So We Watched Train to Busan

I wondered what's the fuzz about these zombies in a train movie that spawns a lot of parody videos and memes in the internet. So during our family day Sunday, we watched the movie Train to Busan... Now I know what's the hullabaloo.

This is a South Korean movie and I don't know much about their actors, except for the Coffee Prince guy. This is a pretty good zombie apocalypse movie. Character interactions and development are good, there are some funny dialogues too. You'll root for these characters to survive except for the bad ones and oh boy the bad characters here are really annoying and douchey, they're kinda like wanted to get punched in the mouth and get eaten by zombies.

As for the story goes, It all started on a father and daughter train ride to Busan to visit a relative. This is not just about the father and his daughter, there are few more notable characters here. A messed up woman boarded the train with an unexplained human bite on her leg, this woman succumbed to the zombie infection and started to bite a train crew initiating an infection domino effect on the passengers and crew members. It's unknown where the infection started and what's the cause (I don't want to spoil it, you must watch the movie).

The infection rate can be fast or slow depending on where, how long and how many times the person is bitten. If bitten on the hands or legs the infection rate is slow, but if bitten on the neck or somewhere near the brain it only takes a minute or even seconds for the infection to take hold. The zombies here are fast and have poor visibility in the dark, they will only attack if they see a non-infected person and they don't have a heightened sense of smell for humans.

The standard suspense horror movie plot elements apply here: one by one, the major characters will die (turn to zombies) and four or less of them survives.

The effects are good and not over the top. The "zombie rain" and "zombie tidal wave" scenes are awesome.

If you ask me, this movie is like Snowpiercer (train) and World War Z (zombie apocalypse) combined.

There are some flaws but I like this movie overall. I like the suspense and the drama/conflict. The movie also plays on your emotions, I was like "Nooooo! That poor grandma". What I don't like in this movie is that some characters missed their once in a life-time opportunity to survive. I guess it's because they're so tired and panicking, they made the wrong choices. So take note: to survive a zombie apocalypse you must have a calm mind and once a human turned (or is turning) into a zombie, neutralize it ASAP. Oh yeah, watch the movie I recommend it.

Cheers!