Starring Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Choi Woo-sik, Kim Soo-an

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho

Screened at FrightFest 2016

High-flying hedge fund manager Seok Woo (Yoo) is a man married to his job. Divorced from his wife and struggling to find the time to properly raise his melancholy young daughter, Soo-an (Soo-an), he finds himself – despite protestation – stuck with the task of accompanying the child on the train from Seoul to Busan so that she can celebrate her birthday with her mother.

As the journey progresses, reports begin to come in of violent protests breaking out – first in Seoul, and then other cities nearby.

But these aren’t your standard outbursts of collective violence… it’s a zombie outbreak – and when the infection makes it onto the train, everyone on board must band together to survive the rapidly expanding ravenous hordes both inside and out.

Filled to the brim with tension, pulse-pounding action sequences and memorable (if broad) characters, Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan is a triumph. The infection here spreads fast – a single bite leading to transformation in under a minute, the infected twisting and thrashing into almost impossible shapes before going hell for leather toward the nearest living human.

Setting up the rules of his universe through perfectly paced discovery scenes, Sang-ho’s characters learn that not only will the infected only become agitated if they can see you, but they are also completely blind in the dark. This leads to a number of toe-curling encounters – the darkness scenes reminiscent of Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer – as the cast try to survive the trip to Busan without becoming zombie chow.

In between, Sang-ho allows his characters to shine through interaction with one another. Of course, there’s the core dynamic of the strained, but infinitely loving, relationship between father and daughter – but others such as Ma Dong-seok’s apparently thuggish but ultimately brave and loveable gangster, his desperate pregnant wife, and a pair of ‘will they, won’t they’ love-struck teens grow admirably into a core bunch that you really, really hope make it to the end of the line.

Of course, that’s not likely to happen and – given the inclusion of one of the most despicably cowardly villains you’ll see this year – Train to Busan winds up being not only an adrenal rollercoaster, but an emotional one where every core death feels weighty and relevant.

Whilst the CGI hordes do occasionally appear ropey in a World War Z kind of way, the impact of their utility can’t be denied – they’re truly frightening, something that Marc Forster’s effort failed to realise… and even when the film makes the occasional stop to open up from the claustrophobic confines of the train, the threat of the infected hangs relentlessly in the air, pushing into overdrive throughout the many bombastic, anxiety-inducing action scenes.

Sure, zombie purists may bemoan the lack of more gruesome gore (no zombie head-cavings here, folks… sorry!), and the obvious CGI blood-splatters when someone is bitten (and subsequent lack of an actual bite wound on some reanimated victims), but these are minor details that are easily forgiven in the face of everything that Train to Busan delivers.

And what it delivers is a thrilling, white-knuckle zombie extravaganza that’s filled to bursting with shocks, tension, character and heart. This is the theatrical genre event of the year… miss it, and you’ll not only miss out on what is sure to be a thoroughly deserving box office success, but on one of the best modern zombie films ever made – praise that is by no means given lightly.

