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Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula

2020, Horror/Mystery & thriller, 1h 56m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Although a disappointing sense of familiarity threatens to derail Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula , fans of the original may find it a thrilling enough ride. Read critic reviews

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Train to busan presents: peninsula videos, train to busan presents: peninsula   photos.

A soldier and his team battle hordes of post-apocalyptic zombies in the wastelands of the Korean Peninsula.

Genre: Horror, Mystery & thriller, Action

Original Language: Korean

Director: Yeon Sang-ho

Writer: Park Joo-Suk , Yeon Sang-ho

Release Date (Theaters): Aug 21, 2020  limited

Release Date (Streaming): Nov 24, 2020

Box Office (Gross USA): $1.2M

Runtime: 1h 56m

Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment

Production Co: Movic Comics, RedPeter Film, Next Entertainment World

Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Gang Dong-won

Lee Jung-hyun

Kwon Hae-hyo

Old man KIM

John D. Michaels

Evacuation Boat Captain

Kim Min-jae

Sergeant Hwang

Daniel Joey Albright

American Soldier McClain

Pierce Conran

Geoffrey Giuliano

Hong Kong Boss

Milan-Devi LaBrey

TV Show Host

Yeon Sang-ho

Park Joo-Suk

Screenwriter

Lee Dong-ha

Executive Producer

Kim Suk Won

Park Jun-Yong

Art Director

News & Interviews for Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula

Everything We Know About Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula

Critic Reviews for Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula

Audience reviews for train to busan presents: peninsula.

If you plan to watch the sequel "Peninsula" because you enjoyed "Train to Busan", just don't. It is a completely different movie. While the "Escape from New York" vibe was initially enjoyable, it wore itself out quickly. And the CGI is worse than its predecessor, especially the ridiculous car chase towards the end. Don't they get bigger budgets to sequels of successful originals? I started out while watching this thinking that if you treat it as a standalone film and avoid comparisons to its predecessor, you may appreciate it much more. After a full viewing, I can honestly say it mostly sucks.

Mad Max Thunderdome meets zombie apocalypse for a strangely less than competent followup to Train to Busan. Whereas the first was a slow descent into hysteria, this is more of a controlled and typical b-movie survival situation. There's mucho shouting, shooting and a couple of chase scenes, but gone is the intrinsic fear of simply getting bit that made the first so visceral.

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Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula Review

Escape from hell a..

Peninsula Gallery

Peninsula feels fairly derivative when compared to the tighter and more terrifying Train to Busan, but on its own, as an expansion of this universe, it's a rollicking ride through a hollowed-out hellscape. It's almost a complete genre shift, but not an unrewarding one.

Train to Busan: Peninsula Review

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A zombie virus has in the last four years spread to all South Korea. Four Koreans in Hong Kong sail through the blockade to Incheon for USD20,000,000 on a truck. A zombie virus has in the last four years spread to all South Korea. Four Koreans in Hong Kong sail through the blockade to Incheon for USD20,000,000 on a truck. A zombie virus has in the last four years spread to all South Korea. Four Koreans in Hong Kong sail through the blockade to Incheon for USD20,000,000 on a truck.

• Yeon Sang-ho
• Ryu Yong-jae
• Koo Kyo-hwan
• Gang Dong-won
• 541 User reviews
• 216 Critic reviews
• 51 Metascore
• 8 wins & 20 nominations

• Captain Seo

• Jung Seok's nephew

• Jung Seok's sister

• Old man KIM

• Hong Kong Boss

• Evacuation Boat Captain

• American Soldier McClain

• Sergeant Hwang

• (English version)

• Container soldier #2

• Private Kim
• Hong Kong action leader
• Min-Jung's husband
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• Trivia Despite marketed as a sequel to Train to Busan (2016) , this film is a stand-alone movie that does not feature or mention any of the previous film's characters.
• Goofs After 4 years without any use it's impossible that the cars' batteries would have enough charge to trigger the alarm when hit.

Major Jane : In a few hours, a new world will be waiting.

Jooni : The world I knew wasn't bad either.

• Alternate versions For the Indian television broadcast, a total of 76 cuts, amounting to 9 minutes were made to the Hindi dubbed version and was given a U/A (parental guidance) rating, with a running time of 106 minutes.
• Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Peninsula (2020)

User reviews 541

• Jul 22, 2020
• How long is Peninsula? Powered by Alexa
• August 7, 2020 (United States)
• South Korea
• Official Facebook
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• Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula
• Incheon, South Korea
• Next Entertainment World (NEW)
• RedPeter Film
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $16,000,000 (estimated)
• Aug 9, 2020
• $42,698,327

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 56 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• IMAX 6-Track

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Peninsula (train to busan presents: peninsula), common sense media reviewers.

Lifeless South Korean zombie sequel has gory violence.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Characters fleeing zombie hordes use teamwork and

Former soldier Jung-seok is a refugee in Hong Kong

The film is set in Korea with the majority of cast

Gory zombie violence throughout as swarms attack t

Infrequent language includes "goddamn," "bulls--t,

Characters drink and mention Johnny Walker Black L

Characters drink whiskey in one scene.

