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Train to Busan

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Train to Busan
Korean film poster
Directed byYeon Sang-ho
Written byPark Joo-suk
Produced byLee Dong-ha
Starring
CinematographyLee Hyung-deok
Edited byYang Jin-mo
Music byJang Young-gyu
Production
companies
Distributed byNext Entertainment World
Release dates
  • 13 May 2016 (2016-05-13) (Cannes)
  • 20 July 2016 (2016-07-20) (South Korea)
Running time
118 minutes[1]
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
Box office$87.5 million[2]

Train to Busan (Korean: 부산행; RR: Busanhaeng) is a 2016 South Korean zombie apocalypse horror thriller film directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, and Ma Dong-seok.[3] The film takes place in a train to Busan, as a zombie apocalypse suddenly breaks in the country and compromises the safety of the passengers.

The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on 13 May.[4][5][6][7] 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.[8][9] The film serves as a reunion for Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi, who both starred in the 2011 film The Crucible.

An animated prequel, Seoul Station, also directed by Sang-ho, was released less than a month later.

Plot

Seok-woo, a divorced fund manager, is a workaholic and absentee father to his young daughter, Soo-an. For her birthday the next day, she wishes for her father to take her to Busan to see her mother. They board the KTX in Seoul. Others on the same train include tough working-class husband Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, a high school baseball team, rich but selfish CEO Yon-suk, elderly sisters In-gil and Jon-gil, and a homeless man who is experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.

As the train departs, a convulsing young woman boards the train with a bite wound on her leg. The woman soon becomes a zombie and attacks a train attendant, who then also turns into a zombie (the bites of the infected are swiftly lethal, and the dead instantly turn even if not bitten). The infection quickly spreads throughout the train. Baseball player Yong-guk, a girl named Jin-hee who has a crush on him, and several passengers manage to escape to another car. News broadcasts report zombie outbreaks throughout the country. The train stops at Daejeon, but the surviving passengers find that the city has also been overrun, and they hastily retreat back to the train, splitting up into different train cars in the chaos. The conductor restarts the train to head to Busan, where a successful quarantine zone has reportedly been established.

Seok-woo, Sang-hwa, and Yong-guk fight their way to where Su-an, In-gil, and Seong-kyeong are hiding, and together they struggle through the zombie horde to the front train car, where the other passengers are sheltered. However, at the instigation of Yon-suk, the passengers block the survivors from entering, fearing that they are infected. Sang-hwa and In-gil sacrifice themselves to give the others time to force open the door and enter the car. Yon-suk demands that the newcomers isolate themselves in the vestibule, and the others follow his lead. When Jong-gil deliberately opens the door to the zombies to be with her zombified sister In-gil, the zombies kill the rest of the passengers, leaving Seok-woo, Su-an and Seong-kyeong safe, as they are in the vestibule. Yon-suk and the train attendant escape the onslaught by hiding in the bathroom.

A blocked track at East Daegu train station forces the survivors to stop and search for another train. In the process, Seok-woo, Seong-kyeong, Su-an, and the homeless man are separated from Yong-guk and Jin-hee. Yon-suk escapes after pushing the train attendant to be eaten by the zombies. Entering the train where Yong-guk and Jin-hee are, he slams Jin-hee out of the way in a panic to reach the other door, killing her. Heartbroken, Yong-guk stays with Jin-hee and is bitten by her when she turns. The train conductor starts a locomotive on another track, but is also killed by zombies while trying to save Yon-suk. The homeless man sacrifices himself to let Su-an and Seong-kyeong escape with Seok-woo into the train the conductor had activated. They encounter Yon-suk in the engine room, on the verge of turning into a zombie. Seok-woo fights him off, but is himself bitten. He puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room and shares his last words with his daughter before moving outside. As he zombifies, he thinks of the first time he held his daughter in his arms, and throws himself off the locomotive with a smile.

Su-an and Seong-kyeong get off at Busan and begin walking through a train tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel are soldiers stationed to defend the perimeter against zombies. Unable to see the new arrivals clearly, the soldiers at the checkpoint are instructed to shoot them. However, the soldiers then hear singing, which makes them realize the newcomers are human: it is Su-an, tearfully singing the song that she had wanted to perform for her father at the beginning of the film, now singing it to honor his heroic sacrifice.

