Rather, Seok-woo embodies a western individualism the film ultimately condemns. Unlike other socio-political Korean horror like The Host, the United States is not even a blip in Busan.
That's not to say he literally loves Bruce Springsteen or the New York Yankees (though he does briefly team up with a high school baseball star). What's most interesting is how "American" Seok-woo is, in a spiritual sense. Kim Su-an, in 'Train to Busan.' Well Go USA You can see where Train to Busan oozes tension. Seok-woo's efforts to protect his daughter clash with the other passengers trying to save their own hides. He is often pitted against his fellow passengers, chiefly the large-and-in-charge Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok, look for him next year in Marvel's Eternals), a dedicated husband to a pregnant wife (Jung Yu-mi). He is tethered to his work, and he is a nightmare of a boss - in English subtitles, he refers to his underlings as "lemmings."īut like any good genre movie, the heightened situation enables the possibility for growth and change in Seok-woo. Though Seok-woo loves his family, he has difficulty expressing tenderness. Sn a genre populated by rugged men wearing revolver pistols, Seok-woo is a tailored suit wearing Patek Philippe. Its protagonist is nothing like Rick Grimes. (It also introduces its own innovative idea to the genre rulebook: Zombies are night blind.) Train to Busan is "like" many things, but it's still its own beast, one that grounds its tensions in the intimate conflict of a father on the verge of emotionally losing his daughter. It's like Lost, it's like The Host, it's like Snowpiercer. Suddenly, this mundane morning ride becomes a microcosm for societal breakdown, where survivors choose to protect themselves over protecting each other. A nationwide viral outbreak, in which the living become primal, flesh-eating monsters, makes its way onto the train where it spreads from car to car. Primarily centered on an absent father Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and his young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an), Train to Busan takes place on, you guessed it, a commuter train to Busan, the second-most populous city in South Korea. 'Train to Busan,' released in 2016, is streaming now on Netflix until September 17.
It's also the only movie you need to watch on Netflix before it the streaming service on September 17. Reminiscent of the UK's 28 Days Later (faithful to the spirit of George Romero, but wholly its own thing), Train to Busan was, and still is, an arresting zombie movie in which even diehards of the genre can smell something fresh. In the smash-hit movie Train to Busan, director Yeon Sang-ho framed Korea's own social and political anxieties through a newfound fascination with the undead. That was zombies genre in America: Formerly a socially-conscious genre that exposed the living as monsters (George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, the big bang for all zombie stories, ends with white people shooting the Black protagonist), it was reduced to a survivalist wet fantasy in between commercials for Old Navy.īut an ocean away, zombies were seeing new life in South Korea.
Played by a grinning Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Negan was a sadomasochist cult leader who, armed with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, led an army that terrorized the main protagonists for a long, long season of miserable television. This was the same year the AMC cable juggernaut The Walking Dead introduced Negan. In 2016, zombie horror in America was dragging its feet like a decayed husk in the summer heat.