Train to Busan (2016) Review - by Fanny Fan Wai Ping 1704755

Train to Busan (Busanhaeng) (2016) blog by Fanny Fan

 

Train to Busan (2016)

Train to Busan is a South Korean zombie apocalypse film which directed by Yeong Sang-ho and released in 2016. This film is talking about how a group of passengers fighting their way with zombies to survive in a bullet train which going to Busan station.

The main character Seok-woo (Yong Goo), a fund manger who is a divorced father of a little girl Su-an (Kim Soo-ahn) is bringing his daughter sitting the train go to Busan to find his ex-wife as his daughter's birthday wish. In the train, they met Sang-Hwa (Ma Dong-Seok) who is a husband of a pregnant wife Jin-Hee (Sohee) and a baseball player Young-Gook (Choi Woo-shik) who are the fighters with him in the train.

two old passengers

This film have very good implies techniques about telling what and who are the important characters by letting them appeared roughly in the starting of the film. As the two old passengers who shown as above, this two sisters have very close relationship and the scene was letting the woman who at the right hand side be the center of the scene to show that she is the important character that simulated her sister to open the door for letting zombies coming in to infect all the passengers who killed his sister indirectly at the middle of the film.

Young-Gook (baseball player) 

Next, this film had show the sportsmanship in the baseball player who is the first person stand up to fight the zombies instead of giving up or be cowardly towards the situation. When his girl partner get infected, he chose to stay and willing to get infected by her instead of running out, it show that he are brave to face these zombies and the pure love of a young boy towards a girl without any intrigues. 

The most attractive part is how the zombies move and attack, and the rumors or theory about their characteristics. For example, the zombies will not be aggressive when they did not saw humans or heard any sound. It was shown when Jin-Hee (pregnant girl) sticks the newspapers on the transparent door to block the visual of zombies. Next, Seok-woo (main character) and his partners pass through the carriage while the train passing the tunnels.

In addition, the movement of the zombies are naturalistic and realistic, even how they twitch and spams their body when infected. It had included some scientific terms such as zombie are desire to bite human's neck which is where the arterial located instead of other body parts. Therefore,  Sang-Hwa (husband of Jin-Hee) and Seo-woo were transforming slower after infected by bitten on hand then those who bitten on neck. The expression of the strong desire of zombies towards blood are shown very natural by opening their mouths widely and trembling of their mouth.

infected zombie

The director chose to use background effects only while the old passenger get bitten and when Su-an (Seok-woo's daughter) scream because of his father suicide due to the infection. These silence scene  made the audiences put more attention on their expression and the feelings instead of distract by the background music or the dialog. Therefore, the screaming of Su-an was making audiences feel the heart break feelings strongly.

This film is highly recommended to watch because it was included humanity and what is happening in society nowadays. The COO (Yong-suk) who is a rich and egotistical guy was reflecting how the people takes advantage of people around to reaches their target or gets the benefits without any humanity. As the film had shown, he instigates other passengers to lock the door although he knew that they did not infected by zombies, and he even push the survivors to the zombies to buy time for himself to run off. Next, conformity of society had represented in the film as the passengers just following what the COO indicate without hesitation and even forcing Seok-woo and his partners move away from them when there is someone started to kick them off. Besides that, father love had shown by Seok-woo when he decided to jump off from the backup train after infected to prevent Su-an and JIn-Hee get infected by him instead of act like COO who get infected still wanted to approach Seok-woo.

As a human being, we should not scarifying others to get benefits and not to give up when facing troubles in life. We should think before we leap in any situation instead of get leaded by anyone who have wrong judgments or decisions. Kindness is the best form of humanity, always be kind and do good.