Parents need to know that Peninsula is a sequel to the South Korean zombie action movie Train to Busan and the third installment in the series. Set four years after the first movie, the film follows former solider Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) who returns to South Korea to loot a truck for mobsters, only…

Positive Messages

Characters fleeing zombie hordes use teamwork and courage to help themselves and others. Selfishness is shown by some, at a cost.

Positive Role Models

Former soldier Jung-seok is a refugee in Hong Kong who returns to South Korea on a mob mission to find loot. He is courageous and finds a way to repent for leaving a family behind when the zombie outbreak began. Min-jung is the mother of two daughters left behind in Korea. She is determined and courageous in her efforts to protect her children. Sergeant Hwang is a ruthless killer in a mercenary group. He collects people to face off against zombies for sport.

Diverse Representations

The film is set in Korea with the majority of cast and crew being from the country with some actors from the United States in supporting roles. Korean, Cantonese, and English all spoken. Refugees from the zombie-invaded South Korea are discriminated against in Hong Kong.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Gory zombie violence throughout as swarms attack the living. Human characters fight and kill each other. Many zombies are hit by cars driving through city streets. Two people hold guns to their heads while considering suicide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent language includes "goddamn," "bulls--t," "bastards," "s--t," "piss off," "crap," "a--hole," and "bitch."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Characters drink and mention Johnny Walker Black Label whiskey.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Peninsula is a sequel to the South Korean zombie action movie Train to Busan and the third installment in the series. Set four years after the first movie, the film follows former solider Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) who returns to South Korea to loot a truck for mobsters, only to find a lawless city. Positive characters show strong teamwork and courage but many have negative, violent traits. The violence is sometimes gory, but the bulk is computer generated with little impact. Non-zombie violence includes beatings and cruel treatment of characters. Other violent scenes include car crashes and humans being forced to fight zombies for sport. Occasional language includes "bastard" and "bitch." Predominately in Korean with some Cantonese and English, subtitles are also available. The movie is known as Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula in some territories. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What's the Story?

In PENINSULA, four years have passed since the zombie outbreak and South Korea is shut off to the world. Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won), a former South Korean Marine Corps Captain, returns looking for a truck that is said to contain vast riches. But what he finds is a city run by the lawless Unit 631, as well as a family surviving against the odds.

Is It Any Good?

There's no shortage of zombie movies so any that try to chew their way into genre need to stand out. Following 2016's frenetic hit Train to Busan , Peninsula (the third installment of the series) lacks the energy of the first movie. It instead delivers a mawkish, melodramatic morality tale with lacklustre action scenes. Its long, drawn out CGI set pieces feel weightless and dull, with no tension or excitement to be found on the derelict streets of South Korea. Meanwhile, the human violence feels cruel and torturous, which is jarring against the neon-lit comedic efforts and the movie's misjudged cutesy little girl character. There's a handful of ideas and memorable individual shots but as a whole, Peninsula is a big disappointment.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Peninsula . Did you think it was extreme or do you expect to see gory scenes in zombie movies? How did it compare to ther zombie films you've seen?

Why do you think movies and books about the undead are so popular?

Did you find the movie scary? What was most scary about it? What's the appeal of horror movies ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 7, 2020
• On DVD or streaming : October 27, 2020
• Cast : Gang Dong-won , Lee Jung-hyun , Kim Min-jae
• Director : Sang-ho Yeon
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Asian actors
• Studio : Well Go USA Entertainment
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Run time : 116 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : October 31, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Peninsula – Review (3/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Aug 19, 2020 | 3 minutes

PENINSULA is a zombie movie from South Korea. It’s a sequel to the mega-hit Train to Busan and takes place four years later. This time, the vibe is almost reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road . Read our full Peninsula review here!

PENINSULA is the much-anticipated sequel to Train to Busan . Yes, the mega-hit from South Korea where zombies move extremely fast, and the plot played out mostly on a train. For this reason alone, it was often referred to as a Snowpiercer  meets  World War Z hybrid.

Recommended reading:  Our review of the Train to Busan zombie movie >

The story is very different in this sequel which takes place four years after the events of the first movie. Continue reading our Peninsula movie review below.

Mad Max  meets  World War Z

Yes, once again it’s easy to compare the style of the movie to other movies. The zombies are still quick to transform and move with extreme speed. However, this time around and the vibe is almost reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road .

Mostly because we’re now four years after the zombie apocalypse that took place in the first movie. Or actually, the movie begins exactly where  Train to Busan left off. We meet some people that managed to escape from South Korea and it turns out the zombie outbreak was contained in this country.

That means the Korean Peninsula has zombies but the rest of the world is still okay. And it also means that people are still trapped in South Korea with the zombies. That’s why South Korea has quickly turned into a “survival of the fittest”-place that looks eerily like the world of  Mad Max .

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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Train to Busan 2: Peninsula – A true horror of a movie

Review: film-maker sang-ho yeon brings plenty of panache but this film lacks the emotional weight of its predecessor.

For anyone who hasn’t tired of zombie movies, this pounds along as a glossy spectacle if nothing else.

