By Azreen Azirinee Azizi
This 99 million box office Korean film directed by Yeon Sang-Ho shows a zombie outbreak and the characters are portraying different social background.
On the first day this film showing in Malaysia, it has received a lot of good comment by the viewers and also trending on Twitter. The most talked about is the lesson that has been portrayed in this film. Even for someone who is not used to watching a Korean film find this movie interesting with lots of lessons.
A zombie film is usually creating a sense of fear for the audience but “Train to Busan” offered a few messages especially when you are in a crisis and life threatening situation. It makes us contemplating either to be a selfish person or to help others especially during this life threatening situation.
This movie started with Seok-Woo who is workaholic and a divorced man living with his mother and his only daughter Soo-an. Seok-Woo and his daughter have a distant relationship with each other. Probably because Seok-Woo is too busy with his work. We could see when Seok-Woo bought a birthday gift for Soo-an and it is the same gift he has given to Soo-an during Children’s Day. Soo-an is longing for her mother who is living in Busan and has repeatedly asked her father to bring her to Busan. As a birthday gift Seok-Woo has decided to bring her to Busan. The father-daughter duo took a Korea Train eXpress (KTX) train to commute to Busan.
On the same train with them are a former martial arts instructor Sang-Hwa and his pregnant wife Sung Kyung. Boarding the same train is a businessman Yong-Suk. The zombie outbreak starts when a passenger who has been infected by zombie virus has boarded the train and started to turn everyone into zombie. The zombie virus spread out rapidly and almost half of the passengers boarding the train have been infected by the virus.
During the transition of some of the passengers to zombies it creates a lot of tension and confusion to the other passengers who are trying to find a way to survive from this outbreak. While trying to save their own life this is where we can see how it brings out the best and the worst of people.
Everyone is trying to figure out how to save themselves and start being selfish. In the beginning even Seok-Woo reminds his daughter, “At a time like this, only watch out for yourself”. During their stop at one of the stations, Seok-Woo even take a different route from others to avoid being quarantined by the military. Because of the outbreak people at the station are infected by the virus and the people who are boarding the train have helped him and his daughter from the zombies.
Later on as the characters start to develop we can see Seok-Woo starting to realise that it is important to help each other. So, he and a few others are trying their best to keep everyone safe until they reach the final station Busan.
In the scene where Seok-Woo and Sang-Hwa have to go through a few coaches full of zombies to reach their loved ones shows how compassion they are to save their loved ones. It also shows how important teamwork is in order to stay survived especially when there’s only a few people left and your opponent is bigger in number than you.
The scene then shows a businessman Yong-Suk who is a self-centred person deciding to lock the door and let Seok-Woo, Soo-an, Sang-Hwa and his wife along with other passengers trapped inside a place where zombies are trying to get them. Because of Yong-Suk selfishness, Sang-Hwa have turned into a zombie while sacrificing himself by blocking the zombies from coming in. Sang-Hwa is another great character which portrays a good devoted husband willing to sacrifice himself in order to save his wife and their unborn baby.
Yong-Suk’s character shows he even dared to sacrifice other people while trying to save himself. He would push people and persuade others to make a selfish decision. His character as someone who looks like a reliable person since he is a businessman, some of the passengers followed his idea to segregate themselves from Seok-Woo, Soo-an and Sang-Hwa’s wife.
While trying to save our own life we could turn into a selfish person like Yong-Suk and make a bad decision but in this film it shows that those who are selfish will not survive.
Even in this fast paced film it shows Seok-Woo’s relationship with his daughter Soo-an has become a lot better as they are keeping each other safe. Soo-an probably before has gone through, her parents divorced, and she can’t see that her father really loves and cares for her despite his hectic work life to earn a living. We can see in the beginning Seok-Woo also is not really good in showing his love for his only daughter.
In the last scene that makes most of the audience shed tears is when the final train is taking off to Busan and there’s only Seok-Woo, Soo-an and Sung Kyung (Sang-Hwa’s wife) who are the only survivors at that time. While taking the last train to Busan, Seok-Woo was bitten by Yong-Suk who has turned into a zombie that time. During that transition time Seok-Woo travels back to his past and remembers back the day he had Soo-an on his arm. The scene where Soo-an is crying for her dad is one of the most heart wrenching scenes in this film.
Even in this intense two-hour film we can’t deny that it successfully shows a few good lessons like kindness, devotion and compassion especially during this crucial battle. It also portrays a love for family and how far a person could go to save their loved ones.
Some of the audiences are blaming Yong-Suk’s character who is a self-centred person. However, everyone might have a different view regarding this film and all above are based on what I saw in this movie.***