Train to Busan


Train to Busan is a 2016 South Korean action-horror film directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, and Ma Dong-seok. The film mostly takes place on a train to Busan as a zombie apocalypse suddenly breaks out in the country and threatens the safety of the passengers.
The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on 13 May. On 7 August, the film set a record as the first Korean film of 2016 to break the audience record of over 10 million theatergoers. The film serves as a reunion for Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi, who both starred in the 2011 film The Crucible. A sequel, Peninsula, was released in South Korea on July 15, 2020.

Plot

Fund manager Seok-woo is a cynical workaholic and divorced father. His little daughter Su-an wants to spend her birthday with her mother in Busan. Seok-woo sees a video of Su-an attempting to sing "Aloha ʻOe" at her singing recital and succumbing to stage fright as a result of his absence. Overcome with guilt, he decides to indulge Su-an's wish. They board the KTX 101 at Seoul Station, en route to Busan. Other passengers include working-class man Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, selfish COO Yon-suk, a high school baseball team, including Yong-guk and his cheerleader girlfriend Jin-hee, elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil, and a homeless stowaway. As the train departs, an infected woman boards, becomes a zombie and attacks a train attendant. The infection spreads rapidly throughout the train. Seok-woo learns that the zombie plague started at a factory connected to his business, and selfishly plans to use his connections to get to safety.
The group escapes to another car and locks the doors. Reports make it known that an epidemic is spreading across the country. After the train stops at Daejeon Station, where an army post is rumored to be housed the surviving passengers find that all the personnel stationed there are infected by the virus, and Seok-woo figures it out himself when a soldier is completely overrun by the infected. The surviving passengers manage to make it back on the train, but Sang-hwa, Seok-woo, Yong-guk, and two surviving baseball players get stuck closing the door. Su-an, Seong-kyeong, In-gil, and the homeless man manage to get on, but they find out that they are in the crosshairs of zombies, and they hide inside a bathroom. Meanwhile. Seok-woo's team manages to close the door, but the glass door shatters, and in the process of running, only Yong-guk, Sang-hwa, and Seok-woo manage to get on the train, with the two baseball players becoming infected. The military establishes a quarantine zone near Busan, and the conductor heads the train there. Seok-woo, Sang-hwa and Yong-guk - who have become separated from their loved ones in a different car, use Yong-guk's baseball bat, riot gear, and hand to hand combat to fight their way to them through the zombies. Once regrouped, they struggle through the horde to the front car, where the rest of the passengers are sheltered. However, the homeless man steps on a soda can, alerting the zombies to their location, and Seok-woo and Sang-hwa attempt to hold off the zombies, but Sang-hwa is bitten. At Yon-suk's instigation, the passengers prevent the survivors from entering, fearing that they are infected. Sang-hwa sacrifices himself to give the others time to enter the car by force by allowing all the zombies to eat him. Yon-suk and the passengers demand that the survivors isolate themselves in the vestibule. However, Jong-gil – disgusted at the passengers' selfishness and despairing the loss of her sister, who has become a zombie – allows the zombies to enter and kill them all. Ironically, because the passengers had forced Seok-woo's group to isolate, his group remains safe. Yon-suk also escapes by hiding in the bathroom with a train attendant, with the survivors breaking off into groups, with Seok-woo, Su-an, Seong-kyeong, Jin-hee, Yong-guk, and the homeless man in one group, and Yon-suk, and the final train attendant in the other
A blocked track at East Daegu train station forces the survivors to stop and search for another train. Yon-suk pushes Jin-hee, the train captain, and the train attendant to the zombies to save himself and Jin-hee is bitten. Heartbroken, Yong-guk stays with Jin-hee until she turns and kills him. Meanwhile, a flaming locomotive derails and the survivors are trapped under a train full of zombies. As the zombies drop by breaking the windows, the homeless man sacrifices himself so that Seok-woo has time to save Su-an and Seong-kyeong through a small hole under the derailed train. Realizing that there is a locomotive that still works, Seok-woo, Seong-kyeong, and Su-an narrowly avoid the zombies, and the three board the working locomotive and encounter Yon-suk, who is on the verge of turning into a zombie. Seok-woo manages to throw him off the train, but is bitten in the process. He teaches Seong-kyeong how to operate the train, and says goodbye to his sobbing daughter, throwing himself off the train before he turns. Due to another train blockage, Su-an and Seong-kyeong stop at a tunnel. They continue following the tracks on foot. Snipers stationed on the other side prepare to shoot at what they believe to be zombies. Upon hearing Su-an sobbing and singing "Aloha ʻOe" for her father, they lower their weapons, realizing the pair are human, as they help get them to safety.

Cast

Box office

Train to Busan grossed $2.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $96.3 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $98.5 million.
It became the highest-grossing Korean film in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It recorded more than 11 million moviegoers in South Korea.

Critical response

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 94% of 115 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.61/10. The website's critics consensus states: "Train to Busan delivers a thrillingly unique — and purely entertaining — take on the zombie genre, with fully realized characters and plenty of social commentary to underscore the bursts of skillfully staged action." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, assigned the film an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the film "borrows heavily from World War Z in its depiction of the fast-moving undead masses while also boasting an emotional core the Brad Pitt-starring extravaganza often lacked," adding that "the result is first-class throughout." At The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis selected the film as her "Critic's Pick" and took notice of its subtle class warfare. Filmmaker Edgar Wright, who directed the BAFTA nominated zombie-comedy Shaun of the Dead, was a big fan of the film. Wright recommended the film in a tweet and called it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever."
In contrast, the negative reviews have described the film as "Snowpiercer with zombies." David Ehrlich of IndieWire comments that "as the characters whittle away into archetypes, the spectacle also sheds its unique personality."

Accolades

Home media

American distributor Well Go USA released DVD and Blu-ray versions of Train to Busan on 17 January 2017. FNC Add Culture released the Korean DVD and Blu-ray versions on 22 February 2017. It is also available on Rakuten Viki, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video streaming. The Indian version is a minute shorter than the original version due to a few violent zombie shots being censored.

Prequel and new installment

An animated prequel, Seoul Station, also directed by Yeon, was released less than a month later.
Peninsula, a follow-up film set four years after Train to Busan and also directed by Yeon, was released in South Korea in July 2020. Yeon has stated that, "Peninsula is not a sequel to Train to Busan because it's not a continuation of the story, but it happens in the same universe."