A Ferocious Bite Of Living Dead Excellency

Rating: 10/10 (21 September 2018)

I had this movie sitting on my "YouView" box for quite a few months, even though I had been originally excited that Film4 had decided to air this "little" Korean gem of a horror movie. There had been rave reviews and more than a slight "buzz" about the picture. The trouble with me is that I've been let down by hyped movies before - The Blair Witch Project, a major case by example. Another trouble is my own little foibles. I don't want to be reading subtitles when I'm tired (and I do so love to watch horror flicks after the sun has set with the lights low... or off!) and I cannot stand dubbed films (too many Jackie Chan movies in my youth...). So one night, not so very long ago I was feeling awake enough to read a movie so I hit play on "Train To Busan"...
By the time the end credits rolled I was amped up and wide awake. This is one hell of a rollercoaster ride of a movie and one hell of a tangle of modern-day lives story. This is not your basic Zombie flick.
You start out really slowly and pretty sedated. A farmer is on his way to the market when his van is stopped by men in hazmat suits. These tell him that there's nothing to worry about. There has been a slight leak at a chemical plant. After quickly decontaminating his vehicle they send him on his way... unluckily for the dear he runs down and kills. More angry at damaging his van than killing a dear he drives away leaving the carcass in the road... yeah... you know what's going to happen. Sure enough, the dead animal thrashes about and shakily gets to its feet... with a dead look in its eyes...
Even though this section only takes a few minutes it's one of the most superbly shot sequences I've seen in a movie. The director Yeon Sang Ho manipulates each set perfectly give the audience a creepily eerie atmosphere, which did start the shivers running up and down my spine. For that I thank them... it's been a long time since that's happened. There's nice steady sweeping camera pans. Effortlessly worked lighting. Superb control of sound... or lack of it. Even better is that all of this artwork and skill doesn't stop here it runs throughout the whole movie. It screams skill and class.
Then the writers, Park Joo Suk and Yeon Sang Ho, get to work weaving together tales of modern-day living. The main characters are Seok-Woo (Gong Yoo) and his daughter Soo-Ann (Kim Su An). He is a busy, work-comes-first-to-support-family guy who was already lost his wife to divorce and is now bringing up Soo-Ann, with the help of his mother. Soo-Ann is a young child who doesn't understand or appreciate her father's outlook on life. All she knows is that she doesn't see either him or her mother as much as she wants or should. She wants more time with both of her parents. So, on her birthday, after her dad buys her a repeat present (who doesn't need two Nintendo Wii's(?)) she gets him to promise to take her to see her mum for her real present. As is the usual case it's Su-An Kim's performance that steals the show - and this is as it should be.
This then brings them into contact with Sang-Hwa (Ma Dong Seok) and his very expectant wife Seong-Kyeong (Jung Yu Mi). Sang-Hwa and Seok-Woo do not get on at all and it's this juxtaposition in ideals and prerogatives that add more depth to the story; especially when they have to work together to survive the train ride. It's Seong-Kyeong that provides the glue to their relationship.
Add to this a mysterious homeless man (Choi Gwi Hwa), a couple of romantic teens getting to grips with their feelings towards each other - Yong-Guk (Choi Woo Sic) and Jin-Hee (Sohee), and officious self-centred train manager Yon-Suk (Kim Eui Sung), you have a set of characters which can create some volatile or sentimental storylines... and this is before we get to the best Zombies... EVER!
One of my favourite zombie flicks is Return Of The Living Dead. Two of the reasons were the zombies - they were dead and very icky (most were skinless)... and they were fast. The brain-eating buggers didn't shamble after you. And you have the same here. Though these dead aren't so skinless they are damned fast and furious.
This adds to some pretty spectacular action scenes in the movie which Yuen Sang Ho directs magnificently. But, whereas, most directors would opt for action over horror and story Yuen is proficient in all styles. The scenes where the dead reanimate are both startling, invigorating, eerie, and full of style and strength.
This is a tour-de-force of filmmaking, let alone horror filmmaking. Everything in this movie is excellent, from the story to the acting to the directing.