There are moments when, with all the best will in the world, the horror genre tests patience. Add together all of the incredulousness generated by every scream queen who went creeping into a darkened basement and you’ll be close to the jaw-droppingly foolish conceit at the heart of this not-quite-sequel to the hit 2016 film.

Five years after the events of Train to Busan – in which zombies rampaged an intercity rail journey, carriage by carriage – Chinese mobsters hire a crack team of Koreans to return to their apocalyptic, zombie-infested home peninsula and retrieve a truck that may contain millions of dollars. It’s a terrible, terrible idea made worse by survivors who leave the viewer yearning for the comparative polite society of Mad Max. Hello underground fight club in which humans are thrown to the undead.

Save for a damaged soldier hero, a resourceful single mother and her plucky kids, characters behave in consistently foolish ways throughout this actioner. Who knew that hovering over the motionless body of a zombie might prove to be fatal?

Characters behave in consistently foolish ways throughout this action movie.

Sang-ho Yeon, the gifted filmmaker behind The King of Pigs and Train to Busan, brings plenty of panache to various tight spots and set-pieces, but Train to Busan 2 lacks the discipline and emotional weight of its predecessor. It chases Big Moments relentlessly, and to no avail, with various PTSD flashbacks and cheesy slow-motion acts of sacrifice.

Save for the returning filmmaker, this is a sequel in the way that Grease 2 or American Psycho 2 is. (Speed 2 managed to have more in common with its predecessor.) The film was cheekily released in the US as Train to Busan Presents Peninsula. It’s “in the same universe”, we’re told. Is it really? I don’t recall all this maximalist CGI.

Still, for anyone who hasn’t tired of zombie movies, this pounds along as a glossy spectacle if nothing else. Expect zombies with pace not social commentary.

Tara Brady, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a writer and film critic

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‘Peninsula’ Review: The ‘Train to Busan’ Series Derails with this Chintzy and Generic Zombie Sequel

David ehrlich.

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It can be frustrating to watch a film that doesn’t seem to understand its own strengths; it’s downright maddening to watch three of them. With “ Peninsula ” (stylized for its North American release as “ Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula”), director Yeon Sang-ho has now made an entire trilogy of exuberant, maximalist, and ultimately tiresome zombie movies that cannibalize their best ideas in a crazed dash towards mediocrity. This erratic and derivative new chapter is by far the most chewed up of the three, as its outsized ambition (or at least its scale) makes it that much easier to see how Yeon’s latest yarn shrinks away from its own potential like it’s scared of the movie it could’ve been. At the end of a summer that we’ve all just been trying to survive, there’s definitely some fun to be found in a go-for-broke action saga that isn’t afraid to play around with the inhumanity that tends to follow a pandemic, but “Peninsula” is just another two hours of screaming at all the self-sabotage you see on your TV.

Set in the same world as “Train to Busan” and “Seoul Station” (but sharing none of the same characters from Yeon’s crossover hit or its stilted animated prequel), “Peninsula” continues the series’ tradition of hitting the ground at a full sprint and ensnaring you with a strong hook. While most of the film is set four years after the fast-acting zombie outbreak seen in the previous installments, the story kicks off with a Z-day prologue that forefronts all of the things this trilogy does best.

A mysterious plague has just begun to sweep across Korea, and military man Jung-seok (“Haunters” star Gang Dong-won) is speeding his family to the ferry that will take them to the safety of Japan; he’s too scared and self-concerned to stop for anything, even the desperate mother and her two young kids who plead for help on the side of the road. All seems well once Jung-seok makes it to the crowded boat, but it only takes one infected passenger for things to go south in a hurry, and just a few minutes later Jung-seok is watching his nephew feast on his sister in agonized slow-motion (echoes of the MV Sewol tragedy are even more pronounced here than they were in “Train to Busan”).

When we reconnect with Jung-seok and his widowed brother-in-law (Kim Do-yoon) in the present, they’re scraping by in a Hong Kong that’s afflicted by virulent prejudice against Korean refugees — the phrase “China Virus” comes to mind. As we learn during an inexplicable exposition dump in which some random white guy brings us up to speed while guesting on a late night talk show, North Korea is the only part of the peninsula that hasn’t been overrun by the walking dead (no logical reason is given for this strange quirk of fate, so we’re left to assume that zombies just have a lot of respect for the DMZ — not that this tantalizing bit of world-building is ever the least bit relevant to the story).

Awkwardness aside, this setup is basically the triple Yahtzee of Yeon’s auteurist touch: Flesh-eaters in confined spaces, Hobbesian incivility between strangers, and ultra-violence that walks the line between slapstick and tragedy. By the time a gangster hires Jung-seok and his brother-in-law to slip back into zombie-infested Incheon and steal one of the massive caches of money that was left behind in the exodus, it seems as if Yeon has successfully managed to scale his vision up to blockbuster size without letting things get away from him (and done so on a tight $16 million budget).

