You can't complain that there's always endless crap movies to scroll through on Netflix when you do stumble upon a gem. Well, stumble might not be the right word. Train to Busan was recommended to me by a close friend with stellar horror movie taste, but it is still one of those thumbnail images on Netflix you might have passed up. Don't.
Seok-woo, a frazzled businessman, agrees to take Soo-an, his melancholy young daughter to visit with his estranged wife in Busan, a city in South Korea that is a few hours by train. Before the train pulls away from the station it gets an unexpected and unwanted new passenger, a teenager infected by some kind of zombie virus. Things get worse, quickly.
We've all seen zombie movies before, but have you ever seen one on a train, that plays out like 28 Days Later meets Snowpiercer, at 100 mph?
The large crowd action sequences, with hordes of zombies moving quickly is terrifying (see above image) and perfectly staged. The CGI is tastefully done which adds to the realistic high tension and scares.
What saves this from being a rote, seen-it-before snore are the fleshed out characterizations of some of the main players in the film. I really ended up caring about Seok-woo and Soo-an and their emotional bond that drives the movie; that makes their race for survival that much more powerful.
Sang-hwa, a beefy working class dude and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong are another set of characters that jump beyond stock filler; their subtle humor and duty to step up and fight make Train to Busan more of a well-rounded experience. Yes, there are multitudes of zombies to kill in order to escape but I want to care about the people who are escaping, or else they would just become more food for the blank-eyed hordes.
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