Workaholic fund manager Seok-wu (Gong Yoo) takes his estranged young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) on the KTX high-speed train to Busan to visit his ex-wife. While the anime’s excoriation of the police and army is softened in the live-action sequel, scenarios of humans and zombies precariously separated by carriages fittingly symbolize the dangerous gap between society’s haves and have-nots. “Train to Busan” picks up where that film left off.
In “Seoul Station,” Yeon depicted a homeless enclave inside the central train station as the ground zero of a zombie outbreak. However, with a MERS epidemic sweeping South Korea in 2015 and soaring discontent with corruption and economic disparity, a zombie apocalypse serves as a potent allegory for the dog-eat-dog world. But whether it’s alleged prototype “Let Sleeping Corpses Lie” rip-off “A Monstrous Corpse” or the more recent “Zombie School” (2014), they’ve all been slapdash and unoriginal. Buyers for Asian-friendly genre products should clamber to board “Train.”ĭespite the vibrancy of genre cinema in Korea, you can count the country’s zombie films on the fingers of one hand. Yeon has displayed recognizably cinematic sensibilities in his last three indie anime features - “King of Pigs,” “Fake” and “Seoul Station” - so it’s not surprising that he transitions easily into live-action, though his scathing, nihilistic vision of humanity is watered down for wider mainstream appeal. As an allegory of class rebellion and moral polarization, it proves just as biting as Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi dystopia “Snowpiercer,” while delivering even more unpretentious fun.
However, Train to Busan has disappeared from the platform in recent months.Following a motley crew on a bumpy ride from Seoul to Busan to escape a zombie outbreak, writer-director Yeon Sang-ho’s action-horror railroad movie “ Train to Busan” pulses with relentless locomotive momentum. This allowed it to be opened up to a new audience, as Netflix in particular has numerous foreign horror movie titles. Train to Busan has been featured on major streaming platforms, such as Netflix, before. Train To Busan has certainly amassed a significant fan base in recent years, especially as viewers turn to zombie- and pandemic-related movies in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The director's animated prequel, Seoul Station, came out less than a month later, and the sequel Peninsula-set four years after the original and also directed by Yeon-came out in 2020. Train To Busan, which garnered several awards and nominations following its release, spawned two follow-up movies. Related: Train To Busan Zombies: Origin & Virus Explained The critics consensus of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes states that the movie "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." Critics and audiences raved about the film upon its release. In fact, it recorded more than 11 million moviegoers in South Korea alone. and Canada, and became the highest-grossing Korean film in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Train To Busan grossed $2.1 million in the U.S. Most of Train to Busan takes place on a train, heading to Busan at the onset of a zombie apocalypse, which was caused by a chemical leak at a biotech plant. The movie stars actors Gong Too, Jung Yu-mi, and Ma Dong-seok. Where can Train To Busan be found online-is it on Netflix, Hulu, or Prime? The 2016 South Korean action horror film was directed by Yeon Sang-ho.