The first big set piece back on Korean soil betrays a few of the more obvious cost-cutting measures — the dreary fuzz of the computer-generated Incheon cityscapes during the nighttime heist is almost as video game-like as the car chase that follows — but the film’s irreverent tone excuses much of its shoddiness. It’s only during the third act that it really starts to feel like Yeon’s pockets aren’t deep enough for what he’s trying to do. Before that, most of the movie is devoted to lame dialogue scenes between kooky characters in cramped ruins who just want to find a way out of this story altogether; Yeon’s take on the genre might be inspired by the horde mentality of “World War Z” and its rotting waves of the undead, but “Peninsula” itself owes more to DIY post-apocalyptic visions like “Escape from New York” and “The Road Warrior.”

And for much of the first act, “Peninsula” is able to channel large-scale zombie spectacle through a confined setting and convey the palpable feeling of a world overrun. The heist angle isn’t as strong a hook as the narrow train cars from the previous movie, but some fun characters show up to buoy the action once Jung-seok’s party is ambushed by the demented remnants of a rogue militia called Unit 631. Our hero is rescued from the attack by two scrappy little girls (Lee Re and Lee Ye-won) who’ve grown up in the wasteland, rock a solid day-glo aesthetic, and think of the zombies and the soldiers as their play toys — their “six years old and already out of fucks to give” attitude is a nice contrast against Jung-seok’s permanent state of panic, and the girls even come with their own kooky grandpa character (Kwon Hae-hyo) to keep the focus on the family.

Despite how Jung-seok and his brother-in-law are warned not to “screw up trying to save each other,” “Peninsula” is predictably keen on exploring the flaws of such self-preservation, and how the continued survival of our species is dependent upon our rejection of capitalism, racism, and the rest of the dehumanizing forces that drove us against each other even before the whole world got sick of each other. The good guys save Jung-seok because it’s the right thing to do; the bad guys force his brother-in-law to participate in a trite zombie fight club for their own sick amusement (yes, we’ve reached a point in movie history where the idea of a “zombie fight club” can feel trite). But Yeon’s script explores this stuff with the disinterest of a first draft and wastes its unique setting on a paint-by-numbers plot; the preamble might tease a politically-tinged examination of empathy and self-interest, but all of that is tossed aside in favor of internecine squabbles and limp inevitabilities. Did these people even watch “28 Days Later?” Keeping zombies “alive” for sport never ends well!

The idea of South Koreans fleeing to the zombie-free North is never unpacked, the world’s treatment of Korean refugees becomes a moot point once the movie arrives at Incheon, and Jung-seok himself is an unremarkable protagonist whose festering sense of guilt becomes the closest thing the film has to a coherent emotional arc. The redemption arc that Yeon contrives for him hinges on an unforgivably stupid narrative convenience that should have been tweaked long before anyone got to set. You can feel the air wheezing out of the bag as “Peninsula” tries to downshift away from a more nuanced portrait of post-apocalyptic living.

Yeon eventually just throws his hands up and surrenders to the cheesy spectacle of it all with a frenzied third act that finds the entire cast in a death race to the border. It’s here — in an amusingly unmoored but ultimately exhausting sequence that looks like someone trying to recreate “Fury Road” on a Nintendo 64 — that Yeon stops being able to afford his own ambition, and the film’s budget suddenly feels like a rubber band stretched over a hula-hoop. A trained animator who isn’t afraid to abandon verisimilitude the moment it threatens to get in the way of a good time, Yeon mines a certain “Speed Racer”-esque delirium from the cartoonish finale, but the comicality of this mayhem doesn’t square with the rest of a movie that, at one point, had more serious things on its mind. By the time “Peninsula” clumsily arrives at its closing statement about the possibility of forgiveness, you can’t help but wonder if this entire franchise is beyond salvation.

Well Go USA will release “Peninsula” in select theaters on Friday, August 21.

As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available.

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Yeon Sang-ho’s “Train to Busan” is the most purely entertaining zombie film in some time, finding echoes of George Romero ’s and Danny Boyle ’s work, but delivering something unique for an era in which kindness to others seems more essential than ever. For decades, movies about the undead have essentially been built on a foundation of fear of our fellow man—your neighbor may look and sound like you, but he wants to eat your brain—but “Train to Busan” takes that a step further by building on the idea that, even in our darkest days, we need to look out for each other, and it is those who climb over the weak to save themselves who will suffer. Social commentary aside, it’s also just a wildly fun action movie, beautifully paced and constructed, with just the right amount of character and horror. In many ways, it’s what “ World War Z ” should have been—a nightmarish vision of the end of the world, and a provocation to ask ourselves what it is that really makes us human in the first place.

Seok-woo ( Gong Yoo ) is a divorced workaholic. He lives with his mother and barely spends any time with his daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an). He’s so distant from her that he buys her a Nintendo Wii for her birthday, ignoring that she has one already, and that he’s the one who bought it for her for Children’s Day. To make up for this rather-awkward moment, he agrees to give Su-an what she really wants—a trip to her mother’s home in Busan, 280 miles away. It’s just an hour train ride from Seoul. What could possibly go wrong? Even the set-up is a thematic beauty, as this is more than just a train ride for Seok-woo and Su-an—it’s a journey into the past as a father tries to mend bridges and fix that which may be dead. It’s a perfect setting for a zombie movie.

