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Busanhaeng
(2016)
 
Director:
Yeon Sang-ho |
AKA
부산행 /
Train to Busan |
COUNTRY
South Korea |
GENRE
Drama/Action/Horror |
NORWEGIAN
TITLE
- |
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RUNNING
TIME
118
minutes |
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Producer:
Lee Dong-ha |
Screenwriter:
Park Joo-suk |
Review
With its serious
dramatic approach and scientific accuracy (within its realm), this South
Korean genre-crossover was able to revitalize the zombie apocalypse
sub-genre and find wide-reaching success outside of Korea's borders. Gong
Yoo plays a fund manager and non-attentive father who must travel to Busan
with his daughter Kim Su-an in order for the girl to spend time with her mother on her
birthday. As they board the train, it becomes clear that the so-called
riots that have been reported from the streets of Seoul are actually a
lot more serious than that, and Gong Yoo must navigate an increasingly
more dire situation aboard the train while reconnecting with his
daughter.
Much like
I Am Legend,
Busanhaeng manages to transcend the often quite confining zombie sub-genre by treating it like something unknown and unprecedented. Our
protagonists don't recognize that they're in a zombie movie (why would
they?), making their situation more absorbing and tangible for
us. We relate to their feeling of not knowing what to do. And the
human drama unfolding borrows cleverly from some of history's better disaster
movies. Busanhaeng became the sixth highest grossing film
of all time in South Korea. Lead actor Gong Yoo later went on to star in
the TV-series "Squid Game".
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