Train to Busan

Directed by Sang-ho Yeon, Train to Busan follows several disparate characters as they attempt to survive aboard the title transport in the aftermath of a zombie uprising. Filmmaker Yeon, armed with Joo-Suk Park’s screenplay, delivers a familiar yet mostly engaging endeavor that benefits from its stirring performances and proliferation of exciting, engrossing set-pieces, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that Yeon does a superb job of infusing the movie’s opening stretch with a slow-building tension that proves rather impossible to resist – with the initial appearance of zombies on board the aforementioned train as gripping and enthralling as one might’ve hoped. Train to Busan does, beyond that point, level out considerably as it progresses into an entertaining yet decidedly hit-and-miss midsection, as the picture, saddled with a palpably overlong running time of 118 minutes, contains a handful of underwhelming elements that cumulatively diminish its overall impact – with this particularly true of the ongoing, tedious emphasis on an entirely needless human villain. (And this is to say nothing of the awkward and less-than-subtle instances of social commentary.) Such complaints become moot once the movie charges into its gripping and completely satisfying third act, which, when coupled with an unexpectedly emotional finale, ultimately cements Train to Busan‘s place as a top-notch zombie flick that does, missteps notwithstanding, deserve a place within the genre’s highest echelons.

*** out of ****