The opening scenes of Train to Busan look very familiar in the aftermath of 2020. Guys dressed head-to-toe in plastic onesies, wearing masks, spray down a truck with disinfectant. Soon after, there’s a long line of firetrucks headed to a floor that’s on fire near the top of a skyscraper. On TVs and phones in the background there are news reports of riots, and rumours of strikes. In the train station, there’s a commotion near an escalator. The crowd jumps and steps back but, whatever is going on, the people don’t look away. In another city, queues are set up for passengers to be put into quarantine, only for the audience to discover that the infection has got loose.
The only difference between 2020 and Train to Busan is this infection turns everyone into zombies.
Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016)
One single zombie makes it on to a train full of people and it goes from one to two to a hundred zombies very quickly. The main character is a neglectful father separated from his wife who is more focused on making money than being a dad. He gets on the train with a rare chance to get to know his young daughter a little better, but she doesn’t seem too interested in getting to know him. She’s seen this happen before.
Like the best zombie movies, Train to Busan doesn’t feel the need to explain why the dead have come back to life and are infecting and killing everyone, and it’s always creepier that way. The characters in the story don’t have time to wonder what’s going on, they’re too busy trying not to get devoured by a fast and vicious mob of their former fellow train passengers.
Since Train to Busan is a Korean film, there are a few interesting differences from North American zombie movies. For example, Train to Busan avoids most of the usual zombie-killing weapons. The characters in Train to Busan punch, grab, push, and sneak their way through the zombie horde. It’s brutal, claustrophobic, and uncomfortable. It’s the experience of public transportation in rush hour with the added inconvenience of commuters who happen to be undead.
Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016)
In one scene, the main characters have to fight their way into a train car full of other survivors who worry our characters might secretly be infected. The other survivors try as hard as they can to keep the main characters out, ending up in a tug of war over a door, and once our people get in, the other survivors demand that they move to the car ahead. Which will be a fateful decision. They yell that our group might be infected and putting everyone at risk. It all sounds a little too familiar.
The characters in Train to Busan regularly have to choose between their own self-interest and empathy for people they don’t know at all. Usually, they choose self-interest, but every once in a while comes a selfless sacrifice. Selfishness gets some characters pretty far, but ultimately the ones who put their own survival above others lose something crucial. They become a zombie in more ways than one. In 2023, maybe the only thing missing is half the train believing that the zombies don’t exist.
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