I'm trying to do better with reviews, but as you can see, it hasn't worked out all that great so far. I only managed three last month, and this will make my third so far this month. I suck, what can I say? I just haven't been in much of a mood for movies or writing reviews so far this year. After getting my last review done, I'm feeling a bit more into it, so maybe I can get going on them again. I need to break in this new keyboard after all. Another film that I had heard a lot about, and watched it make the Best of 2016 lists, was the zombie movie Train To Busan (2016). This one even made it to the #1 spot on a few lists, so let's see what I thought about it.
Seok Woo (Yoo Gong) is a single father trying to balance his life with his young daughter and his work. Soo-an (Soo-an Kim) has a birthday coming up and all she wants is to spend it with her mother. In order to do that, Soo-an would have to ride on a train by herself. Seok Woo says he can't get away from work long enough to take his daughter to her mother and also feels she is way too young to take the trip on her own. After a failed birthday gift and having a talk with Soo-an, he decides to make the time to take her to her mother. On their drive to the KTX train, they take notice that something is happening in Seoul. Once on the train, something starts to happen on the platform, and someone gets on the train without a ticket. This woman has been bitten and eventually turns into a zombie, who ends up turning others as well. Now with zombies on the train and a nationwide emergency going on, it is going to be one long trip to Busan.
Train To Busan is a movie from South Korea by writer/director Sang-ho Yeon. I had not watched a zombie movie in a while, so I was looking forward to this one. It also helped that I was hearing a lot of good things about it. I had been wondering where everyone was watching it because I had yet to find it anywhere. When it showed up on iTunes, I decided to rent it and see what all the hype was about. It is hard for me to say it deserved the top spot on some lists since I have yet to watch all the movies from those lists. I saved Train To Busan for last, out of the films that I rented, because it has the longest running time at 118 minutes. As it turns out, I found that some scenes did feel they were a bit too long at times. Despite that, Sang-ho Yeon does manage to blend drama and horror fairly effectively. There are those that wanted zombie action without all the drama, but those that felt there was no drama at all. Anyway, Sang-ho Yeon made a good choice by using a train for the majority of the film's run time. It limits where the zombies and survivors can go, which limited the action at times but also ups the tension. It does make for some creative scenes at least, like using the overhead space to get around a group of zombies.
Sang-ho Yeon also changes up the zombies just a bit. The zombies don't generally walk around. They tend to stand in place until the see or hear something and then attack in a mass of zombies. Combining the train and zombies resulted in the zombies not being able to see well, or not at all, in the dark. When the train passes through a tunnel, it gives the survivors some time, as long as they are quiet about it. It adds an extra layer of tension at times because time is limited. There was also some cool transformations into a zombie to be found.
Not all the action takes place on the train, but most of it does. The scenes that don't take place on a train are at the start of the film, as we get to know the father and daughter, and when our group tries to exit or switch trains. This manages to change things up a little bit and allows us to see how widespread the zombie problem is getting. The zombies more or less act as one. This causes some massive waves of zombies, which got a little confusing for me in at least one scene. A bunch of zombies is running towards the survivors when suddenly it looked like something hit the mass from behind. I couldn't figure out what it was and I couldn't see why it would be zombies catching up to the ones in front.
The effects are very well done for Train To Busan. It wasn't the goriest zombie film, not by a long shot, but there are plenty of effects to go around. The acting was also well done. I thought that Yoo Gong was a bit wooden at first, but I enjoyed his acting later on in the film, as well as liking his character more as well. The story is a tad heavy on the drama side at times, which I didn't mind too much. I thought that the drama scenes could drag out to be a bit too long at times, which did hurt the film a bit in places. The scene towards the end with father and daughter pulled at the heart strings for sure, but at the same time, I was wishing the story would move on after a while.
To my surprise, a big complaint about the film is the characters. It seems a lot felt they were cliche. I noticed this a little bit, but I honestly didn't care that much. The one that surprised me most was about the teen's unspoken love. Considering that it was barely touched on, it just surprised me that anyone bothered to complain about it. That was another minor problem I had with Train to Busan, character development of minor characters. An odd thing to complain about since so many films lack it, right? I just felt it was often wasted on characters that barely get any screen time. I suppose it helped give us someone to care about besides the main characters at least.
Before I wrap this up, I have to talk about my favorite scene a little bit. There are two sisters that get a little bit of screen time. When one starts to stare at a door, beyond the door actually, I had to grin and wished very hard that she would do what I had a feeling she was trying to talk herself into. That scene alone nearly made the whole movie for me. If Train To Busan sounds like a film for you, then you have to check it out. No question about it. Hopefully, it will find a wider release. There is so much talk about this film, that a remake is already in the works. Unless you hate subtitles, check this one out!
