Over the years in cinema we've had snakes on a plane, snakes on a train, zombies on a plane, giant squid monsters on a cruise ship and probably many more combinations that I just haven't come across yet. Inevitably, some of these concepts are going to continue to come together and interbreed, and so today we've ended up with the combination of zombies on a train with the South Korean zombie film Train to Busan.
Divorced, workaholic fund manager Seok Woo manages to both miss his daughter Soo-an's recital and fail to get her a suitable birthday present all in one day. To try to make it up to her, he agrees to take her to visit her mother, and they take the train from Seoul to Busan where she lives; of course they aren't the only people on board - there's a high school softball team; a man and his pregnant wife; a pair of elderly sisters; and a self-important CEO among others. Unfortunately for everyone on board, a chemical leak has caused a zombie outbreak and cities are quickly being overrun. Even worse, an infected woman manages to get on board the train just before it leaves Seoul, and once she turns the infection quickly starts to spread among the passengers. Those uninfected (which miraculously includes all those mentioned above) must work together to survive, both on the train and off it as the train driver tries desperately to find them safe harbour somewhere before they eventually determine that their best course of survival is to just head straight to Busan, said to be one of the few places left that hasn't been overrun...
Train to Busan is a disaster movie where the disaster happens to be zombies. Now, some might think that that doesn't sound too much different from the majority of zombie films in general (certainly according to this Wikipedia list of disaster movies that paints with an extremely broad brush, unless someone wants to explain to me how Suburban Commando qualifies as a disaster movie without referencing the cast), but bear with me, as I'll explain how I see the difference. See, in most zombie movies (most of the Romero series and remakes, 28 Days Later et al), the scope of the movie is usually much wider than one isolated area or event, and there's often the idea that escaping the current situation won't necessarily end the threat, and so the focus is on long-term survival rather than short-term. In a disaster movie, things are much more set in the moment: everything is focused on one singular event, like a skyscraper catching fire or a luxury cruise liner "turning turtle", and there is little to no thought as to what will happen when the immediate crisis is over. Train to Busan, I feel, falls squarely into the latter description, and that's hardly a bad thing. In fact, I think it adds a new dimension to the zombie movie genre.
Now, here's where I admit that I love the cheesy, corny, cliche-ridden messes that are most disaster films. I've loved them from all the way back when I was six years old and first saw half of The Towering Inferno (including crying when I wasn't allowed to watch to the end to see if the cat survived). One of my favourite disaster films, and the one I'll be using as a benchmark of sorts here, is The Poseidon Adventure. It just ticks most of the boxes needed for a good disaster film - there's an isolated mode of transport; something goes terribly wrong on it; a small group of survivors have to band together to make it to safety; there's also at least one "villain" survivor who callously sabotages others in his desperation to survive himself. Just about the only thing missing is a small animal to be rescued as well. And of course all the survivors fit neatly into cliche boxes as well - and it's around now that you should be noticing how well Train to Busan fits into all of this as well.
For me, the most memorable part of The Poseidon Adventure is what I call the Gene Hackman moment - at a particularly dire moment in the film, Gene Hackman's character heroically sacrificed himself to save the rest of the survivors (and since this movie came out in 1972, this does not count as a spoiler; the damn film's older than me). Train to Busan features not one, but two Gene Hackman Moments, and while it might seem cruel that I've just said that, if you think about it you know that you'd have been expecting such moments in the film anyway, albeit under a different name. They might seem cheesy and obvious to some, but this is both a zombie film and a disaster film, and moments of cheesy unrealisticness are only to be expected.
As for the zombies themselves... they are the running type, but this isn't a detriment to the film because for the majority of the film events are set in enclosed spaces, thus limiting the zombies' attack power and still allowing the survivors a chance to fight back and, well, survive. I also liked how there was no point in the film where someone growled, "Get 'em in the head!" and then everyone became a crack shot or developed superhuman strength enough to shatter skulls with one blow with a blunt weapon, and there was no scene where everyone sat down to discuss where the zombies might have come from and what their weaknesses might have been. It was just a case of, "Hit them till we can all escape, then run!" which is a much more realistic reaction that most of us would have in this sort of situation. I also liked the way the zombies spasmed and twitched when turning, with the cracking and snapping of bones being nicely creepy.
Train to Busan very nearly fell down at the end of the film, which threatened to become first a little too melodramatic for its own good and then threatened to have a worse ending than The Mist, but it redeemed itself well. And it's a fun film - fun, action-packed and doesn't slow down from the moment the train first leaves Seoul Station. It's not deep or serious or philosophical, but it doesn't need to be. It's zombies on a train.
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