Train to Busan Review: Incredible blend of action and horror

Train to Busan is a 2016 South Korean Action/Horror zombie film, taking place in a fairly unique setting for the genre – it’s almost exclusively set on a train. If this isn’t a novel concept enough, it’s also a pretty damn good film, as we’ll be discussing in this Train to Busan review.

The whole zombies on a train thing is certainly a concept, and the film does some pretty solid work from that concept.

Before we get into it fully though, I do intend on trying to avoid mentioning any significant plot moments, but it should be noted that minor spoilers will be basically unavoidable due to the nature of a review. Additionally, this being the type of film that it is, you probably want to skip this if you’re bad with violence or blood in media.

About translations

Now I should mention in advance, Train to Busan is originally South Korean as stated above, so unless you speak Korean, you’ll want to find an English subtitles version or an English dub version of the film to watch. For the sake of this review, I’m using an English subtitled version, as I preferred that.

If you also end up watching a subtitled version, naturally it’ll mean you have to focus on the film if you want to understand it, rather than look at something else and simply listen to it. There is meant to be a US remake of the film in the works – so if you absolutely must watch a natively made English version, there is that. Though judging by the fan reaction, hopes aren’t the highest for that going well.

Anyway, with all these disclaimers now out of the way, let’s get into talking about the movie we have right now.

Train to Busan – Review introduction

Train to Busan begins with a farmer driving into a nondescript quarantine zone, and almost immediately arguing with the man explaining the quarantine. This sequence is just set up and passes quite quickly, with his van hitting a deer as he drives away – he checks for damage for a brief moment but soon after leaves.

This scene is the first preview of where Busan intends to be going, as that Deer doesn’t stay down – recovering and standing up with a few uncomfortable sounding snaps in short order.

This scene is ultimately quite unimportant as it doesn’t actually lead directly into anything else – but it does serve as a hint as to how everything begins – this kind of implication laden scene is the primary method through which Train to Busan explains how things kick-off.

Following the title card, we are introduced to our main characters – Seo Seok-woo – a fund manager going through issues in his marriage – as he leaves work for the day, and his daughter Seo Soo-an.

Soo-an wants to go see her mother in Busan for her birthday, following Seok-woo being shown to be a bit too busy to be a great parent with his gift for her – as it is unwrapped it is shown to be a Wii console, with an identical box on the other side of the room as a gift from earlier in the year. Ultimately Seok-woo agrees to the train trip to Busan as a way of improving things.

There’s a little more introduction to the family in the opening scenes, lasting about 10 minutes in total – it doesn’t drag in out at all and establishes the characters quite well. Another short scene shows Soo-an on a recorded tape singing during a school show, but stopping due to nerves – which is credited to the fact her father wasn’t present at the show.

All aboard the zombie train

Following these introductory scenes, Train to Busan really spares no more time on the setup for the film, as hints of where the film is going (Other than Busan, anyway) start as the train has only just begun to leave the station – though the passengers outside of Seo Soo-an seemingly don’t notice the conductor outside being tackled by someone.

I’ll skip over precisely how the train gets compromised by zombies precisely for spoiler reasons, but it’ll likely be a fairly easy guess when you watch the film for yourself – which for the record, I would recommend.

It takes around about 10 minutes to get from that scene to this one shown below though, which should say a fair bit about the overall pacing of the film.

Now for those of you wondering how the rest of Korea might be handling this outside the confines of this train, the answer is seemingly not much better, as this and a few other shots reveal to us…

You’d assume with this very much apocalyptic looking scene, we’d be a fair way into the movie by now, if not pretty much at the end, right?

Nope. This scene is barely a quarter of the way into the film – Train to Busan really doesn’t mess around with pacing at all, and after the introduction is out of the way the rest is mostly fast-paced action with a few brief segments scattered throughout for the story and character development in between.

Now that we’ve done a general preview and given a sort of sense of the film and how things start off and progress, let’s switch our review focus to more about Train to Busan at large.

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Train to Busan Review – Thoughts and Criticisms

So, what do I think about Train to Busan? It’s a pretty good film, if you don’t mind subtitles I’d definitely recommend giving it a watch. It might be a bit too action-focused for people who specifically want horror films, but if you’re not particularly picky about that it’s certainly worth taking a look.

So, it’s good, it’s fast-paced and has a good blend of Horror and Action films, but does anything let it down?

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There are a few scenes – though fortunately a very limited few – where the visual effects used, or the specific timing of events undermines the seriousness and pacing quite a bit.

Take the scene pictured above. These glass panels held up for at least a minute with only a few people holding the central doors shut just moments before, with nobody and nothing reinforcing the side window panels. No cracks, visible damage or the like.

Moments after the door is successfully locked and the people previously holding it shut run away, that glass basically disintegrates under the pressure.

It feels cheap at the time and opens Busan to relatively unfair plot-armour criticisms – which while not typically a problem throughout the rest of the film – is quite a blatant issue in this scene.

Train to Busan also doesn’t necessarily explain everything about the overall story, though to be fair I would have been surprised if it had done, as it’s more focused on how events begin and progress, which suits its action/horror style well.

This lack of a focus on explanation might bug some more pedantic viewers, but Busan chooses to focus on a specific band of people on a specific train rather than the world at large, so those questions would be difficult to answer without interrupting the flow in a fashion that would likely undermine the otherwise frequently rapid pacing.

Don’t take that as nothing is explained at all though, news on how things are developing is shown on breaking news bulletins, as well as a Government speech shown alongside media footage and general social media commentary.

Train to Busan – Review in summary

Train to Busan sits somewhere along the line of Action and Horror films and dances on that line for the majority of its runtime. While there are a few moments that can be criticised, by and large, it is an excellent film that I would highly recommend to any fans of either genre – I discovered this one myself a few months ago by the recommendation of a friend and have already seen it at least 3 separate times.

Oh and just so you don’t miss it, you might want to listen to what is sung during the tape recording at the start of the film again after you finish Train to Busan for the first time, you might notice something right at the end.

Now that we’re done with the review for Train to Busan, in other horror-related news, a Jurassic Park horror game is believed to be in the works, and Xbox GamePass currently features a number of games we’d recommend giving a try to get into the Halloween spirit.