4 out of 5 Can we kill the crying little girl already? Please?
Seok Woo (Yoo Gong) is a single father trying to balance his life with his young daughter and his work. Soo-an (Soo-an Kim) has a birthday coming up and all she wants is to spend it with her mother. In order to do that, Soo-an would have to ride on a train by herself. Seok Woo says he can't get away from work long enough to take his daughter to her mother and also feels she is way too young to take the trip on her own. After a failed birthday gift and having a talk with Soo-an, he decides to make the time to take her to her mother. On their drive to the KTX train, they take notice that something is happening in Seoul. Once on the train, something starts to happen on the platform, and someone gets on the train without a ticket. This woman has been bitten and eventually turns into a zombie, who ends up turning others as well. Now with zombies on the train and a nationwide emergency going on, it is going to be one long trip to Busan.
Train To Busan is a movie from South Korea by writer/director Sang-ho Yeon. I had not watched a zombie movie in a while, so I was looking forward to this one. It also helped that I was hearing a lot of good things about it. I had been wondering where everyone was watching it because I had yet to find it anywhere. When it showed up on iTunes, I decided to rent it and see what all the hype was about. It is hard for me to say it deserved the top spot on some lists since I have yet to watch all the movies from those lists. I saved Train To Busan for last, out of the films that I rented, because it has the longest running time at 118 minutes. As it turns out, I found that some scenes did feel they were a bit too long at times. Despite that, Sang-ho Yeon does manage to blend drama and horror fairly effectively. There are those that wanted zombie action without all the drama, but those that felt there was no drama at all. Anyway, Sang-ho Yeon made a good choice by using a train for the majority of the film's run time. It limits where the zombies and survivors can go, which limited the action at times but also ups the tension. It does make for some creative scenes at least, like using the overhead space to get around a group of zombies.
Sang-ho Yeon also changes up the zombies just a bit. The zombies don't generally walk around. They tend to stand in place until the see or hear something and then attack in a mass of zombies. Combining the train and zombies resulted in the zombies not being able to see well, or not at all, in the dark. When the train passes through a tunnel, it gives the survivors some time, as long as they are quiet about it. It adds an extra layer of tension at times because time is limited. There was also some cool transformations into a zombie to be found.
Not all the action takes place on the train, but most of it does. The scenes that don't take place on a train are at the start of the film, as we get to know the father and daughter, and when our group tries to exit or switch trains. This manages to change things up a little bit and allows us to see how widespread the zombie problem is getting. The zombies more or less act as one. This causes some massive waves of zombies, which got a little confusing for me in at least one scene. A bunch of zombies is running towards the survivors when suddenly it looked like something hit the mass from behind. I couldn't figure out what it was and I couldn't see why it would be zombies catching up to the ones in front.
The effects are very well done for Train To Busan. It wasn't the goriest zombie film, not by a long shot, but there are plenty of effects to go around. The acting was also well done. I thought that Yoo Gong was a bit wooden at first, but I enjoyed his acting later on in the film, as well as liking his character more as well. The story is a tad heavy on the drama side at times, which I didn't mind too much. I thought that the drama scenes could drag out to be a bit too long at times, which did hurt the film a bit in places. The scene towards the end with father and daughter pulled at the heart strings for sure, but at the same time, I was wishing the story would move on after a while.
To my surprise, a big complaint about the film is the characters. It seems a lot felt they were cliche. I noticed this a little bit, but I honestly didn't care that much. The one that surprised me most was about the teen's unspoken love. Considering that it was barely touched on, it just surprised me that anyone bothered to complain about it. That was another minor problem I had with Train to Busan, character development of minor characters. An odd thing to complain about since so many films lack it, right? I just felt it was often wasted on characters that barely get any screen time. I suppose it helped give us someone to care about besides the main characters at least.
Before I wrap this up, I have to talk about my favorite scene a little bit. There are two sisters that get a little bit of screen time. When one starts to stare at a door, beyond the door actually, I had to grin and wished very hard that she would do what I had a feeling she was trying to talk herself into. That scene alone nearly made the whole movie for me. If Train To Busan sounds like a film for you, then you have to check it out. No question about it. Hopefully, it will find a wider release. There is so much talk about this film, that a remake is already in the works. Unless you hate subtitles, check this one out!
4 out of 5 Can we kill the crying little girl already? Please?
