Trailer of the Week - Train to Busan

So D23 has been going on this weekend, the latest boasting session from the juggernaut dominating global entertainment at the moment.  One big thing was showing off the cast of Marvel Studios' The Eternals.  Now that one is going to be interesting, as that property started off as Jack Kirby at his most... Kirby, a lot like his earlier Inhumans and New Gods stuff.  I'm really hoping though that Marvel learned from how the Inhumans series went down like a lead balloon  The cast was on stage for the presentation, including big names like Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Kit Harrington, and Salma Hayek.  There was also at least one other person there who's not nearly so much a household name, at least in in US and UK; Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), a Korean actor making his English language debut in the Eternals, playing Gilgamesh.  I've seen him before, in terms of physical presence and charisma, he's an excellent choice.  If you'd like to see a good example of him in action before seeing The Eternals, then that's one of many, many reasons to seek out today's trailed film; the 2016 horror disaster blockbuster Train to Busan.

Now I know how done zombies have been in recent years, and I agree with that for the most part, but then again stuff can come along that revitalises things.  Earlier this year we had One Cut of the Dead, which was a heartfelt tribute to the genre with a very meta twist.  There was also The Girl With All the Gifts, with some fresh rules for the zombies, and a dose of John Wyndham style SF satire.  Train to Busan doesn't reinvent the wheel like those, but it works by doing the zombie action very well, and adding a few minor wrinkles.  This one really sells the concept that the scariest thing about zombies is the whole angle of the loss of humanity; the undead in this are purely instinctive, they don't think of anything other than finding another meal, to the point that they cannot even figure out how to open the train doors.  This might sound less scary, but instead it makes them like a truly unreasonable force of nature.  Also, there's an extra unique detail to these zombies, which does feel like a logical extension of something that's become common in a lot of zombie films, which leads to some interesting set pieces as the heroes work out a potential way to get through the packs milling through the train, but one with a lot of risk.  It's mostly stuff you've seen before, but done very well.

I describe this film as being "The World War Z movie, only not awful", in that, it makes a fast zombie outbreak the subject of big scale disaster style blockbuster, but it works so much better here.  A key point for that is in the title; the train setting for most of the film means that the story can take place across a large canvas of locations, showing a crisis engulfing the whole nation, whilst the action can happen in confined, claustrophobic environments, where zombie action works best.  Thus we have a fine best of both worlds approach, giving the story the right kind of focus.  Also, the film World War Z was just following one very bland character; here we get a whole bunch of well defined characters for most of the running time.  Yes, they are the sort of archetypes we get with disaster movies (the arsehole businessman who gets other survivors killed, the sniping old folks, the out of their depth teen etc...), but they're well done archetypes.  Plus you do get a sense of what everyone would be doing if the whole undead outbreak wasn't happening, so there's a fair amount of depth to everyone.

The matter of characters brings us to the reason I'm bringing this film up now.  Ma Dong-seok isn't the lead here, but he easily steals the show in any scene he's in.  His character is definitely one of the most capable ones, taking the point in a lot of big action moments, and calling out the actual lead (Gong Ji-Chul) for his weaker moments.  Dong-seok has had a pretty long successful career in Korea, but I'm pretty sure that it was his role here (as Train to Busan has been a hugely successful film worldwide) that at least got him on Marvel Studios' radar.  So yeah, if you're looking for something fun for your Halloween viewing this year (that season is approaching once more!) and would also like to check out one of Marvel's latest stars early, go pick up Train to Busan!  It's a true thrillride; you'll be thrilled, you'll be scared, you'll be exhilarated, and by the end you'll even cry quite a bit.  Above all though, you'll go "man, that big guy is a badass!".  Oh, and you might also want to check out the animated sidequel, Seoul Station from the same team; it's a very different tone, but well done too, it's OK for a tie-in anime.

BTW, apparently there is an American remake of this film being threatened.  How is that supposed to work though, the U.S. barely has any trains these days?