Train to Busan

Train to Busan
Theatrical release poster
Hangul	부산행
Hanja	釜山行
Revised Romanization	Busanhaeng
McCune–Reischauer	Pusanhaeng
Directed by	Yeon Sang-ho
Written by	Park Joo-suk
Produced by	Lee Dong-ha
Starring	Gong Yoo Jung Yu-mi Ma Dong-seok Kim Su-an Choi Woo-shik Ahn So-hee Kim Eui-sung
Cinematography	Lee Hyung-deok
Edited by	Yang Jin-mo
Music by	Jang Young-gyu
Production companies	Next Entertainment World RedPeter Film
Distributed by	Next Entertainment World
Release dates	13 May 2016 (2016-05-13) (Cannes) 20 July 2016 (2016-07-20) (South Korea)
Running time	118 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Budget	$8.5 million
Box office	$98.5 million

Train to Busan (Korean: 부산행; RR: Busanhaeng; MR: Pusanhaeng; lit. To Busan) is a 2016 South Korean action horror film directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Ma Dong-seok, Kim Su-an, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee, and Kim Eui-sung. The film mostly takes place on a KTX from Seoul to Busan as a zombie apocalypse suddenly breaks out in the country and threatens the safety of the passengers.

The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on 13th of May. On 7 August, the film set a record as the first Korean film of 2016 to break the audience record of over 10 million theatergoers.

The movie successfully launched the Train to Busan film series, with the animated prequel Seoul Station released in 2016 and a standalone sequel named Peninsula released in 2020. Another installment and an American-produced adaptation are also in development.

Plot

Fund manager Seok-woo is a cynical workaholic and a divorced father. His estranged daughter Su-an wants to spend her birthday with her mother Na-young in Busan. Seok-woo sees a video of Su-an attempting to sing "Aloha ʻOe" at her singing recital and succumbing to stage fright as a result of his absence. Overcome with guilt, he decides to grant Su-an's birthday wish. The next day, they board the KTX 101 at Seoul Station, en route to Busan. Other passengers include blue-collar worker Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, COO Yon-suk, a high school baseball team including player Yong-guk and his cheerleader girlfriend Jin-hee, elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil, and a traumatized homeless stowaway hiding in the bathroom. Before the train departs, an ill woman runs onto the train unnoticed. She turns into a zombie and attacks a train attendant, who also turns. The infection spreads rapidly throughout the train.

The group escapes to another car and locks the doors. Internet reports and phone calls make it known that an epidemic is spreading southward across the country. When the train stops at Daejeon Station, the survivors find the city overrun by zombies and hastily retreat to the train, splitting up into different train cars in the ensuing chaos. Seok-woo learns by phone that his company is indirectly involved in the disaster. The military establishes a quarantine zone near Busan, to which the conductor sets a course. Seok-woo, Sang-hwa and Yong-guk – who have become separated from their loved ones – fight their way to where Su-an and Seong-kyeong are hiding with In-gil and the homeless man. Once regrouped, they struggle through the zombie horde to the front train car, where the rest of the passengers are sheltered. At the prompting of Yon-suk and train attendant Ki-chul, the passengers prevent the survivors from entering, fearing that they are infected. Sang-hwa sacrifices himself to give the others time to force open the door and enter the car, but In-gil is killed.

Yon-suk, Ki-chul and the passengers demand that the survivors isolate themselves in the front vestibule. However, Jong-gil – disgusted at the passengers and despairing from the loss of her sister – deliberately opens the other door and allows the zombies to enter and kill the rest of the car's passengers. Yon-suk and Ki-chul escape by hiding in the bathroom.

A blocked track at the East Daegu Station forces the survivors to stop and search for another train. Yon-suk escapes after pushing Ki-chul into the zombies. A flaming locomotive derails, separating the group and trapping Seok-woo, Su-an, Seong-kyeong and the homeless man underneath a carriage filled with zombies. Meanwhile, Yon-suk runs into Jin-hee and Yong-guk, pushing the former into a zombie in his attempts to escape. Heartbroken, Yong-guk stays with Jin-hee until she turns and kills him. The conductor starts a locomotive on another track but is also thrown to the zombies while trying to save an injured Yon-suk. Seok-woo finds a way out from under the carriage, but the escape route is shortly afterward blocked by falling debris. The homeless man sacrifices himself to buy time for Seok-woo to clear the debris, and he, Su-an and Seong-kyeong manage to escape onto the new locomotive.

