Train to Busan

Plot

Seok-woo, a divorced fund manager, is a workaholic and divorced father to his young daughter, Soo-an. As part of her birthday the next day, she wishes for her father to take her to Busan to see her mother. Although reluctant at first due to his work, he changes his mind after his mother shows him a video of Soo-an's solo recital of "Aloha ʻOe" that he had skipped; his daughter did not complete her performance. On the way to the station, they nearly crash into a line of speeding fire trucks, ambulance and a police car, and notice a burning building in the distance. 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 COO Yon-suk; elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil; and a homeless man who seems to be aware of the situation happening.

As the train departs, a convulsing young woman boards the train with a bite wound on her leg. The woman becomes a zombie and attacks a train attendant, and the infection quickly spreads throughout the train. Seok-woo receives a call from his co-worker to warn him that "violent riots" have erupted in Korea. Baseball player Yong-guk, his love interest Jin-hee, and several passengers manage to escape to the upper compartments. Sang-hwa tries to barricade the door, but then realizes the zombies do not know how to open it, and merely charged at sight of humans. Seong-kyeong uses water and newspaper to cover up the windows, which tricks the zombies into thinking they are not there. News broadcasts report zombie outbreaks throughout the country. The conductor alerts everyone over the intercom that the train will not go to Cheonan, but will stop at Daejeon Station, as he was informed that the city has been placed under the military quarantine. He also informs that all passengers who arrive at Daejeon will be quarantined. Seok-woo calls his co-worker to tell him to pick him and Su-an up so they won't be quarantined. The train stops at Daejeon, and the rest of the passengers head to the main exit, while Seok-woo, Soo-an, and the homeless man head to hallway. However, all of the surviving passengers discover the soldiers (including the riot control police stationed there) have all been infected. In the ensuing chaos, the group ends up separated from each other. Soo-an, Seong-kyeong, Jong-gil, Jin-hee, and the homeless man head to the lower compartments, and they barricade themselves in the bathroom. 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 barely manage to board the train as it departs the station.

Discovering that the surviving passengers are still trapped in the lower compartments with hordes of zombies still there, Seok-woo, Sang-hwa, and Yong-guk fight their way to the bathroom to rescue Soo-an, Jong-gil, Seong-kyeong, and the homeless man. During their way, they discover that zombies cannot see the uninfected people in the dark and they only react to sounds. They use this advantage to rescue the others and together they head to the first compartments. However, at the instigation of Yon-suk, the passengers block the survivors from entering, fearing that they are infected. Unable to fight off the hordes of zombies coming in, Sang-hwa and Jong-gil sacrifice themselves to give the others time to force open the door and enter the car. Seok-Woo demands to know why Yon-suk blocked their way, but Yon-suk lies and says that he and his companions are infected and the remaining uninfected demand that they isolate themselves in the vestibule. They all head to the vestibule, with Jin-hee joining Yong-guk. As Yon-suk and other passengers proceed to block them in, In-gil looks at her zombified sister Jong-gil and is surprised at what she had done to herself. Angry at Yon-suk and unable to accept her fate, In-gil opens up the door, allowing the hordes of zombies to enter and infect the rest of the surviving passengers in the car.

The conductor receives a call from Busan to warn that the city has managed to fight off the zombie infection. A blocked track at the 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, who survived with a train attendant by hiding in the bathroom, manages to escape by distracting the zombies by pushing the attendant into them. Entering the train where Yong-guk and Jin-hee are hiding, he slams Jin-hee out of the way in a panic to reach the other door, where she is bitten by a zombie. 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, who is infected. Yon-suk soon becomes a zombie, and Seek-Woo fends him off, but is bitten in the hand before he manages to throw him from the train. He puts Soo-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room, instructs Seong-kyeong on how to control the engine, 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.

As they continue riding, Su-an and Seong-kyeong are stopped before reaching Busan due to a blockade, forcing them to walk through a tunnel by foot. On the other side of the tunnel, soldiers are stationed to defend the perimeter against zombies. Unable to see the Su-an and Seong-kyeong clearly in dark, the soldiers at the checkpoint are instructed by their commander to shoot them both. However, the soldiers then hear Su-an tearfully singing Aloha 'Oe, leading the soldiers to realize they're human, sending out reinforcements to help.

Cast

Box office

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

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". 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". 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." 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.

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." 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."

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.

Remake

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