It isn’t often that a movie mines truly fresh horror from an exhausted trope. Yet with his 2016 thrill ride Train To Busan, South Korean writer-director Yeon Sang-ho elevated the moribund walking-dead genre with striking imagery, a cramped setting, and some blood-splattered insight into how humans evolve under crisis. What’s more, he did so without really reinventing the wheel: Though we’ve seen plenty of zombie movies looking to indict humanity’s fickle morality, few have matched the heart and intelligence of Yeon’s, which was powered by a whole passenger’s car worth of engaging characters and the potent charm of the actors bringing them to life.
Aside from the sea of formidable undead and at least one cutthroat businessman, Train To Busan’s greatest, now all-too-familiar source of distress was the uncertainty of a quickly spreading epidemic. Train To Busan Presents: Peninsula doesn’t make any attempt to replicate that brand of anxiety as it jumps four years into the now-pandemic. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t find a terrifying substitute for it, either. Yeon, who returns to direct and co-write this sequel, instead leans heavily on CGI and an inexplicable heist plot—sufficiently entertaining qualities that nevertheless fail to compensate for the film’s failings, including a thin premise, largely forgettable characters (no one from the last film returns in this standalone follow-up), and an absence of the emotional heft the original so refreshingly provided.
Peninsula’s prologue yanks audiences back to the beginning of the epidemic. Soldier Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) escorts his sister and her young son to a ferry bound for the nearest safe haven, Japan. Little time passes before the sister is predictably fridged—and her kid killed, too—by an infected passenger; Jung-seok and his brother-in-law, Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon), barely escape the cabin alive. When we meet the pair again in a survivors’ hub in Hong Kong, years have passed, and the military man is a somber shell of his former self, burdened by survivor’s guilt. Any faith a viewer might have that he’ll rediscover his zeal for life—or anything that might make him look more lively than the zombies on his tail—would be gravely misplaced. This is who the guy is now, and it’s boring.
Still, Jung-seok must harbor some will to survive, as he and Chul-min agree to assist a suspicious American looking to locate an abandoned truck full of millions of dollars, which he promises to split with whoever successfully recovers the cash from zombie-infested Incheon. The two men, whose relationship has grown tense, team up with two other Korean refugees and journey into a city that’s become a death trap. Unfortunately for them, Yeon exacerbates the mission with contrived obstacles. For instance, there’s the scene where one member of the team makes the baffling decision to lean over an ostensibly lifeless corpse in the tight confines of a car, only to discover that, sure enough, the body isn’t really lifeless and has soon attracted some similarly insatiable company. It’s a small detail that betrays Peninsula’s clumsy stabs at building suspense, all much less clever than the original’s.
Jung-seok squeaks out of that predicament, but the rest of his journey barely resonates; it adheres to a very paint-by-numbers approach to wasteland lore, including the introduction of a Mad Max-ian militia, a gladiatorial battle arena (with zombies, of course), and a fearless single mother (Lee Jung-Hyun) whose scrappy family helps our hero navigate the dilapidated wasteland. Peninsula marches towards its unremarkable ending rather slowly—particularly for a film featuring hordes of sprinting ghouls!
Yeon does maintain his eye for visually arresting moments, such as one that bathes Tetris’d holding containers of zombies in silvery moonlight. And the car chases—some shot from wheel level—provide necessary, intermittent zips of excitement. But while the first Train To Busan was an affecting, character-driven tale of grief and redemption, Peninsula flounders in generic spectacle. Even fans may wonder if there are any bones left to pick on this franchise.
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Train To Busan PresentsThat’s funny.
The train is grateful for the producer credit, but what it really wants to do is direct.
Do you think the train is like the Wu-Tang clan and really works to curate the films they put their name on, or is it like Tarantino in the late 90s, and for a check it will put its name on any indy flick.
The train’s only in it for the cocaine, man.
Cocaine Train to Busan is a neglected classic, man.
Yeah came down to salute this truly terrible title
Dang, this is not promising. The relatively confined settings of Train concentrated the action and the lack of resources meant the action was full of bludgeoning, which is awesome. This sounds like expansion has just left everything diluted.
it adheres to a very paint-by-numbers approach My feeling was, the studio just gave a generic script from the bin and the director just did it for the paycheck. But it wasn’t made on a big budget, so if you’re strictly talking numbers and dollars, then sure it’s a success. But while the first Train To Busan was an affecting, character-driven tale of grief and redemption, Peninsula flounders in generic spectacle.That seems to be the reactions many are having. Although some are fine with a generic zombie film and others are disappointed. So basically, if you ever enjoyed just generic zombie movies, or the Resident Evil movies, you might just like it as a popcorn flick to escape for awhile. Others probably will feel disappointed as they were hoping for something that’s different but on the same level for why they enjoyed the first one. I’ve seen Train to Busan a couple of times. I know I will see it more often in the future. Peninsula is the kind of movie I’ll watch only once. Then let a few years pass by and watch it again so I can remember why I didn’t care much for this.
Too bad. I wasn’t expecting a classic like A New Hope Presents: The Empire Strikes Back, but it could at least been as good as A New Hope Presents: The Empire Strikes Back Presents: Return of the Jedi.
