Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan feels like the final nail to the coffin for the zombie genre, until, sometime in the future, it arises once again to bring us terrible found-footage, low-budget films that mostly make no sense story-wise.
Train to Busan distances itself from most of those terrible attempts that have over-saturated the genre, it doesn't need much depth in its narrative to be a good film, it tells us that the characters are on a train when things get bad, and they are simply attempting to survive by getting from A to B.
The film plays out in a similar fashion to both Snowpiercer and World War Z: the characters are constantly moving amidst the chaos; the chaos slowly consuming everything in its path as our characters push through what seems to be a very linear set of options in order to escape it, with the chaos growing ever-so-closer around them.
The narrative in the film is simplistic, but it doesn't bore. There isn't particularly room for lots of dialogue and exposition, but simply enough room for a bit of character conflict here and there as the serenity goes out of the window. It adds a depth of realism to the film; we do not need to know every character's story, or who they were before things went real bad: we just need to know their personalities, where they are going, and how their role may affect other characters within the film.
Going back to its linear approach: Train to Busan paces itself excellently; characters only really stop to take a few moments to relax moments after pulling off some incredible feat and outrunning a plethora of zombies, whether they're in the carriages next to them, or chasing them to the next train. There is always something going on; there is always room for more chaos.
To me, I feel this is the best zombie film to have been released in quite some time, and now, as far as I am concerned, the genre has joined the zombies in death. An outcome of years of neglect and over-saturation through both television shows, film, and videogames. Yes, I am ignoring the fact that the west has decided to already remake Train to Busan.
I guess I should give it a watch one day. Even though - when reading your review - I couldn't help thinking of Snowpiercer myself. A film that I didn't particularly like.
By the way, I like how you make use of the 'final nail to the coffin' expression. Usually you would hope that loads of mediocre or bad movies would be the reason for a (movie) hype to pass but the mainstream crowd is like a horde of zombies that flocks to every sequel, remake, spin-off and so on to get their brains eaten.
Anyway, I was making a kind of zombie movie until a month ago and have to admit that describing it as a zombie movie - when telling other people about the story - left a bad taste in my mouth. Probably because there are too many zombie movies/ series already.
Anyway, interesting read and nice review. I will give it a watch as soon as it appears somewhere where I can legally see it. No rush though, as I am a little zombie saturated myself.
I think the zombie genre is one that is, and always has been, difficult to approach.
Romero's films even suffered from not really knowing what they want to be in terms of horror, silliness, and telling a much broader story.
I think, as with many genres, it is time for the zombie one to die, and eventually be revived with new approaches and more enthusiastic productions.
Train to Busan was actually the first zombie movie I really liked. Keep on going with those awesome reviews.
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Cheer Up!
I liked this film and posted a review. It's really really cool movie, especially zombies)))
Good review, I really really want to watch it, but as its non-english it sorta prevents me from doing it, is there lots of talking in this one?
I wouldn't say there's lots but it may not be your thing if that's the case.
I really liked the movie but I didn't get how the one guy became a villain by needlessly throwing people into the zombies. That's illogically evil.