Hey everyone, today I went and saw Train to Busan at Hoyts, and let me tell you all that I rarely go and watch movies at the cinema because I usually wait for the DVD/ Blu-Ray release and buy it before I go and see the film. One of the reasons why I wanted to watch the movie was because I saw so many great reviews online, and also Sohee is one of my bias members of the original Wonder Girls members hehe. I've always been interested in Zombie apocalyptic sort of movies, so when I heard about this, I was really intrigued in watching it.
So like I said before this is a zombie apocalypse thriller film directed by Yeon Sang-ho released in 2016. For the people who don't know the story, basically there is a father who is one of those sorts of workaholics who doesn't spend much time with his daughter, and sort of neglects her because of it. The father Seok-woo (played by Gong Yoo)at the start bought his daughter Su-an (played by Kim Su-an)a Wii even though she already had one bahahaha. In the film, he reluctantly takes his young daugher on a Train to go visit her mother, in which I think they either broke up their marriage, or are just on bad terms which were unspecified. And as you can expect the film faces with some sort of zombie outbreak in which people on the train get infected with.
For myself, I was wondering before I saw the film how they would be able to keep us as viewers interested while everyone stays on the train for the entire movie, but in actual fact, the film does break down in only parts on the train (bit of a spoiler sorry). I have watched many sorts of disaster films focused on all sorts of transportation, and usually almost the entire film sets around that one setting, but this film was able to split it up, to include other environments as well to make the film a bit more interesting I think.
What I really liked about this film was that it wasn't just all action, though a part of it was that. Usually there's a higher action to drama ratio in these sorts of zombie apocalyptic sorts of films, but this one seems to balance them out quite well. There was also something new I learned from watching this movie, zombies can't see in the dark, and can't open doors :P
The film also portrayed some really good symbolism? is that the word I should be using, or is there another word for it? But anyway I will try and explain a few without giving away too much. One example is that being selfish doesn't get you far, and being selfless does(well sort of). This is portrayed through the main character at the start of the film when he seems to be more selfish in trying to protect his daughter, but willing to harm other people in the way of doing this. But throughout the film he does change, and become more selfless which leads to better outcome(well sort of). In the case of one character, because he was too selfish, killing people in order to save himself, it sort of shows that bad guys never win doesn't it?
There's one thing which does bug me a bit though, and that is that the reason why the zombies appeared. Usually a film explains that, but this one didn't really, it seemed to just happen, though there is a prequel which I think explains what happened, though it would have been nice if they explained a bit more about it in the film.
So overall I will have to give this film at least a 9/10, because it really has that good drama to action ratio. It is more of a sad story though, compared to your usual zombie apocalyptic films, almost to the point of me not wanting to watch the film again haha. But after I watched it, even now I can't stop thinking about the film, and I think when a film does that to you, it must be a good film. I don't think I can go onto a train without thinking about this movie now, and also final destination lol. Hope you made it to the end of this blog post, bye!