Maybe you’ll like it even if this total stranger didn’t!
I didn’t love the original Train like most folks seem to… (I mean, sure, there are certainly plenty of *worse* zombie flicks), but I had a problem with the way the pacing and mood would switch so suddenly… everything’s all “frantic life-and-death zombie mayhem!!” and then moments later, the same characters are just sitting around chatting like everyday casual… oh well.And to keep slightly on-topic, this new one sounds not good.
See that is what I liked about Busan. Very well paced throughout. It steamrolled out pretty quickly and gave you a minute or two every so often to catch up and catch your breath to prepare for the next round. All the good Zom films since Night of the Living Dead do that or else it just seems like a battering ram coming at you and you don’t get a chance to process. Plus I need to see a little humanity and plot amongst all the gristle and action.
Sure, but, I mean that the characters themselves just went so utterly calm during those lulls… after a raging zombie attack, I’d be PTSDing all over the place for quite some time!
Maybe, or you would be overwhelmed and upset enough to stop and think. As an ICU nurse, we have high energy exhausting emergency situations which are high stress and afterwards we have those reflective regroups after the fact.
I find it odd to see Train to Busan praised for its heart and “engaging characters”. The leads are all stock characters: the ruthless executive, the divorced dad who works too much, the tough guy who is softened by incipient fatherhood. And I found the heroic sacrifice at the end purely maudlin.
That was one of my big issues as well. I think you could have swapped out any character for an identical one from another zombie film.
The setting that was the “freshest” element, it’s unexpected to me to learn that it’s regarded as innovative movie. It was riding on rails the whole way.Oof. I didn’t have to but I did.Anyway, yeah, familiar and stock all the way. I’m not surprised this new one doesn’t have something new to offer either.
There was also no consistency in story-telling. A minor character gets bitten? They’re zombies in a matter of seconds. A major character gets bitten? Here’s several scenes of exposition and dramatic stares.
I hate inconsistencies like that. And when characters behave stupidly just for the sake of moving the plot, it’s bad writing.
I just couldn’t get past the fact that all the characters felt like placeholders that never got filled in. Distant Divorced Business Dad is a distant divorced business dad who does distant divorced business dad things. Pregnant Wife is a plot tool who gets dragged around to be a risk in different places. Sad Kid is sad and must also be saved. Muscle Man is an invincible zombie puncher. Evil Businessman will always make the evil businessman decision every time.
Combined with the drama and plot contrivances, I couldn’t get into the movie. “They’re infected!” even though they would have turned by now. Wrapping only our forearms will leave enough exposed skin to let a character have a manipulative, emotional death scene. The sister’s heroic sacrifice is because she just didn’t feel like moving that day. Can’t visually confirm whether someone’s infected because your vantage point is in front of a dark tunnel (even though the scope could clearly see the other side of the tunnel, where they came from, in full daylight). The time it takes to turn varies from roughly zero seconds to two minutes, depending on how resilient their blood is to the script.
I did like their spin on zombies, though
I find this seesawing between light comedy and tragedy is a common trait in Korean cinema, something that first gave me whiplash with Bon Joon-ho’s The Host. It used to bother me but now I’ve learned to just go with it.
Ah, bummer. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I was hoping for something a little more clever. Or at least something that tried to live up to that heartbreaker of an ending.
I am decades into Zom films so getting a fresh one now and again, like Busan or 28 days later is always exciting, but there are many letdowns in-between. Budget is no excuse, Romero did it on almost nothing. CGI is hit or miss (if badly done it ruins the film for me), but I think old fashioned hand-to-hand action movie making is better for this type of film. The best ones do have a sympathetic character (s) to root for. Humor (as in Sean Of The Dead and Zombieland) is like icing on the cake! The worst ones seem to be when you see bad decisions being made for the sole purpose of amping up the action/tension. I’ve already got a bit of Zombie anxiety watching the film; don’t give me stupid on top of it.
How do you feel about Lucio Fulci’s Zombi?
You know I didn’t see the original 1980 version until 1992 because of the ban and X rating. I am part Italian so spent a lot of time watching foreign films, and felt it was shot a lot like other European films in that time period. Have not seen it or the others for decades but I don’t imagine they hold up well, but I will have to try and find it at some point. Did you like the style and pacing? To me it seemed like a series of set pieces without a good narrative thread going through as I remember.
I love it as a high water mark for the horror genre, though my favorite is its followup, Zombie 3 (Zombi 3) which just goes off the rails with the undead carnage and campiness. I think the first one holds up well for entertainment value if you don’t take them for anything than raw horror with some great gore (and a rad underwater zombie+shark fight).
Makes me want to give it another go, thank you. Certainly I have the time during this period in the world to seek out and watch some of these old gems again, not just the horror genre, but they seem to be everywhere. I watched the old “Black Christmas” “The Quiet Earth”and “Testament” last month since our local multiplex is still closed. Catching up with newer stuff when it is available but will look for these and other films from my various sources/subscriptions.
