Friday, November 3, 2017

Movie review: Train to Busan

 
 When a zombie virus outbreak hits South Korea a father and his daughter grab the next train from Seoul to Busan hoping to outrun the virus. Instead they find themselves struggling, along with the other train passengers, to stay alive.

Yoo Gong (Seok-woo), Yu-mi Jung (Seon-kyeong), Dong-seok Ma (Sang-hwa), Su-an Kim (Soo-an), Eui-sung Kim (Yon-suk), Woo-sik Choi (Yong-guk), Sohee (Jin-hee), Soo-jung Ye (In-gil), Gwi-hwa Choi (Homeless man).

Train to Busan begins nicely with a little backstory tease that sets things up nicely. As dad and daughter begin their journey to Busan, things quickly take a turn as the zombie virus hits full tilt. The remainder of the film is a fairly fast-paced fight for survival when zombies make it onto the high-speed train and remains exciting through the end.

Acting was good with Yoo Gong delivering well. Su-an Kim also delivered well and seemed to fit nicely with Gong. Ma fit his role perfectly and did well despite a couple of rough spots. Jung, Eui-sung Kim, Sohee, and the remainder of the cast were solid.

Camera work, sets, and backgrounds were enjoyable, fitting, and felt real throughout. Action scenes were good, particularly zombie make-up and movement. Dialogue was decent if a bit light. Subtitles (dialogue is in Korean) are easy to follow with dialogue being fairly light. Sound and soundtrack are good.

While I usually avoid subtitled films, I decided to give this one a shot and am glad I did. For a foreign film the quality was surprisingly good. Zombies on a train is an amusing concept presented in an extremely realistic fashion in this film. Zombie fans should enjoy this one.

With plenty of violence, fore, some foul language, and of course zombies, this one should be fine for mature teens and above.

Released: 2016
Reviewed: 10.18.17
Star rating: 4 out of 5
Genre: Horror, Zombies, Thrillers, Korean films

copyright ©2017 Dave Riedel

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