are making their first big rush at our protagonist, and the one standing in front (one of the train attendants) trips and falls, and the growing horde behind him suddenly rises up like a wave on the ocean about to crash onto an unsuspecting seaside town. It's fast, it's almost blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but I'd never seen anything quite like it in any other film! The other example is much more significant, at the end- when the remaining protagonists are chasing after a runaway conductor car, with the horde hot on their heels. Our heroes get onto the car safely, but one zombie leaps and grabs onto the last rung of the ladder. And another zombie grabs onto that zombie. And another. And another. And before long, we have a grotesque carpet of animated flesh growing by the second as it's dragged behind this train, while the protagonists desperately try to kick it loose. While completely horrific and terrifying, the body horror of this visual reminded me of a real phenomenon- how colonies of ants that fall into water will cling to one another to form a macabre sort of raft in order to keep the rest of the colony afloat. Translating that into a behavior of the living dead was a brilliant piece of worldbuilding.

The film isn't perfect, but the only things I can really complain about are little nitpicks (like how they have "two minutes" to get across one of the train cars in darkness, and the following scene is already more than two minutes long despite cutting out most of the process of formulating and actually carrying out their plan). All in all this is a fantastic film, and you should go watch it. Right now!

Overall Rating: 10/10 Bloody Baseball Bats

Watching Advice: Be sure that whichever version you're viewing has properly-made subtitles! The version I watched at first started out with normal subtitles for five minutes or so, and then it got into this pattern of putting several lines of dialogue on screen all at the same time (for like... half of one second, nowhere near enough time to read it all) and then having no subtitles at all until after all of that dialogue was said. I stuck through it for a while because I hoped it would stop, but it didn't. I eventually found a better version with better subtitles and watched that instead. Good luck!