The Quiet Earth was a great movie I haven’t thought of in 20 years. Whelp….Off to do some research
I know there are others in my brain stuck somewhere— it has been nice looking at these films again years later from a different stage in my life.
Frankly, so was the first one. It was one of the biggest trashing me and my college buddies ever did. We were majoring in film-making and media designs, so the dos and don’ts were fresh on our minds. I don’t get westerners’ absolute adoration of it, I thought even movies like World War Z did zombies better.
If you and your film school buddies think World War Z was way better than Train to Busan, then I don’t want to see any of your movies.
Don’t get me wrong, World War Z was also a production mess. But at least it was entertaining. Busan was just so goddamned boring, woefully nonsensical, and incompetently made. Even judging by Korean cinema standards, it was atrocious.
Again . . . you are claiming the absolutely most generic, boring horror film ever made, World War Z, was more entertaining than Train to Busan. Did you finish that degree, son? Because if so, you need to turn it over to me right now based on just how objectively wrong you are about this on every level. Again, I’m not talking opinions. This is facts.I’m not even saying this based on a deep burning love for Busan. I’m saying this based on the absolute incompetence that infused every frame of WWZ. Literally, how dare you.
Hey, like I said, World War Z isn’t exactly a good production either. But it was at least entertaining. Busan was so infuriatingly, audaciously boring. Feels like people are just mad I’m trashing one of their favorite movie here because at no point did I say World War Z was anything close to good, it was just better than Busan.Yeah, I did finish that degree, thanks for asking. Had to take an extra semester because my photography internship credit was considered too “local”, so I had to intern at a bigger production house. Cost me a lot, that extra semester.And no, it is an opinion. Because as much of a trash zombie flick Z was, Busan was even worse.
You are going to have a hard time making movies if your perception of what is good and bad is us that fucked up
THIS
Smug film majors! Weird!
Either the A/V Club is learning Spanish, or entertainment has peaked. I haven’t seen this many C’s since my sailing trip in 2014. But you can’t put all the blame on Hollywood. Like politics, content is a reflection of audience demand.
uhh there’s also a pandemic and studios aren’t releasing their best stuff right now.
True. But studios haven’t been releasing “their best stuff” since the inception of “Reality” TV (aka modern vaudeville).This pandemic is merely pushing the bar to the point of no return for an nation who thinks the Kardashians and Twilight are high art.
Maybe don’t define your taste based on a few C grade reviews
“Like politics, content is a reflection of audience demand”The fuck all it is, for both of those dog-dirt stupid statements. The world really was clamoring for TWO insect based children’s movies when Antz and A Bugs Life came out back to back. Or like when The Prestige and that other stupid magician themed movie came out at the same time. I know 1998 was THE year people were saying, “When tf is someone gonna make a modern movie about the Titanic already???” And on and on and on.I’m sure even the troglodytes who voted for fascist Voldemort were really saying, “You know what this country needs? A virulently racist washed-up old celebrity clown as a leader. Yeah, that’s the ticket!”Or maybe a C rating just means average, or middle of the road, and that’s all we’re getting right now because media companies are still hesitant to release their theater quality stuff VOD because, I dunno, they stupidly think people are gonna be willing to die to see an Avatar sequel or a Christopher Nolan film in the near future?
Three whole C’s? FUCK.
“no one from the last film returns in this standalone follow-up” Didn’t everyone except the girl and the pregnant lady all die and die horribly.
Each to his or her own. I enjoyed it and would see a third one. Liked the shift from the claustrophobic train setting to the open world action.
Ugh, I was afraid of this. The original wrecked me, so I wasn’t expecting that again, but I thought there’d be something more in the tank.
I saw this last night. It is a major step down from the original (but miles better than the cartoon). TTB had a pretty original premise and the zombies were scary. That zombie choreography was spectacular. Like all zombie media where the zombie rules have been established, though, the creatures turn into environment, not antagonist. To me, that takes away all the interest. The zombies could be killer bees, or giant angry lizards at that point. The bad guys, here, are Cartoon Post Apocalypse Gun Boys. This movie seemed to crib much of it’s story from Thunderdome. It uses the classic Unlimited Ammo trope of early action movies. Every zombie trope is represented, (almost. The movie strangely avoids the most affecting one.) . It’s use of English speaking white actors is hilarious, (Those two pale redheads on the talk show have some of the most stilted line readings in years.) The blocking of the scenes is so slack and strange. South Korean cinema clearly has a different beat structure.
But I disagree that the movie has no heart. The ostensible protagonist is a worldweary, placid, superhero, but the central group has a strong familial bond, and there is more than it’s fair share of the feels in that family. Zack Snyder’s upcoming movie is about a heist in zombieland, right? Sounds like a direct rip off of this film.Anyway. I was happy I watched it, but I’m gonna forget about it immediately.
Finally got to see this last night. I really loved the original Train, but this one was just a massive step down. It’s not just the ham-handed aping of Fury Road or the reliance on subpar CGI that sinks it; it’s the fact that the movie constantly requires all of its characters to do the dumbest possible thing to set up a chase, a death, or some other “dramatic” moment. Just an insultingly stupid story, and not self-aware enough or fun enough to make it worth it.