Before they even get to their early-morning train ride, Seok-woo and Su-an see a convoy of emergency vehicles headed into Seoul. When they get to the train, Sang-ho beautifully sets up his cast of characters, giving us beats with the conductors, a pair of elderly sisters, a husband and his pregnant wife, an obnoxious businessman (a vision of Seok-woo in a couple decades), and even a baseball team. A woman who’s clearly not well gets on the train just before it departs, and just as something else disturbing but generally unseen is happening in the station above the platform. Before you know it, the woman is taking out the jugular of a conductor, who immediately becomes a similarly mindless killing machine. These are zombies of the “28 Days Later” variety—fast, focused, and violent. They replicate like a virus, turning whole cars of the train into dead-eyed flesh-eaters in a matter of seconds. They are rabid dogs. And you thought your Metra commute was bad.

The claustrophobic tension of “Train to Busan” is amplified after a brilliantly staged sequence in a train station in which our surviving travelers learn that the entire country has gone brain-hungry. They discover that the undead can’t quite figure out door handles and are mostly blind, so tunnels and lines of sight become essential. Sang-ho also keeps up his social commentary, giving us characters who want to do anything to survive, and others who will do what it takes to save others. Early in the film, Seok-woo tells his daughter, “At a time like this, only watch out for yourself,” but he learns that this isn’t the advice we should live by or pass down to our children. Without spoiling anything, the survivors of “Train to Busan” are only so lucky because of the sacrifice of others. And the film is thematically stronger than your average zombie flick in the way it captures how panic can make monsters of us all, and it is our responsibility to overcome that base instinct in times of crisis.

After the near-perfect first hour of “Train to Busan,” the film slows its progress and makes a few stops that feel repetitive, but the journey recovers nicely for a memorable finale. You could call it “Train of the Living Dead” or “'Snowpiercer' with Zombies.” Whatever you call it, if it’s playing in your city and you’ve ever been entertained by a zombie movie, it’s hard to believe you wouldn’t be entertained by this one.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Train to Busan (2016)

118 minutes

Gong Yoo as Seok Woo

Ma Dong-Seok as Sang Hwa

Jung Yoo-mi as Sung Gyeong

Choi Woo-shik as Yeong Gook

Ahn So-hee as Jin Hee

Kim Soo-Ahn as Soo Ahn

• Yeon Sang-Ho

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Review: All Aboard ‘Train to Busan’ for Zombie and Class Warfare

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

• July 21, 2016

Elite passengers on a South Korean bullet train face a twitching, hissing threat from the cheap seats in “ Train to Busan ,” a public-transportation horror movie with a side helping of class warfare.

The setup is lean and clean. A flattened deer, mowed down in a quarantine zone in Seoul where some kind of chemical spill has occurred (echoes of Bong Joon-ho’s 2007 enviro-horror film, “The Host” ), springs back to life. Then, in just a few swiftly efficient scenes, we meet a harried hedge-fund manager and his small, sad daughter (Gong Yoo and an amazing Kim Su-ahn), see them settled on the titular locomotive and watch in dismay as a vividly unwell last-minute passenger lurches onboard. And we’re off!

Sprinting right out of the gate, the director, Yeon Sang-ho, dives gleefully into a sandbox of spilled brains and smug entitlement. (“In the old days, they’d be re-educated,” one biddy remarks upon spying an undesirable fellow traveler.) As zombies chomp and multiply, an assortment of regular folks face them down while furthering an extended critique of corporate callousness. The politics are sweet, but it’s the creatures that divert. Eyes like Ping-Pong balls and spines like rubber — I’d wager more than a few chiropractors were required on the set — they attack in seizures of spastic energy. They’re like break-dancing corpses.

Often chaotic but never disorienting, the movie’s spirited set pieces — like a wriggling ribbon of undead clinging doggedly to the last compartment — owe much to Lee Hyung-deok’s wonderfully agile cinematography. Dipping and levitating, his camera injects air into tunnels and washrooms and luggage compartments, giving the action a hurtling vigor. Even more impressive is the train itself: marveling at its freakishly strong doors and dedicated staff, you might find yourself mourning the state of our own rail services more than the fate of the characters.

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‘Train to Busan’ review — A surprisingly unique and entertaining zombie flick

Train to busan  is a heart-pounding, armrest-gripping, teeth clenching zombie flick that breathes new life into the genre..

Just when the zombie genre seemed on its way out, then along rolls in  Train to Busan .  This South Korean production breathes a new life into the genre without straying too far out of its confines. The rules set in place in this world are a little updated from the usual and refreshingly there are no guns. Not only does that raise the stakes, it makes for action like no other zombie movie I’ve seen. It is one of the best, if not the best, zombie movie since  28 Days Later. Taking place in Seoul, South Korea,  Train to Busan   follows Seok-Woo ( Gong Yoo ), a fund manager, and father to Soo-an ( Kim Su-an ). In typical horror movie fashion, he’s a terrible father. So terrible that he gives his daughter a birthday present she already has while she begs to see her mother in Busan the next day to celebrate. Looking to appease his daughter, early the next morning he takes her on a KTX bullet train to Busan. Little do they know a chemical spill nearby has caused a wave of infected people. Little do they know, an infected person made it on the train. This swift and quick setup is not only refreshing but integral to setting the pace of the story.  As the lower class cars fall to the zombie outbreak, the forward class cabins fight to keep the undead out and escape.

