2016 zombie film by Yeon Sang-ho
Train to Busan
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Theatrical release poster
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Hangul
| |
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Hanja
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Revised Romanization
| Busanhaeng
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Directed by
| Yeon Sang-ho
|
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Written by
| Park Joo-suk
|
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Produced by
| Lee Dong-ha
|
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Starring
| |
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Cinematography
| Lee Hyung-deok
|
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Edited by
| Yang Jin-mo
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Music by
| Jang Young-gyu
|
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Production
companies
| |
---|
Distributed by
| Next Entertainment World
|
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Release dates
|
- 13 May 2016
(
2016-05-13
)
(
Cannes
)
- 20 July 2016
(
2016-07-20
)
(South Korea)
|
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Running time
| 118 minutes
[1]
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Country
| South Korea
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Language
| Korean
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Budget
| $8.5 million
[2]
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Box office
| $98.5 million
[3]
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Train to Busan
(
Korean
:
釜山行
;
RR
:
Busanhaeng
;
lit.
To Busan) is a 2016 South Korean
action
horror film
[4]
directed by
Yeon Sang-ho
and starring
Gong Yoo
,
Jung Yu-mi
,
Ma Dong-seok
,
Kim Su-an
,
Choi Woo-shik
,
Ahn So-hee
and
Kim Eui-sung
.
[5]
The film mostly takes place on a
KTX
from
Seoul
to
Busan
as a
zombie apocalypse
suddenly breaks out in the country and threatens the safety of the passengers.
The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section of the
2016 Cannes Film Festival
on 13th of May.
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
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.
[10]
[11]
The movie successfully launched the
Train to Busan
film series
, with the
animated
prequel
Seoul Station
released in 2016 and a standalone sequel named
Peninsula
released in 2020. Another installment and an
American
-produced adaptation are also in development.
Plot
[
edit
]
Fund manager
Seok-woo is a cynical
workaholic
and a divorced father. His estranged daughter Su-an wants to spend her birthday with her mother Nayoung in
Busan
. Seok-woo sees a video of Su-an attempting to sing "
Aloha ?Oe
" at her singing recital and succumbing to
stage fright
as a result of his absence. Overcome with guilt, he decides to grant Su-an's birthday wish. The next day, they board the
KTX
101 at
Seoul Station
, en route to Busan. Other passengers include Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong,
CEO
Yon-suk, a high school baseball team including player Yong-guk and his cheerleader girlfriend Jin-hee, elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil, and a traumatized homeless stowaway hiding in the bathroom. Before the train departs, an ill woman runs onto the train unnoticed. She turns into a
zombie
and attacks a train attendant, who also turns. The infection spreads rapidly throughout the train.
The group escapes to another car and locks the doors. Internet reports and phone calls make it known that an
epidemic
is spreading southward across the country. When the train stops at
Daejeon Station
, the survivors find the city overrun by zombies and hastily retreat back to the train, splitting up into different train cars in the ensuing chaos. Seok-woo learns by phone that his company is indirectly involved in the disaster. The military establishes a
quarantine
zone near Busan, to which the conductor sets a course. Seok-woo, Sang-hwa and Yong-guk ? who have become separated from their loved ones ? fight their way to where Su-an and Seong-kyeong are hiding with In-gil and the homeless man. Once regrouped, they struggle through the zombie horde to the front train car, where the rest of the passengers are sheltered. At the prompting of Yon-suk and train attendant Ki-chul, the passengers prevent the survivors from entering, fearing that they are infected. Sang-hwa sacrifices himself to give the others time to force open the door and enter the car, but In-gil is killed.
Yon-suk, Ki-chul and the passengers demand that the survivors isolate themselves in the front vestibule. However, Jong-gil ? disgusted at the passengers and despairing from the loss of her sister ? deliberately opens the other door and allows the zombies to enter and kill the rest of the car's passengers. Yon-suk and Ki-chul escape by hiding in the bathroom.
A blocked track at the
East Daegu Station
forces the survivors to stop and search for another train. Yon-suk escapes after pushing Ki-chul into the zombies. A flaming locomotive
derails
, separating the group and trapping Seok-woo, Su-an, Seong-kyeong and the homeless man underneath a carriage filled with zombies. Meanwhile, Yon-suk runs into Jin-hee and Yong-guk, pushing the former into a zombie in his attempts to escape. Heartbroken, Yong-guk stays with Jin-hee until she turns and kills him. The conductor starts a locomotive on another track but is also thrown to the zombies while trying to save an injured Yon-suk. Seok-woo finds a way out from under the carriage, but the escape route is shortly afterward blocked by falling debris. The homeless man sacrifices himself to buy time for Seok-woo to clear the debris, and he, Su-an and Seong-kyeong manage to escape onto the new locomotive.
After fighting off zombies hanging onto the locomotive, they encounter Yon-suk, who is on the verge of turning into a zombie and is begging for help. Seok-woo manages to throw him off but is bitten. He puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room, teaches the latter how to operate the train, and says goodbye to the former. In his final moments before he turns, he reminisces the moment of Su-an's birth, before throwing himself off the locomotive.
Due to another train blockage, Su-an and Seong-kyeong are forced to stop the train at a tunnel just prior to Busan. The two exit the train and continue following the tracks on foot through the tunnel.
