When the living dead started rising and feasting on human flesh most of the historical emphasis in recording what happened featured campaigns in the USA and Europe. Apart from brief mentions, events in the rest of the world were a bit of a mystery. But places such as The Philippines were ravaged by Italian filmmakers who brought a plague of festering flesh eaters with them when making movies such as the recently released here Zombie 2 After Death and in the Orient, bastions and principalities were quick to fall. Who can forget the late 90’s when Japan was decimated as seen in the likes of Wild Zero, Junk and Versus? The Chinese got Bio-Zombied and even set of their Shaolin forces against the Evil Dead and Taiwan fell quickly and brutally via Zombie 108. Reports of a serious outbreak in North Korea have been vigorously denied but those warheads going off there must mean something and over in the South, well you really have to see Train To Busan to get the full horrific details of what just went down there. To say the shit hit like a Tsunami would not be an understatement in the slightest.
Sang-ho Yeon has been kind enough to document events there as he followed salary-man and hedge fund manager Sok-Woo (Yoo Gong) and his young daughter Soo-an (Soo an Kim) in a mad dash across the country by rail to visit his estranged wife on his offspring’s birthday. He has seriously neglected his kid, married to his job as such but gives in to her request to see mum. Unfortunately it would seem that the ex could not have got much further away if she tried and it seems like a long journey at the best of times, especially as it takes place just as a serious re-animation event occurs. Those here may well be amazed firstly at just how different the train and transport situation is in South Korea to the UK! There’s no Southern Rail meltdowns, everyone gets a seat, services run like clockwork and staff even bow to you on boarding. It’s a very different world. Unfortunately just as the doors are closing and the air is being torn apart by sirens an infected person gets on board and savagely and spontaneously comes back to life. In many ways the plague here descends in much the same way as it did in the USA as seen in World War Z. These zombies are quick to turn and of the incredibly fast moving variety. Whether you believe this particular legend or stick to the fact that zombies can only slowly shuffle as their flesh rots is a moot point. It’s all captured here in a vicious fashion which makes you wonder just how the cameraman managed to survive more than the first wave. Sheer force is the zombies overall winning strategy and what they lack for in brains is made up for in numbers.
I have to admit Soo-an is excellent and quickly gets to grips with the situation and luckily dad makes up for any past neglect by defending her with his very life. Others on board weigh in including a bullish but incredibly brave chap with his heavily pregnant wife, a person who has survived a vicious early attack and who may or may not be a homeless person (who can tell the state he has been left in) and a baseball team and one solitary cheerleader. Luckily the latter lot have weapons in the form of their bats but as we saw in Battlefield Baseball that does not necessarily mean survival and many are quick to fall. There’s also a company head who is only interested in one thing, himself and his survival. Woe betide anyone who gets in the way of that as the dead take over most of the train and the survivors hole up. Busan is a long way off but thankfully there are reports of another station where the military have regained control on the line and first our plucky fugitives try their luck there. We get to see just how out of their depth everyone is as it only takes a bite to turn our protectors into our ultimate nemesis. The scenes here are horrifying and many more are to fall. As the train begins to get to its destination, well you will have to see for yourself but it is one ultimate and breath-taking battle for survival those of you still having survived your own ordeals will only be able to breathe a sigh of relief that you were not caught up in yourself.
Real time events are skilfully edited into 2 hours here and despite most of the action taking place on a train things move at enough of a pace to not get at all stale. Although this is not the goriest zombie invasion ever seen we can only praise the team who made this for getting in as close as they did to show us the gruesome events and there is a fair amount of splatter seen at pretty close quarters. They also really manage to get up close and personal and allow us to see just how horrifying the living dead look, the hindsight of knowing that this is no mere special effects operation make it all the more terrifying. The cast are on the whole courageous and true heroes, some we will mourn their passing but praise their selfless actions. Others deserve exactly what they get. The remarkable thing is they keep both humanity and even humour despite overwhelming odds and this too is something we can only admire and perhaps hope to achieve ourselves when we as survivors have to face the next inevitable outbreak. Train To Busan should be a message of just how to deal with such a calamitous situation when we have to confront it and should be studied carefully especially if you see it out of your safety zone and are forced to catch one of those horrible underground tube things after to get back.
We are hearing some disturbing reports that this uprising is spreading and is ravaging outer Mongolia. Tibet has also fallen, the Dalai Lama is infected. Thank you for reading and stay safe.
Pete Woods
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