Train to Busan   is such an interesting study on the application of a genre. All the facets of a zombie horror movie are there – the absentee dad, the plot-point child, a pregnant woman, a more than capable fighter. However, the way that the movie applies these characters and throws them into the story is quite interesting. The first 45 minutes of the movie can’t help but draw comparisons to 2013’s  Snowpiercer.  Both movies take place on a train, involve commentary on class warfare, and involve fighting to get to the front of the train. Except, Train to Busan  replaces rebels with zombies. However, both have a similar forward momentum that feels fast, efficient, and damn right thrilling.

One of the most refreshing aspects of the movie is its update of the traditional rules of zombie movies. While they are sensitive to sound, they are also more affected by their vision. At one point, a character puts newspaper over a window and the zombies instantly stop their pursuit. It’s a fun rule that’s put to great use a few times. It’s also very refreshing to have zombie movie where there aren’t any guns. At one point, a group of characters makes an all out dash for another car, the all-out assault on the zombies in their way is not only impressive but incredibly entertaining. The creature design is also really marvelous and terrifying. It perfectly compliments the violence of the transformation into a zombie, which we get to witness a few times. What the movie does pull directly from other movies — World War Z  to be specific—is the flood of zombies. However, here it’s done on a smaller scale, which makes it look more realistic and all the more terrifying.

While yes,  Train to Busan   does eventually give into genre cliches – slow reaction times, horror movie logic—the first half of the movie is strong enough to plow through them. Even though some characters feel familiar, you come to actually care about the right people. By the end of the movie, you become so attached that the tension is almost unbearable. But that’s what we’re looking for, right? The amount of energy that director Yeon Sang-ho is able to infuse into Train to Busan   is a welcome change from the stop and go nature of recent entries in the genre. Some wonky translations and frustrating decisions aside, the movie invigorates a genre on the way out. Sure, it completely owes a lot of itself to movies that came before it— World War Z, 28 Days Later— but it does enough on its own to warrant respect all on its own. Needless to say, I am all onboard with  Train to Busan. 

★★★★ out of five

Train to Busan  is available to rent and buy on Amazon!

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 12 Years A Slave Movie Review — A Beautiful, Unflinching Film
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Nominations: Snubs and Surprises
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Director Yeon Sang-ho On Adapting ‘Parasyte: The Grey’ For Netflix As A Long-Time Manga Fan

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EXCLUSIVE: From zombies in Train to Busan to the supernatural forces in Hellbound and parasitic creatures in Parasyte: The Grey , Korean director Yeon Sang-ho ‘s oeuvre of work has conjured fantastical monsters to launch dark, searing critiques of the evil that lurks in humanity’s midst.

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Yeon read Parasyte in his youth and refers to himself as a seong-deok , a Korean slang term for a “successful fan” (a long-time fan who eventually meets their idol). In Parasyte: The Grey , a young woman named Su-in (played by Jeon) is caught between her humanity and a parasitic influence, while a team called The Grey, led by Jun-kyung (played by Lee), is determined to hunt down and eradicate these parasitic organisms. “Back then, I remember thinking about how this took place in Japan and what would happen if the same thing happened in Korea ,” Yeon told Deadline. “It all really started from my imagination of loving the manga so much.”

After watching Jeon So-nee in several independent films, working with her had been on Yeon’s radar for several years. In Parasyte: The Grey , he also reunites with Koo Kyo-hwan and Lee Jung-hyun, after working together on the Train to Busan sequel Peninsula in 2020.

On Koo’s casting, Yeon said that he needed someone who could be funny and entertaining to provide some comic relief to balance Parasyte: The Grey ‘s dark drama. “I thought that he would be a great contrast to the main character, who tends to be a more gloomy and serious character,” he added. “The character that Kyo-hwan plays is almost like a messenger between the two extremely different characters of Su-in and Jun-kyung.”

“With Parasyte: The Grey , I had this firm idea that it should not be about the fight between parasitic organisms and human beings,” said Yeon. “I came to the conclusion that any being that is willing to sacrifice others for their own gain is really the true evil. Turning a critical eye to the current society we live in, I asked myself, ‘Do these organizations that have been formed under the premise of protecting individuals, really do that job? Are they really there to protect individuals?'”

The Netflix series also required a substantial amount of visual effects work to express the transformation of humans into parasite-infected monsters, which pushed Yeon to take a different approach with his directing craft. “It is not an easy task directing something that you can’t see but I tried to help the actors to imagine what’s going to happen,” said Yeon.

“I think that I’m pretty good at creating sounds of things. For example, if we were to do a radio drama, you can’t see anything but with just the sounds, you have to tell the story. I used a lot of sounds to explain what I’m envisioning to the staff and to the actors, which was the fastest way for them to be on the same page and understand where I was going.”

The series is the latest from the Netflix Korea production line that is being underpinned by a massive $2.5B content investment over coming years following the success of Squid Game .

