Zombies on a Train

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2020)

The action of "Train to Busan" is so intense and the set-up excellent that the movie's faults may almost be overlooked. Others have, rightly, compared the fighting aboard a train, moving through carnage from car to car, to "Snowpiercer" (2013), also by Korean filmmakers and also including a heavy-handed message on socio-economic inequality. The cinematic potential of trains, which partly came of age along with motion pictures at the end of the 19th century, was realized early on, though: as coinciding movement with the Lumière brothers' "Arrival of a Train" (1896), as framing movement with the phantom-ride views that displayed shifting scenery from the point of view of a moving train, and, with action as a third layer of momentum, as early as Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" (1903). So, here, in "Train to Busan," we have zombies instead of bandits. Zombies running down aisles after their fleshy prey, zombies seen outside shifting views from the windows, and zombies thrown into windows. Even the effects for their piling up when a large enough herd is in pursuit works well enough.
The father-child dynamic is effective, too. But, the prospect of the fund manager investing in a company maybe responsible for the outbreak adds nothing. And, as if it weren't enough for this "bloodsucker," as another, lower-class character (played by Ma Dong-seok, the most charismatic actor of the bunch) calls him--such terminology putting him in league with the flesh-eating zombies, to learn his lesson, to treat people with respect and egalitarianism, an insufferably irredeemable baddie is introduced. This leads to a contrived class structure between the train doors that's ridiculously oblivious to the undead threat surrounding them. Plus, there are other melodramatic contrivances and repetitions in the characters' quest for survival. As a zombie action flick, however, "Train to Busan" is, indeed, a thrill ride, and the ending nicely threatens a reference to that first modern zombie film, "Night of the Living Dead" (1968).