Train to Busan – Film Review

Martial law is declared when a mysterious viral outbreak pushes Korea into a state of emergency. Those on an express train to Busan, a city that has successfully fended off the viral outbreak, must fight for their own survival…

If you have yet to see Yeon Sang-ho‘s Train to Busan, there’s truly nothing you can do to prepare for just how off-the-wall crazy it is. From the moment it begins to the moment its final, chilling frames blaze your eyes, it’s a film that will leave your mouth completely agape at just how well-filmed, acted, and choreographed it all is.

This is a skillfully crafted movie that truly never lets up. It runs for nearly two hours long and yet the film rarely takes the time to actually breathe. Sometimes, this can be an issue because it means that we usually don’t get to follow our characters and what their thoughts are.

There are a handful of brief moments in Train to Busan, thankfully, where we get to see what’s going on in our lead character’s heads. We understand early on that Gong Yoo‘s character Seok-woo is an ordinary fund manager who has some issues with his home life.

Long story short – his wife left him because of his selfishness, something that he’s trying to fix bit by bit. There’s a heartbreaking scene a bit later where his young daughter, Su-an, yells at her father about how she wishes that things in her life weren’t so difficult, placing the blame on him. He gives her one long look that says it all.

It’s an amazingly impressive thing to see a blockbuster zombie movie actually take the time to briefly pause and let us know what our characters are thinking. They feel like legitimate people that are stuck on a train with the undead instead of pawns waiting to be knocked off the board.

Along this zany journey, you start to grow attached to these people to the point where even if a zombie gets remotely close to one of them, you start to panic and fear for their life. All of this makes the incredibly shocking ending that much more impactful and memorable.

This isn’t just a movie in which a bunch of badass people slay an undead horde and look cool while doing it – it’s a movie that teaches us to be there in the moment and to live our lives the best we possibly can. Fix problems in your life. Make amends with people you haven’t made amends with yet.

Who would’ve thought that a movie like this would be so profound and deep? I certainly didn’t. But I’m quite glad that I checked out Yeon Sang-ho’s remarkably tense and thrilling Train to Busan because it’s definitely a movie that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Train to Busan is an intensely thrilling zombie action epic that packs huge emotional punches along the way.