After fighting off zombies hanging onto the locomotive, they encounter Yon-suk, who is on the verge of turning into a zombie and is begging for help. Seok-woo manages to throw him off but is bitten. He puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room, teaches the latter how to operate the train, and says goodbye to the former. In his final moments before he turns, he reminisces the moment of Su-an's birth, before throwing himself off the locomotive.

Due to another train blockage, Su-an and Seong-kyeong are forced to stop the train at a tunnel just prior to Busan. The two exit the train and continue following the tracks on foot through the tunnel. Snipers stationed on the other side of the tunnel spot them, and prepare to shoot at them, believing them to be zombies, but they stand down when they hear Su-an singing "Aloha 'Oe", in tribute to her late father.

Cast

• Gong Yoo as Seok-woo, a fund manager whose wife left him because of his selfishness
• Jung Yu-mi as Seong-kyeong, Sang-hwa's pregnant wife
• Ma Dong-seok as Yoon Sang-hwa, husband of Seong-kyeong
• Kim Su-an as Su-an, daughter of Seok-woo who wants to see her mom in Busan for her birthday.
• Choi Woo-shik as Min Yong-guk, a high school baseball player
• Sohee as Kim Jin-hee, Yong-guk's girlfriend
• Kim Eui-sung as Yon-suk, a business executive and COO
• Choi Gwi-hwa as a homeless man
• Jang Hyuk-jin as Ki-chul, a train attendant
• Park Myung-sin as Jong-gil, In-gil's younger sister
• Ye Soo-jung as In-gil, the older sister of Jong-gil
• Jeong Seok-yong as the driver of the KTX
• Han Seong-soo as the KTX train Team Leader
• Kim Chang-hwan as Deputy Kim Jin-mo
• Shim Eun-kyung as a runaway girl
• Lee Joo-shil as Seok-woo's mother and Su-an's grandmother
• Woo Do im as female train attendant Min-ji
• Cha Chung-hwa as Middle aged woman
• Kim Joo-hun as Baseball coach
• Han Ji-eun as Woman wearing headphones

Production

The film is based on an original story created by Park Joo-suk. The team tried to reference the movements of the zombies in the game 7 Days to Die and the movements of the dolls from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, and also reviewed the movements of the nurses in Silent Hill. The film was filmed in various stations from Daejeon, Cheonan and East Daegu. The water deer in the movie was created using real videos of water deer and 3D modelling. The scenery that is seen outside the train in the film was shot with an LED plate rear screen technique behind the set piece that was based on the interior of the KTX-I, facilitating the increased focus on the characters. The blood vessels of the zombies were drawn with an airbrush. The zombies were styled differently depending on the progress of the infection.

Reception

Box office

Train to Busan grossed $80.5 million in South Korea, $2.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $15.8 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $98.5 million.

It became the highest-grossing Korean film in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In South Korea, it recorded more than 11 million moviegoers and was the highest-grossing film of the year.

Critical response

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of 131 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The website's critics consensus states: "Train to Busan delivers a thrillingly unique — and purely entertaining — take on the zombie genre, with fully realized characters and plenty of social commentary to underscore the bursts of skillfully staged action." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, assigned the film an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the film "borrows heavily from World War Z in its depiction of the fast-moving undead masses while also boasting an emotional core the Brad Pitt-starring extravaganza often lacked," adding that "the result is first-class throughout." At The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis selected the film as her "Critic's Pick" and took notice of its subtle class warfare.

In a more mixed review, David Ehrlich of IndieWire comments that "as the characters whittle away into archetypes (and start making senseless decisions), the spectacle also sheds its unique personality." Kevin Jagernauth of The Playlist wrote: "[Train to Busan] doesn't add anything significant to the zombie genre, nor has anything perceptive to say about humanity in the face of crisis. Sure, it lacks brains, and that's the easy quip to make, but what Train To Busan truly needs, and disappointingly lacks, is heart."

In 2016, British filmmaker Edgar Wright, director of zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, highly applauded the film, personally recommending it on Twitter and calling it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever."

