Zombies on a train

Rating: 8/10 (25 September 2016)

This Korean zombie film is a real gem. It's a very recent movie, and you can tell they had a good budget for this. What I love about these sorts of movies, is when it's all about the survivors having to be clever to overcome frightening and deadly obstacles.Train to Busan is both original in its concept, and great in its execution. It is a movie that is quite clever in how it uses its core premise; the train. They do so much with the concept, plus they keep it relatively realistic. The movie also delivers some great social criticism. Like is often the case with zombie movies, the real monsters are the people.
Is it a perfect film? No. I thought the ending was a bit anti-climactic. And there was some use of CGI which looked a bit fake. Specifically some plumes of smoke and fires, and those are the sorts of things they could have done practically. At the same time, the movie deserves praise for it's huge establishing shots where various large train stations and towns really look completely abandoned. There's also a couple of set pieces towards the end that are really impressive.
Most importantly, the movie isn't predictable. I had no idea who would live and who would die. And best of all, there were many scenes where I was just grinning and laughing. The movie is fun. The sheer chaos on display in this film is very enjoyable. The movie does not devolve into the grotesque, like so many movies in this genre do. Instead, it focuses on the characters, and on interesting plot developments. And it has so much fun with the genre. It is also a very well paced, and well shot film. It is filmed and paced very much like an American movie.
If all of this sounds like a ton of praise... I guess it is. It's a very enjoyable movie. Go see it.