Snipers
are stationed on the other side of the tunnel and are prepared to shoot at what they believe to be zombies, but they lower their weapons when they hear Su-an singing "Aloha 'Oe", in tribute to her late father.
Cast
[
edit
]
- Gong Yoo
as Seok-woo, a fund manager whose wife left him because of his selfishness.
- Jung Yu-mi
as Seong-kyeong, Sang-hwa's pregnant wife
- Ma Dong-seok
as Yoon Sang-hwa, husband of Seong-kyeong
- Kim Su-an
as Su-an, daughter of Seok-woo who wants to see her mom in
Busan
for her
birthday
.
- Choi Woo-shik
as Min Yong-guk, a high school baseball player
- Sohee
as Kim Jin-hee, Yong-guk's girlfriend
- Kim Eui-sung
as Yon-suk, a business executive
- Choi Gwi-hwa
as a homeless man
- Jang Hyuk-jin
as Ki-chul, a train attendant
- Park Myung-sin
[
ko
]
as Jong-gil, In-gil's younger sister
- Ye Soo-jung
as In-gil, the older sister of Jong-gil
- Jeong Seok-yong
[
ko
]
as the captain of the
KTX
- Han Seong-soo as the KTX train Team Leader
- Kim Chang-hwan
[
ko
]
as Deputy Kim Jin-mo
- Shim Eun-kyung
as a runaway girl
- Lee Joo-shil
[
ko
]
as Seok-woo's mother and Su-an's grandmother
- Woo Do im
[
ko
]
as Min-ji
- Cha Chung-hwa
as Middle aged woman
- Kim Joo-hun
as Baseball coach
- Han Ji-eun
as Woman wearing headphones
Production
[
edit
]
The film is based on an original story created by Park Joo-suk. The team tried to reference the movements of the zombies in the game
7 Days to Die
and the movements of the dolls from
Ghost in the Shell
, and also reviewed the movements of the nurses in
Silent Hill
.
[12]
The film was filmed in various stations from Daejeon, Cheonan and East Daegu.
[12]
The water deer in the movie was created using real videos of water deer and 3D modelling.
[12]
The scenery that is seen outside the train in the film was shot with an LED plate rear screen technique behind the set and by focusing on the characters.
[12]
The blood vessels of the zombies were drawn with an airbrush. The zombies were styled differently depending on the progress of the infection.
[12]
Reception
[
edit
]
Box office
[
edit
]
Train to Busan
grossed $80.5 million in South Korea, $2.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $15.8 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $98.5 million.
[3]
It became the highest-grossing Korean film in
Malaysia
,
[13]
Hong Kong
,
[14]
and
Singapore
.
[15]
In South Korea, it recorded more than 11 million moviegoers
[16]
and was the highest-grossing film of the year.
[17]
Critical response
[
edit
]
The
review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
reported that 94% of 118 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.60/10. The website's critics 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."
[18]
Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, assigned the film an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
[19]
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."
[20]
At
The New York Times
, Jeannette Catsoulis selected the film as her "Critic's Pick" and took notice of its subtle
class warfare
.
[21]
In a negative review, 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."
[22]
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."
[23]
In 2016, British filmmaker
Edgar Wright
, director of
zombie comedy
Shaun of the Dead
, highly applauded the film, personally recommending it on Twitter and calling it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever."
[24]
Accolades
[
edit
]
Home media
[
edit
]
American distributor
Well Go USA
released
DVD
and
Blu-ray
versions of
Train to Busan
on 17 January 2017.
[39]
FNC Add Culture
released the Korean DVD and Blu-ray versions on 22 February 2017. It is also available on Rakuten Viki and
Amazon Prime Video
streaming. The Indian version is a minute shorter than the original version due to a few violent zombie shots being censored.
[
citation needed
]
In the United Kingdom, it was 2017's fourth best-selling
foreign language film
on
home video
(below
Operation Chromite
,
Your Name
, and
Guardians
).
[40]
It was later 2020's sixth best-selling foreign language film in the UK, and third best-selling
Korean film
(below
Parasite
and
Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula
).
[41]
Followups
[
edit
]
Prequel
[
edit
]
An
animated
prequel
,
Seoul Station
, also directed by Yeon, was released on 18 August 2016.
[42]
Sequel
[
edit
]
Peninsula
, a standalone sequel set four years after
Train to Busan
and also directed by Yeon, was released in South Korea on 15 July 2020 to mixed reviews.
[43]
Yeon has stated that,
Peninsula
is not a sequel to
Train to Busan
because it's not a continuation of the story, but it happens in the same universe.
[44]
American remake
[
edit
]
In 2016,
Gaumont
acquired the rights for the English-language remake of the film from Next Entertainment World.
[45]
In 2018,
New Line Cinema
,
Atomic Monster
and Coin Operated were announced to be the co-producing partners for the remake, with
Warner Bros. Pictures
distributing worldwide, except for France and South Korea. Indonesian director
Timo Tjahjanto
is in talks to helm the film, while
Gary Dauberman
adapts the screenplay and co-produces the film alongside
James Wan
.
[46]
[47]
In December 2021, the film's official title was revealed to be
The Last Train to New York
scheduled to be released 21 April 2023.
[48]
However, in July 2022, Warner Bros. removed the film off the release schedule
[49]
with
Evil Dead Rise
, another New Line Cinema film, taking its original release date.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"
Train to Busan
(15)"
.
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"
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.
External links
[
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]
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