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref(s)
Asian Film Awards	21 March 2017	Best Actor	Gong Yoo	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actor	Ma Dong-seok	Nominated
		Best Editor	Yang Jin-mo	Nominated
		Best Visual Effects	Jung Hwang-su	Nominated
		Best Costume Designer	Kwon Yoo-jin and Rim Seung-hee	Nominated
Blue Dragon Film Awards	25 November 2016	Best Film	Train to Busan	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actor	Kim Eui-sung	Nominated
			Ma Dong-seok	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actress	Jung Yu-mi	Nominated
		Best New Director	Yeon Sang-ho	Nominated
		Best Art Direction	Lee Mok-won	Nominated
		Best Screenplay	Park Joo-seok	Nominated
		Best Editing	Yang Jin-mo	Nominated
		Best Cinematography	Lee Hyeong-deok	Nominated
		Best Lighting	Park Jeong-woo	Nominated
		Technical Award	Kwak Tae-yong and Hwang Hyo-gyoon (special make-up)	Won
		Audience Choice Award for Most Popular Film	Train to Busan	Won
Buil Film Awards	7 October 2016	Best Film	Train to Busan	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actor	Kim Eui-sung	Won
		Best Supporting Actress	Jung Yu-mi	Nominated
		Best Cinematography	Lee Hyeong-deok	Nominated
		Best Art Direction	Lee Mok-won	Nominated
		Yu Hyun-mok Film Arts Award	Yeon Sang-ho	Won
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards	N/A	Best Foreign-Language Film	Train to Busan	Won
		Best Actor	Gong Yoo	Nominated
Korean Association of Film Critics Awards	24 November 2016	Technical Award	Train to Busan	Won
Saturn Awards	28 June 2017	Best Horror Film		Nominated
Baeksang Arts Awards	3 May 2017	Best Film		Nominated
		Best Supporting Actor	Kim Eui-sung	Won
			Ma Dong-seok	Nominated
		Best New Director	Yeon Sang-ho	Won
Chunsa Film Awards	May 24, 2017	Technical Award	Kwak Tae-yong	Won
		Special Audience Award for Best Film	Train to Busan	Won

Home media

American distributor Well Go USA released DVD and Blu-ray versions of Train to Busan on 17 January 2017. FNC Add Culture released the Korean DVD and Blu-ray versions on 22 February 2017. It is also available on Rakuten Viki and Amazon Prime Video streaming. The Indian version is a minute shorter than the original version due to a few violent zombie shots being censored.

In the United Kingdom, it was 2017's fourth best-selling foreign language film on home video (below Operation Chromite, Your Name, and Guardians). It was later 2020's sixth best-selling foreign language film in the UK, and third best-selling Korean film (below Parasite and Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula).

Follow-ups

Prequel

Main article: Seoul Station (film)

An animated prequel, Seoul Station, also directed by Yeon, was released on 18 August 2016.

Sequel

Main article: Peninsula (film)

Peninsula, a standalone sequel set four years after Train to Busan and also directed by Yeon, was released in South Korea on 15 July 2020 to mixed reviews. Yeon has stated that,

Peninsula is not a sequel to Train to Busan because it's not a continuation of the story, but it happens in the same universe.

American remake

In 2016, Gaumont acquired the rights for the English-language remake of the film from Next Entertainment World. In 2018, New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster and Coin Operated were announced to be the co-producing partners for the remake, with Warner Bros. Pictures distributing worldwide, except for France and South Korea. Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto is in talks to helm the film, while Gary Dauberman adapts the screenplay and co-produces the film alongside James Wan. In December 2021, the film's official title was revealed to be The Last Train to New York scheduled to be released 21 April 2023. However, in July 2022, Warner Bros. removed the film off the release schedule with Evil Dead Rise, another New Line Cinema film, taking its original release date.

See also

• Trip Ubusan: The Lolas vs. Zombies: Filipino comedy movie whose name is inspired by this film's
• Snowpiercer: Post-apocalyptic action movie also involving low-class passengers on a train rebelling against the ruling elites in the midst of a crisis.

External links

• Official website
• Train to Busan at the Korean Movie Database (in Korean)
• Train to Busan at IMDb
• Train to Busan at Rotten Tomatoes
• Train to Busan at Metacritic
• Train to Busan at HanCinema