My Impression of Train to Busan

(Image used from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_to_Busan)

I rarely watched Korean movies, and I believe this is the first time I am writing a review of sorts for one. Since this movie takes place in the apocalyptic zombie setting, this makes it even less likely for me to watch as I don't really watch zombie movies. Moving on, I randomly stumbled upon this movie and decided to give it a shot. The movie, Train to Busan. premiered on May 13, 2016 at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The film was directed by Yeon Sang-ho, and stars Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, and Ma Dong-seok.

To not give any spoilers to the story, I'll try to be as brief of a summary concerning the story. The story centers around Seok-woo (played by Gong Yoo) and his daughter, Su-an (played by the child actress, Kim Su-an) where they get on a KTX train from Seoul to Busan so that Su-an can see her mother due to her wanting to file a divorce from Seok-woo. Since it is a zombie film, things go awry and an infected person gets on board the KTX to start the infection. Seok-woo fights the zombies as he protects Su-an while the train continues to head to Busan as he meets various survivors in the zombie outbreak. 

To be honest, I did not have any expectations heading into watching the movie since I randomly stumbled upon it. I didn't even know it was a zombie film as I thought it was a thriller. It was my surprise when I saw the first infected person. The zombies reminded me from another movie called World War Z. They are ridiculously fast compared to the traditional zombie motif like with The Walking Dead. The makeup on the zombies were really good, and interesting to show how they transform from humans to zombies. The first indicator is the veins spreading and showing. It made for a nice adrenaline rush while watching the movie as I was drawn into the suspense, and hoping that the small core of characters try to survive the zombie outbreak. The acting was good in my opinion. I really liked Su-an's acting and I thought she did a fine job as a child actress. That piqued my interest to see what kind of roles she'll be in soon, or even check out her other previous works.

Train to Busan was a well-made movie with good acting, good action, good cinematography, and well-edited movie. I do recommend this movie if you are looking forward to the zombie genre, or even as a good action movie. It had its suspenseful action moments, as well as emotional scenes that I shed tears for. The actors did a good job to make you feel attached to the characters, or even hate them.

I said at the beginning of this that I don't watch zombie movies, but my next review is a Japanese zombie film, I am a Hero which I also enjoyed and watched around the same time as Train to Busan.

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