Film review: Train to Busan (2016)

I've been reading about this Korean zombie movie essentially since it came out.  Old as I am, I don't like non-comedic zombie flicks as much as I used to (and have never watched The Walking Dead) just because I don't need a fictional Armageddon when we're staring down the real thing.  Also, there are several very upsetting tropes in zombie films, notably "loved one becomes zombie and either kills you or must be killed" (something Zombieland avoided, and hence I have fonder feelings for it than the superior Shaun of the Dead, that didn't) and "in response to the zombie outbreak, fascistic leaders emerge amongst the survivors" (this is notable in 28 Days Later, and, of course, Day of the Triffids, which 28 Days ripped off in other ways (the opening) too) - i.e. "the real monster is us".  Turns out Train to Busan has both, and is pretty damn upsetting, but has enough fresh ideas and relentless pacing that you forgive it.  Don't get too attached to anybody in this film (except the obvious little girl, but even that's a risk if you've seen the even-more-praised Korean horror film The Host), especially if they give a speech about how sacrifice is needed.  So, the obvious first question for students of the zombie genre (well, all of them have already seen this, but let's pretend) is are these Romero zombies or Russo zombies?  The former, of course, are the canonical shambling, usually stupid (although see "Bub" in Day of the Dead and "Big Daddy" in Land of the Dead) and all-flesh (with a particular fondness for entrails, usually ripped out of their still-living host) consuming, as also featured in Shaun.  The latter, as made clear in a classic Onion piece, are much scarier: they talk (usually just "Braiiinnsss", but occasionally "MORE braiinnsss"), they can run fast, they only eat brains, and, unlike Romero zombies that can be killed by a shot to the head, these are practically unkillable, as you can cut them into bits and all the bits will be alive.  (The apotheosis of this is the zombie intestines in Peter Jackson's Braindead/Dead Alive).  Well, it turns out they're more like Danny Boyle "zombies" a.k.a. "The infected" from 28 Days Later.  These are not obviously zombies (although the remake of Dawn of the Dead was clearly influenced by them) but more like super-rabid humans, but they have a savage hunger for flesh and run like bejesus.  Same in Train to Busan, along with the explicit idea that they are the result of biotechnology, but with the added idea that they are the dead returned to life.  What makes this easier to stomach (pun intended) than some of the Romero films is that the viscera is fairly minimal.  No yanking out of intestines by the fistful or exposed bones or brain-chomping.  There is a fair amount of blood, but not even Penkinpah levels of that, really.  And these zombies are really stupid.  If it goes dark, or they can't see you (in one instance because somebody puts a coat over their head), they forget about you (something that is mined for several set pieces, especially when one group of survivors has to fight through several train cars to rescue another that's trapped in a toilet).  The horror is in their sheer numbers and the speed at which they rush towards any perceived prey.

The basic plot is this: workaholic young fund-manager, who has custody of his young daughter, but is separated from his wife (who lives in the titular South Korean city of Busan), screws up by buying her a Wii for her birthday when he's already got her that present previously.  He asks how he can make up for it, and she says for her to visit her mother on her actual birthday the next day (something he's previously asked her to postpone).  As they board the train something strange is happening in the station, and an infected girl gets on the train and "changes" in the toilet.  Another stowaway is a strange homeless-looking man who just mutters about how everyone is dead, so he's obviously witnessed the carnage they're leaving behind as they pull out of the station.  Well, very quickly the girl bites a stewardess and in no time a whole train car or two is full of ravenous zombies.  Meanwhile our fund manager has pissed off a beefy working-class type who has a pregnant wife to protect by almost locking the couple in with the zombies.  However, as you might expect, beefy and fund manager become friends over the course of the movie (or at least, until the first of them... I've said too much).  What makes this movie great is that it keeps coming up with ideas for new set pieces.  That and the scarily convincing picture it paints of what would very quickly happen to South Korea in just such a situation.  There are several moments, however, when you do think that it would have been so simple to avoid catastrophe (don't put your hand near a zombie's mouth when you're wrestling with one) and there is one particularly loathsome businessman passenger who is responsible for the death of several very sympathetic characters, and he doesn't even get a particularly good comeuppance.  But if the mark of a good film is that it can be around two hours long and you hardly draw breath for most of that, then this has it.  And don't worry, it doesn't do the "pregnant woman's fe(o)tus dies and zombiefies inside her" thing that other, more nihilistic zombie films have before it.  Nor does it mimic the heartbreaking ending of Night of the Living Dead, even though it looks like it's about to.