Summary
We enter the story through the eyes of a workaholic fund manager, Seok-woo (Gong Yoo), who puts his work as a priority before anything else, not even his daughter. It was Su-An’s (Kim Sun-An) birthday, and she wanted to spend it with her mother. Seok-Woo reluctantly agreed to take the morning off from office to accompany his young daughter to the city of Busan to reunite with her mother, who was also Seok-Woo's ex-wife. What Seok-Woo didn't realize was that the last minute decision that he made to accompany Su-An to Busan was the only last Train that was still working before a zombie outbreak raid the whole country.Train to Busan grossed $87.5 million worldwide and it became the highest-grossing Korean film in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It even recorded more that 11 million Movie goers in South Korea. And this movie definitely lived up to the hype that it generated. This movie was intense. It got me sitting on the edge of my seat through the whole course of the entire movie. Two hours of this movie made me feel more emotions that I have ever felt in my entire life.
In most of the zombie movies that I have watched, the lead actor would always be the one who would be selfless and who would sacrifice himself to keep other people safe, or at least they would try their hardest. However, in this movie, we were presented Seok-woo. He was the very opposite of what people would call heroic or brave. He only care for himself and he would not hesitate leaving people behind nor would he hesitated to use other people to further his own means. And his daughter, Su-An. She was a curious little thing, she seemed to have the knack to pay attention to the little details and would realize things before most people do. However, she was a quiet little girl and would keep most things to herself.
Not long after Seok-woo and his daughter got on the bullet train, just seconds before the door closed, a girl who looked as if she was stumbling and staggering also climbed onto the train.
And with the train moving at full speed and a zombie trapped inside of a bullet train with a lot of unsuspecting passenger, things started to get crazy. And then we were introduced to another character in this movie, Sang-Hwa (Ma Dong-Seok) who was a tough and laid-back man and his pregnant wife, Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi).
Sang-Hwa is the true representation of a hero in this movie, he was a hard-ass man yet so sweet and loving towards his wife. I think adding these two into the mix was a very smart decision, because it not only made us realize that they were all people, with normal lives and plans who were thrown into such an unlucky and gruesome situation. But also, it made us sympathize more towards these characters, seeing how hard they fought and struggled made us want them to be able to get out of this situation alive.
Not only that the plot of this movie was amazing, the character development was really eye-opening. Albeit slow, throughout the movie I realized that Seok-woo, who was a selfish man who cared only for himself and his own survival, started to care for other people. At first, he wouldn't even blink an eye when it came to the decision of killing Sang-Hwa for his own survival and safety and slowly but surely, Seok-woo started to have a sense of camaraderie towards Sang-Hwa and his wife.
This movie was indeed scary, and some of the scenes just gave me all sorts of anxiety, but I did not for once regret watching this movie. If you haven't watched Train to Busan, I would highly recommend you do because this was just that sort of movie that will stay with you for a long time.
