Solid horror which is intensely, well-paced, and does well with the characters, even if it is not as perfect as the hype suggests

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2017)

A lot of hype about this zombie film, and while I normally do not like these types of films (because they scare me), I decided to watch it. The plot sees a distant father escorting his young daughter back to her mother in Busan when some sort of outbreak occurs, and an infected gets onto the train. From there the film sees the infection spread across the train as an increasingly small group of survivors try to hold on in the hope that some stop will provide safety. In terms of narrative it is pretty straightforward, although at the same time it is a very limited space to make the action last for almost 2 hours â€“ particularly since the zombies are more or less unstoppable.
The film uses some convenience with vision to give the characters some breathing room, but mostly it does this by making us care about the characters. While they are essentially fairly obvious genre standards in the main, they are reasonably well done to make us care for them and invest in their struggle. This adds weight to the stakes and the decisions made. The film uses this well, and delivers a pretty well paced film. I thought that it was just a touch longer than it needed to be, but it comes in waves, with nice touches of respite along with intense scenes of attacks and chases. With this the writing does well to come up with different ways to have the zombies almost about to attack quite often â€“ whether it be cracking glass, the dark of a tunnel, or so on. The emotional side of the film runs alongside this, and it is surprisingly affecting at times, although some key scenes at the end are a bit marred by the rather heavy use of music.
The film does have blood and horror, but it is nicely light on the gore aspect; I dislike horror films which make a point of giving us real good looks at gore. Instead Busanhaeng lets the pace and tension and characters do the work, and I often found the pressure to be almost too much. The cast play well to this, whether it be the fear and regret of Yoo Gong or the gruffly likable Dong-seok Ma; even those playing more generic characters worked well enough to make it play.
The film has received a lot of hype though, and this probably doesn't help it. It is a very good zombie movie, which does well to have plenty or horror but also delivers characters we feel for and want to survive, however it is still a zombie movie and mostly does just what you'd guess it will do â€“ albeit that it does it well.