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

All Aboard Korean ‘Train to Busan’ for Zombie and Class Warfare
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/movies/train-to-busan-review.html
TRAIN TO BUSAN
• NYT Critics’ Pick

• Directed by Sang-ho Yeon

• Action, Horror, Thriller

• 1h 58m

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
JULY 21, 2016

Gong Yoo, top, and Kim Su-Ahn in “Train to Busan,” a horror movie set on a bullet train. CreditWell Go USA
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.