Director: Sang-Ho Yeon
Written by: Joo-Suk Park, Sang-Yo Yeon
Starring: Yoo Gong, Yu-mi Jung, Dong-seok Ma
1 hour, 58 minutes (Korean, Subtitled)
Pick it up at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2IkxTI7
A delivery truck driver is stopped by some guards, as there’s some kind of industrial accident in a plant of some kind near the road. He convinces them to let him pass. He hits a deer on the road. The dead deer twitches and gets back up, not as dead as it might appear. It’s a ZOMBIE DEER!
Credits Roll.
Seoki-Wu is a fund manager in the middle of a divorce, and he gets a call that his daughter, Su-an, is going to visit her mother tomorrow in Busan. He can never get time off work to take her, so she wants to go alone, but gives in and takes the day off to accompany her. On the way to the train station, they see a bunch of firetrucks and ambulances go by; something’s going on downtown.
They board the train, and there’s also a baseball team, a man with his pregnant wife, a grumpy older businessman, and a pair of old sisters on board this train. At the last second, an injured girl jumps on and the train leaves. As they pull away, Su-an sees one of the train guards get jumped on by… something. The injured girl is hiding in the restroom. The attendant checks on the restroom, and there’s a homeless-looking guy cowering in there: wrong restroom. He’s terrified, saying “Everyone is dead!”
Meanwhile, the sick girl is twitching and convulsing all over the place in a different car and appears to die. Seoki gets a call and sees on the news that there is rioting and serious problems back in the city. The dead girl now has white eyes and attacks the stewardess. Almost instantly, the stewardess turns into a super fast zombie and starts going at it with the soccer team, killing several. Things go downhill very fast.
Before long, the healthy people split off from the zombies, but that can’t last. And what’s going on outside, off the train? This train can’t keep going forever. Stop after stop, they find the zombies are everywhere.
Eventually, they stop at Daejeon Station, and the doors open. No one is around, so they all disembark. Then they notice that the military isn’t there as they were supposed to be. Then they find out what happened to the military, and it’s a tense stampede back to the train. After that, It’s one thing after another…
Commentary
These are easily the fastest zombies I’ve ever seen in a movie. The dead turn nearly instantly, and they really move fast. The characters make really good use of modern technology: cell phones, Twitter, social media, the news, and through this you can see everything developing in the background. The pacing is perfect, as the suspense and stakes continually build as the people’s options get more and more limited. The zombie “bridge” hanging from the end of the train toward the end of the movie was just totally awesome.
The various characters are distinctive and most have some purpose other than just becoming zombie food. The father has an interesting character arc, as he goes from a selfish fund manager to a dad who’s willing to sacrifice anything to keep his child safe. And, of course, there’s always that one guy who screams and yells and wants to be in charge, no matter what.