Amateur Recommendation Hour: Train To Busan

Today’s recommendation is not only one of my personal favorite films of all time, it is also one that you may be fairly familiar with. It is responsible for not only putting it’s director on the map (becoming one of my favorites in the process) but injecting life into a genre not only on life support but oversaturated with unimaginative filler, clinging onto it’s undead husks of identity-less, creatively bankrupt, parasitic lifelessness, a far cry from the days of Romero and Boyle.

Train To Busan, directed by Yeon Sang-ho, is a conceptually extreme, emotionally visceral, and darkly intelligent zombie thriller film. Whilst western audiences are familiar with the genre and all of the common trappings it entails, there have been very few South Korean features films with the walking (or in this case “sprinting”) dead. The narrative setup of a chemical leak at a biotech plant is just a vessel through which to explore the main characters of our story, in this case, the relationship between Seok-woo a cynical businessman who has more of a relationship with his job than his young daughter, Su-an, who is more interested in spending her birthday with her mother in Busan, a city at the southern tip of Korea.

Rarely has a zombie film felt so constricting and restrictive. A fast moving train is a gigantic hallway with seats on either side, rip-roaring across it’s set tracks. Combined with the fact that these are your fast moving “28 Days Later” undead, avoidance isn’t quite as easy as barricading a spacious house or large shopping center. Characters with moral complexities and reasons to want to see survive. Far too often I find the only reason with which to sympathize with the group of main characters plight is nothing more than superficial survival. It’s more than just the end goal of living another day. Why would I want these people to live another day? And the truth is revealed in these moments. We discover who these people truly are in the trials and tribulations that can be wholly defining not just of our characters but of life as a whole.

Yeon Sang-ho smartly uses the framework of a zombie film, and the setting with which he has decided to utilize as more than just mere superficial entities, but integral to the overall themes and messages through which he is trying to convey as well as draw parallels between this type of film and the cycles of humanity. The social commentary is presented mainly through symbolism, allegories, and specific plot points (of which I will not spoil should you wish the see the film yourself.). It’s his constant usage of forward momentum not just in the excellent and frenetic pace of the film but in how our characters move along with the trains that they take. Always forward, always continuing and overcoming, even if we repeat, even if we fail. 

It’s bright color palette is juxtaposed with the action and narrative events taking place. A smart contrast made to draw enough attention of its themes without being overbearing. It creates an ever so slight feeling of disconnection between us and what we see but just ominous and foreboding enough to make us feel like this shouldn’t be happening in a just world. People shouldn’t be devouring other people for material gains leaving them with the ravenous rabble below just as starving for safety and decency. But they’re just zombies, right? It’s not like they have any agency or even a chance to be anything more than what they have become.

Lost in the chaos is something as simple and pure as parental love and the dichotomy between youth and adulthood. A father trying to remind her daughter the importance of life, independence, looking out for oneself at the cost of everything else. And the daughter, not so jaded and disheartened as her father, seeing the brighter side even in the sudden darkest circumstances. How much we have to learn from children who see the world through a bright eyed optimism, not yet poisoned by the grind and heartless hustle of the world we are so desperately trying to get back from a zombie apocalypse. But it’s better than this. It has to be.

Our modern world is full of ambition. Wealth, power, maintaining your position of wealth once you get there, meager peasants trying to pull you back to their world, the heartless, penniless one. A devilish exchange in order to rise on the metaphorical rungs of the ruthless socioeconomic ladder. Move yourself through the carts, see if you can make it. The zombies will be there to devour your flesh, enjoying each and every bite. The passengers are separated to ensure that each train car stays free of the infected, those who’ve failed to survive the onslaught of modern life. A comfortable gap between wealthy and financially barren. They’re willing to do anything to keep their place, as if they care about the other people with which they are staying with. Using the faintest opportunities to self-preserve.

Our group of scrappy protagonists work together to overcome not only those who have failed before them, but those who are trying to “keep them in their place.” A class rebellion, the only perceived way to overcome their struggles before them at the behest of those they are trying to dismantle. Self-preservationism only extends to those we care about. For general humanity, no matter how righteous we make ourselves out to be, we will not extend for the goodness of others. However if we can remember these moments strongly enough, powerfully enough, to extend these moments of generosity to those we are not emotionally connected with, maybe we will make more of a difference than it may seem. Especially if, collectively, we make that effort.

Thematically it has much in common with its animated prequel, Seoul Station. However when it comes down to its core message, if Seoul Station is an expression of frustration with these themes then Train to Busan is much more of an expression of hope from the embers of futility.