Cast

  • Gong Yoo as Seok-woo, a fund manager obsessed with his work
  • Jung Yu-mi as Seong-kyeong, Sang-hwa's pregnant wife
  • Kim Su-an as Soo-an, Seok-woo's young daughter who wants to go to Busan to see her mother
  • Ma Dong-seok as Sang-hwa, a tough, working-class man
  • Kim Eui-sung as Yon-suk, a rich CEO
  • Choi Woo-shik as Yong-guk, a young baseball player
  • Ahn So-hee as Jin-hee, Yong-guk's romantic interest
  • Choi Gwi-hwa as a homeless man
  • Jung Suk-yong as Captain of KTX
  • Ye Soo-jung as In-gil
  • Park Myung-sin as Jong-gil
  • Jang Hyuk-jin as Ki-chul
  • Kim Chang-hwan as Kim Jin-mo
  • Shim Eun-kyung as Runaway Girl

Reception

Box office

Train to Busan grossed $87.5 million worldwide.[2] It became the highest-grossing Korean film in Malaysia ($4.84 million),[10] Hong Kong ($8.52 million),[11] and Singapore ($3.1 million).[12] It recorded more than 11 million movie goers in South Korea.[13]

Critical response

The film has received generally positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 96% approval rating based on 78 collected reviews, with an average rating of 7.6 out of 10. The site's 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".[14] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film an average score of 72 based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[15] 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."[16] The film received a coveted "The New York Times Critics' Pick" badge, with reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis taking notice of the film's subtle class warfare.[17]

In contrast, the negative reviews have described the film as "Snowpiercer with zombies." 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."[18] 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."[19]

Awards and nominations

Award Category Recipient Result
11th Asian Film Awards Best Actor Gong Yoo Pending
Best Supporting Actor Ma Dong-seok Pending
Best Editor Yang Jin-mo Pending
Best Visual Effects Jung Hwang-su Pending
Best Costume Designer Kwon Yoo-jin, Rim Seung-hee Pending
37th Blue Dragon Film Awards 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 makeup) Won
Audience Choice Award for Most Popular Film Train to Busan Won
25th Buil Film Awards Best Film 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
1st International Film Festival & Award Macao Asian Blockbuster Film Train to Busan Won
36th Korean Association of Film Critics Awards Technical Award Won
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards Best Foreign-Language Film Pending
Best Actor Gong Yoo Pending

Home media

American distributor Well Go USA released DVD and Blu-ray versions of Train to Busan on 17 January 2017.[20]

Remake

Variety said in December 2016 that Gaumont would remake Train to Busan in English.[21]

References

  1. ^ "Train to Busan (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 20 September 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Train to Busan". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  3. ^ Kay, Jeremy (9 June 2016). "Well Go USA Entertainment boards 'Train To Busan'". Screen Daily. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  4. ^ "Cannes 2016: Film Festival Unveils Official Selection Lineup". Variety. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  5. ^ "'Train to Busan' to screen at Cannes". The Korea Times.
  6. ^ "Zombies fail to impress in 'Train to Busan'". 19 July 2016.
  7. ^ Chen, Heather (3 August 2016). "Train to Busan: Zombie film takes S Korea by storm". BBC News. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
  8. ^ notclaira (7 August 2016). ""Train To Busan" Is The First Korean Film Of 2016 To Break This Audience Record". Soompi. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  9. ^ Byun, Hee-won. "Korean Movies Prove Box-Office Gold". The Chosun Ilbo. Chosun Media. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  10. ^ Begum, Mumtaj. "'Train to Busan' speeds away to box-office record". The Star. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  11. ^ Chu, Karen. "South Korean Zombie Hit 'Train to Busan' Becomes Highest-Grossing Asian Film in Hong Kong". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  12. ^ Wai Yee, Yip (24 August 2016). "Train To Busan is No. 1 at Singapore box office and top Korean movie to date". The Straits Times. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
  13. ^ "Zombie Movie 'Train to Busan' Passes 11 Million-Viewer Mark". The Chosun Ilbo. 19 August 2016. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  14. ^ "Train to Busan (Bu-san-haeng)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  15. ^ "Train to Busan Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  16. ^ Collis, Clark. "Train to Busan: EW review". Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly, Inc. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  17. ^ Jeannette, Catsoulis. "Review: All Aboard 'Train to Busan' for Zombie and Class Warfare". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  18. ^ Ehrlich, David. "'Train To Busan' Review: This Electric Korean Zombie Movie Goes Off The Rails". IndieWire. Penske Business Media, LLC. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  19. ^ Jagernauth, Kevin. "Korean Zombie Thriller 'Train To Busan' Needs More Brains [Review]". The Playlist. Spin Entertainment. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  20. ^ "Train to Busan (2016): Releases". AllMovie. Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  21. ^ Kil, Sonia; Keslassy, Elsa. "'Train to Busan' English-Language Remake Rights Go to Gaumont". Variety.
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