Reviews of Train to Busan

CinemaSerfTMDB7.0 / 10

"Soo-an" (Kim Su-an) is one of those annoyingly whiny kids who is fed up being neglected by her successful, selfish and divorced father "Seok-woo" (Gong Yoo) and so decides that she has to be taken to see her mother in the distant town of Busan. It's her birthday so her dad decides that he'll never hear the end of it if he doesn't take her - so onto the luxury KTX train they go. That morning on the news, they'd seen reports of civil unrest in Seoul but were unconcerned as they rattled along the tracks. That is, until a passenger is discovered hiding in the toilet exclaiming that "they are all dead". Who are all dead? Is he on something? Well it doesn't take anyone long to realise that this rioting isn't so much a protest as the result of some dodgy chemical experimentation that has zombified the otherwise polite population of his country. Are they safe on the train as they hurtle along through the countryside, though? Well of course not else we wouldn't have a film, and so what now ensues has something of the "Horror Express" (1972) to it - and it's all really quite entertaining. What chance they can escape the violent carnage? Well what I did like about this is that amidst all of this limb-wrenching, none of the acting really mattered - nobody proves indispensable and so there is a real sense of jeopardy. Ok, so sensibilities will probably ensure that the tiny little "Soo-an" is unlikely to end up zombie fodder, but as for just about everyone else it really is game on - and the confined space of the train with it's glass doors and narrow corridors provides an effective conduit for some tight action photography of each segment of their increasingly perilous adventure - carriage by carriage. What wouldn't we do for our kid, or our pregnant wife, or our girl/boyfriend - or, what wouldn't we do to preserve ourselves and sod anyone else? All are questions asked here amidst the gore and broken toilet doors and there are a fair share of noble sacrificers and mean gits on display as they travel the 300 miles along the track in the hope that they can arrive in safety. This sustains it's pace well throughout and though I really didn't much care for the ending, that might say more about my affection for a good baddie than anything else.