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The 7 best new movies and shows to stream this weekend

From Vault 33 to time travel romance, here's what to watch this weekend

If you're in need of something new to add to your watch list this weekend, we've got you covered with a fresh batch of streaming recommendations just in time for the weekend. For starters, all episodes of Prime Video's Fallout TV show are now streaming if you're in the mood for a binge watch of the nuclear apocalypse variety, while new thriller series Baby Reindeer is now on Netflix and the Michael Douglas-led historical drama series Franklin has arrived on Apple TV Plus.

As for movies, Superman -to-be David Corenswet stars in time travel romance The Greatest Hits, which is streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus elsewhere, while spy caper Argylle , starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Henry Cavill, has made its streaming debut on Apple TV Plus. Meanwhile, in the UK, MUBI subscribers can catch Wim Wenders' latest Oscar-nominated movie, Perfect Days, and Prime Video viewers in the US can watch horror sequel The Exorcist: Believer .

Available: Worldwide Watch now: Prime Video

Based on the video game franchise of the same name, Fallout is a retrofuturistic dystopian drama set in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear apocalypse, where people live in underground bunkers to stay safe from radiation, bandits, and worse... When tragedy strikes in Vault 33, the only world she's ever known, Lucy (Yellowjackets' Ella Purnell) is thrust into the outside world for the first time in her life. The cast also includes Walton Goggins and Kyle MacLachlan, and Westworld showrunner Jonathan Nolan directed the first three episodes.

Baby Reindeer

Available: Worldwide Watch now: Netflix

Comedian Richard Gadd brings his stand-up show of the same name to the small screen with Baby Reindeer, a new thriller series from Netflix. He plays Donny, a character based on himself, who must confront long-buried trauma as he reckons with his relationship with his female stalker (Jessica Gunning). The limited series is made up of seven episodes, which are all available to stream now.

The Greatest Hits

Available: Worldwide Watch now: Hulu in the US, Disney Plus in the UK

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New romantic drama The Greatest Hits stars Murder on the Orient Express ' Lucy Boynton as Harriet, a woman who discovers she can travel back in time when she listens to certain songs. She uses this newfound ability to relive moments with her recently deceased boyfriend (incoming Superman actor David Corenswet) in an attempt to prevent the accident that took his life, but also finds herself drawn to someone new (The Umbrella Academy's Justin H. Min) in the present. 

Available: Worldwide Watch now:  Apple TV Plus

Directed by Kick-Ass and Kingsman helmer Matthew Vaughn, Argylle stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway, an author who writes spy novels about Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill). Her life takes a turn when a real spy (Sam Rockwell) comes into her life and she discovers that the events of her books are suddenly bearing an uncanny resemblance to real life.  The cast also includes John Cena, Dua Lipa, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, Sofia Boutella, and Ariana DeBose.

Available: Worldwide Watch now: Apple TV Plus

Michael Douglas takes on the titular role in Franklin, Apple TV's latest historical drama miniseries. The show follows Benjamin Franklin as he travels to France on a secret mission to establish the Franco-American alliance and make a key step in the quest for American independence. The first three episodes are available to stream now, with future installments dropping every Friday.

Perfect Days

Available : UK Watch now: MUBI

The latest movie from Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire director Wim Wenders sees the German filmmaker set his sights on Japan. Perfect Days follows Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho), a reclusive public toilet cleaner in Tokyo whose peaceful but solitary life of routine is disrupted by a series of unexpected encounters. Yakusho won the Best Actor award at Cannes Film Festival for his subtle, heartbreaking performance and the film was nominated for Best Internation Feature at the Oscars.

The Exorcist: Believer

Available: US Watch now: Prime Video

Last year's Exorcist sequel The Exorcist: Believer is now available to watch at home via Prime Video in the US. Halloween 's David Gordon Green is in the director's chair this time around and the movie stars Leslie Odom Jr. as Victor, who must choose to save his pregnant wife or unborn child after a devastating earthquake. 13 years later, his now-teenage daughter attempts a seance with her best friend to contact her late mother, which doesn't quite go to plan…

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I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism. 

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Home » Reviews » Web Series Reviews

Parasyte: The Grey Review: The Train To Busan Director Brings This Modern Classic Manga To Live-Action With Various Results

Parasyte: the grey is definitely not yeon sang-ho’s best work, and it seems he's trying to replicate the success of train to busan..

Cast: Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw, John Hawkes, Finn Bennett, and Christopher Eccleston

Creator: Hitoshi Iwaaki

Director: Yeon Sang-ho

Streaming On: Netflix

Language: Korean (with subtitles)

Runtime: 6 episodes, around 1 hour each.

Parasyte: The Grey Review: What’s It About:

Parasyte: The Grey is a new live-action series, co-written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho, a director who jumped to fame thanks to his zombie masterpiece, Train to Busan. Since then, it seems Yeon Sang-ho has been looking for his next big thing, and this time he has chosen to adapt the seinen manga, Parasyte, written and illustrated by Hitoshi Iwaaki, using all the resources that the South Korean entertainment business has to offer. The result is an uneven series with great highs but also great lows.

