Hits All The Genre Tropes With Thrilling Aplomb, And Gives Food For Thought Also

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2019)

(ONE SLIGHT SPOILER)
Genre movies can get a rough critical ride - if a movie, film, book or whatever - hits all the expected beats and notes one might expect, it's easily dismissed. It's said to have done nothing meaningful, to be derivative. But as long as we've been telling stories, genres have been important - they provide comfort and a structure to tell a story that we feel safe with and understand.
Additionally, to dismiss genre art misses something very significant; many of humanity's greatest artists have worked within the strictures of the genre. Shakespeare is an example par excellence of this - most of his plays fit an established contemporary genre. What is exceptional in them is how he develops character and themes within these genres, whilst still pleasing those who came along for the comfort of the predictable (as well as the sublime language, of course).
South Korea action-horror movie Train To Busan is a genre movie with the highest of high concepts: zombies on a train. If that doesn't get a horror-action fan's juices flowing, then little will. It's stark and efficient; as characters board a train, a zombie outbreak (the word is only used once in the film) hits the world outside and inside the train. The action sequences are visceral and thrilling; making full use of the train's geography, and the rare sequences outside the train work equally effectively without disrupting the claustrophobic, trapped tone.
For the genre fan looking further, there's more to see. An incisive, satirically edged, take on the walls, customs and strictures we put around each other and others to protect our standing in families and societies.
(slight spoiler)
The fatal flaw of this zombie outbreak is that the zombies can only hunt what they can see. This means a couple of things - it adds some great wrinkles to action sequences when the train unpredictably enters or emerges from a tunnel, for example. But this idea also plays up the themes of the film, especially in the well-timed lull in advance of the film's final act as these ideas are given more space to breathe than in other similar films.
A key plot moment in the last twenty minutes tries to present some redemption and hope; I'm not convinced it works tonally or plot-wise; the ultimate conclusion a necessary upbeat that unsurprisingly allows a sequel should box office permit (it did - a sequel is in production).
It's not a perfect film, but this first live-action movie from the director promises much to watch with interest in years to come.