Movie #36 2020: Train to Busan (2016)

Two words: Fuck. Me.

Not gonna lie to you here: I’d never even heard of this movie until this year. And you probably haven’t heard of it either unless you’re big into Korean cinema. This movie was actually shown at Cannes the year it was released, but in the “Midnight Screenings” section. The only reason I can think of for it not being nominated is the subject matter. I mean, who ever heard of zombie apocalypse movies being nominated for anything ever? Well listen here: that should have changed with this one.

More a realistic drama than end-of-the-world horror, Train to Busan is phenomenal. I have no idea why, but Asian directors just seem to make better zombie films than white people, don’t they? To me, it’s probably because nothing about this was flashy or gimmicky. There’s very little in the way of special effects, other than the make up used to zombify the actors. In my opinion, this is similar to how TV’s The Walking Dead became a success; any essence of cheese was eliminated by holding back on visual VFX, and that’s an almost exact comparison to what Busan does well.

The abandonment of false effects is a great decision that is only further accentuated by the talent of the extras playing zombies. Not only do they act it extremely well, but their movement is unprecedented. I haven’t actually researched this, but one can only assume that they hired dancers to perform these roles. Every one of them was absolutely brilliant.

What is really juxtaposing here is that it is a zombie movie with a heart. Who knew undead monsters could make for such an emotional film? The lead actor, Gong Yoo, plays his character remarkably well. So well, in fact, that this inspired me to watch more of his movies.

As the kids say: I’m shook. Go see it for yourself.*

TQR Category Ratings:

Performance: 
Cinematography: 
Soundtrack: 
Costume & Set Design: 
Plot: 
Overall Rating: 

*I managed to watch this as Film4 generously showed it in February. To view this yourself, you’ll need to rent the movie from Amazon or Rakuten.