Parasyte: The Grey Review: Script Analysis:

The story of Parasyte: The Grey follows the concepts from the original manga but makes huge changes so that the story feels like its own thing. For once, the main character has been gender-swapped, and the high school scenario that serves as the initial environment for the original series is also abandoned in favor of a more adult protagonist and also a grittier environment, that of a low-wage worker. In this case, Yeon Sang-ho chooses the character of Jeong Su-ni as his protagonist, which changes the entire initial perfective.

However, as the season moves forward, the series starts to look a bit more familiar to the source material, with Su-ni getting invaded by a parasite that tries to take over her body but when it can, the two decide to enter a sort of truce, and their dynamic becomes one of the most interesting aspects of the show. Just like with Venom and Eddie Brock, the relationship between Su-ni and her parasite brings forth all sorts of crazy and violent situations that make the show worth watching.

However, some aspects of the original story have been abandoned almost completely, which makes Parasyte: The Grey something that is best watched without thinking that this is a direct adaptation because it isn’t; it is more inspired in Parasyte than anything else. The characters are all well drawn from the beginning of the story, and while I wish their character arcs could be more impactful, they serve the story as best they can.

The writing does feel a bit amateurish at times, especially in the way character relationships and expositions are handled. There is definitely a cartoon feeling that should have been avoided when translating the story into live-action because it makes the characters act in very strange ways. The series has amazing actors, but for some reason, the way they behave with each other never felt completely right, and it took me out of the experience several times. To be fair, this issue probably has more to do with direction than writing.

Parasyte: The Grey Review: Star Performance:

Yeon Sang-ho knows that the story is all about its protagonist and her parasite, so he has chosen Jeon So-nee as her main actress, and she kills it in a role that asks a ton from her and her reactions not only to her strange situation but also the surrounding humans, a race to which it seems she no longer belongs to. The way So-nee carries the dynamic feels correct, and while she also steps at times into a very overly dramatic performance, she makes it feel completely correct within the context she is living in.

Koo Kyo-hwan, and Lee Jung-hyun also take major roles, both belonging to a secret organization that is battling these strange parasites coming from space. In any other series both actors would be playing the clear good guys of the story, but because we have Su-ni’s perspective over everything else, their roles become more nuanced and gray to say the list. The dynamic between each other and the dynamic their characters share with Su-ni is quite fun and interesting to watch.

Parasyte: The Grey Review: What Doesn’t Work:

Parasyte: The Grey knows that in order to translate this story into live-action, the show needs a good level of presentation, and that is exactly what the show has. The cinematography feels dark and gritty and fits the atmosphere of the show and the situations in it. Meanwhile, the director knows when to go frantic and when to have quieter moments to allow character development to be clear and direct. Yeon Sang-ho is an expert at working with visual effects at this point in his career, and that experience has come forward many times.

However, it would be a lie to say that this is Yeon Sang-ho’s best work or that the visual effects on the show are the best ever. In general, the direction and the overall visual design of the show are good but not spectacular, and at times, I felt there were some wasted opportunities to cause shock and impact. Some battle sequences look great, and the dynamic camerawork does a lot to make everything feel urgent, but the show definitely needed a bigger budget to make everything feel more real and more epic.

Parasyte: The Grey Review: Last Words:

Parasyte: The Grey is definitely not Yeon Sang-ho’s best work, and it seems trying to replicate the success the director found with Train to Busan won’t be easy, but the final result is a series that while uneven in several aspects from a narrative and technical standpoint, is still fun to watch, and it gives the push a lot of people need to go and read the original manga, which is really the best way to experience this story. Maybe in a second season, both the writing and the visual effects can find a way to be more polished before releasing to the public.

Must Read: Ripley Review: Andrew Scott Finds The Role Of His Career In This Netflix Miniseries

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Korean Historical Thriller ‘The Night Owl’ Licensed to China for Remake

By Patrick Frater

Patrick Frater

Asia Bureau Chief

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South Korean film studio N.E.W. reports that period thriller “ The Night Owl ” has been licensed for remake in China.

It claims that its deal is the highest price ever paid for rights to remake Korean IP in China, but it declined to disclose either the value of the deal or the identity of the buyer.

South Korea and China maintain frosty diplomatic relations and, despite Korean content being hugely popular worldwide, film industry relations have been frozen as a consequence. No Korean film has had a theatrical release in China for nearly a decade.

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Set in the 14th century, the narrative follows a blind acupuncturist who, strangely, is able to see at night. That enables him to be an eyewitness to the death of the crown prince.

The film was produced by C-JeS Entertainment (“Emergency Declaration”) and released in November 2022, before going on to earn some $26 million in a theatrical run that continued into January 2023.

According to the Korean Film Council, the export value of film remake rights reached $3.8 million last year, the highest figure since 2017.

N.E.W., through its subsidiary Contents Panda , has already seen international success with remakes of “Miracle in Cell No. 7” and “Train to Busan,” and is currently in negotiations to co-produce a Japanese version of another Korean hit “Hide and Seek.”

Danny Lee, director of overseas sales at N.E.W.’s rights sales arm Content Panda, said, “This is an achievement that recognizes the power of a successful IP that combines historical drama and thriller elements. We look forward to the results of the localization process.”

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