Train to Busan (2016)

It certainly has some flaws and leaves certain things unexplained; that being said, watching this movie is a really artistic experience. The setting is terrifying and brutally realistic; the pacing is fast but not rushed, and the acting is excellent. One of the best films of the genre I've seen in a while, highly recommend it.

Think you're in for a rehash of a watered down genre? Think again. Movies and shows this well written, acted and directed are the reason I can hardly watch anything western anymore. Really I can't think of anything done wrong or that could have been done better.

The highest grossing film in South Korea of all time is a routine, but well made zombie thriller. The story begins at the outset of a zombie outbreak with a father and daughter finding themselves on a train to the town of Busan, hoping to escape the zombie plague around them. Unfortunately, the train has a number of folks who are slowly turning intro zombies, so the survivors aboard the train find themselves having to fight their way through the infected cars to get to the safe ones. This story may sound similar to "Snowpiercer," but "Train to Busan" lacks that film's smart political subtext. "Train to Busan" is simply trying to entertain and it does quiet successfully achieve that with tons of fast zombie action, some interesting set pieces, and solid special effects, which is all fine and good if you're into zombie movies. On the downside, I'm not a fan of fast zombies and prefer the slow lumbering Romero-zombies, just as I also prefer my zombie films to have a Romero-style political subtext. So overall, "Train to Busan" manages to come up with some interesting situations and set pieces and does them well, it's all pretty vapid and you'll forget most of the film an hour after you've watched it.

Seok-woo (played by Gong Yoo) is a divorced fund manager who tries to have a relationship with his estranged daughter. Due to his workaholic nature he rarely sees and talks to his daughter so when she asks him to go to Busan to visit her mother for her birthday he reluctantly accepts. They board the train and depart. However right before the train sets off a strange looking woman enters it seemingly running away from something and with a bite wound on her leg. We soon see that she has been infected with something and she starts attacking the train attendant. After that chaos ensues and we see the people that have not been infected try to move to the front of the bus to evade the zombies. We are introduced to Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, a high school baseball team, the person we will all love to hate Yon-suk, two elderly sisters In-gil and Jon-gil nd and homeless man.My favorite character was definitely Sang-hwa. I absolutely loved him as a character and he was the type of character that you would love as a person and not just a fictional character. The main character was not as interesting for me but it was really enjoyable watching him turn into a totally different character and grow throughout the movie. The acting overall was great and the actors really made for feel worried for them especially the little girl.As someone who usually dislikes zombie films this movie really surprised me in the best way possible. The story and cinematography were amazing, the pacing was done perfectly and the setting was the ideal place for this kind of movie. It really brought out the feeling of claustrophobia and hopelessness as the people were just one door away from a horde of zombies. The drama in the movie was also very good and watching the people deal with the situation as well as deal with themselves was very entertaining.If I had to point out the things I disliked about the film it would probably be the cliches. There were a few cliche characters that you would expect in a movie like this which were annoying at parts. There were also a few plot points which I disliked that seemed to be only there to make you feel a certain way about certain events and characters.Still the movie was far, far more enjoyable than I expected and I am very glad that I decided to watch it. Check it out for yourselves and let me know if you enjoyed it as much as I did.