Only Z this World War

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2016)

While these aren't the zombies I'm looking for, the movie made up for every wrong-doing in World War Z.
Train to Busan is an incredibly well-shot, well-acted and well-thought- out zombie/infected film with characters you care about, want to see grow and live. It might have had a low budget, but you'd never know it; this foreign film looked like a major Hollywood movie.
Now, though the many scenes of heart, exposition, depth, setup and introduction to our "heroes" worked really well, the movie was terribly too long. I wasn't really complaining throughout for pacing or length, nor was I wondering if scenes could be cut, but it still went on far longer than it should have. It was almost as if there were 5-6 climaxes and then you realize you still have 45-25 minutes left.
Also, and this is a personal preference, the zombies ran at Mach One speed. Sincerely, I love zombie shows and I'm a purist at heart. The slow, stumbling, "yes, you can walk right past them" kinds are what frighten me the most. The exception to the rule was 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake. They were fast, fine, but the movie's all-around greatness made me forget my hang-up on the bionic-beasts.
And Train to Busan did the same thing. There was so much good here, the zombies were pretty much incidental to everything else I liked.
Basically a divorced and selfish dad agrees to take his daughter to see her mom on a train when the 77,493th zombie-apocalypse begins. (That's not a complaint to how many there are, just a semi-fact. Still love this subgenre!) Unfortunately for the passengers, an infected, bitten, Walker, The Living Dead or Zombie – pick your poison, gets on board and all hell breaks loose.
Unlike most of the Z movies, you will see characters grow and scenes so powerful, it'd be hard not to choke up. I certainly did. And though the film's not without the standard clichés and stereotypical evil/not-evil scared humans, it's easy to also get past those movie tropes since the actors are so strong and believable.
I really, really did like this movie. If you're a fan of zombie flicks and require a lot more depth and sometimes humor, you cannot go wrong here.
***
Final thoughts: Day 2 Movie in the Can! I'm watching a NEW-2-ME horror movie every day of October 2016 and this one I've heard good things about. I actually put it off too long just to save for October. Wish I hadn't; not only was the movie great, it had some incredibly cute Asian men that I wouldn't mind finding more films with them in it.