🧟‍♂️ Train to Busan (2016) 🧟‍♀️

🚂🧟‍♂️ “Next stop: Heartbreak and Horror.”

Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

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Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

What starts as a routine train ride from Seoul to Busan becomes a nightmare when a mysterious infection sweeps across South Korea. A single bitten passenger boards at the last second, and within minutes the confined cars of the speeding train are crawling with the undead. It’s a desperate, relentless fight for survival, where alliances form and fall apart as quickly as the zombies swarm.

This isn’t just another zombie film—it’s claustrophobic horror mixed with gut-punching drama.


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Character Rundown

Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) – The workaholic fund manager dad who treats his daughter like an afterthought. He’s not winning any Father of the Year awards, but this train ride might just force him to grow a conscience.

Su-an (Kim Su-an) – His daughter, and honestly the emotional heart of the whole film. She’s innocent, smarter than her dad, and constantly begging him to just care.

Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok) – Absolute MVP. A burly, sarcastic soon-to-be father who protects others with his fists, heart, and guts. If you don’t love him, you’re dead inside.

Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi) – Sang-hwa’s pregnant wife, who balances kindness with grit.

Yon-suk (Kim Eui-sung) – The selfish, suit-wearing businessman who redefines the word “douchebag.” You’ll be rooting for his death the entire runtime.

Young-guk (Choi Woo-shik) – The baseball player, quiet but brave.

Jin-hee (Ahn So-hee) – His cheerleader girlfriend, sweet and loyal.

The survivors’ gallery – Train staff, passengers, and random extras who either help or hinder the group. Spoiler: most hinder.



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Pacing / Episode Flow

Perfectly tuned. The film opens slow enough to establish characters and tension, but the moment that first bite spreads? Chaos. The escalation is relentless—like “World War Z” if it were actually scary and had emotional stakes. The film balances set-piece action (fighting through train cars) with quiet, crushing beats of tragedy.


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Pros

The zombies. These aren’t your shufflers—they sprint, they pile up, they snap their bones in horrifying ways. World War Z tried it, Train to Busan perfected it.

Claustrophobic setting. The train setting turns every car into a death trap.

Emotional stakes. Every death hurts. This isn’t brainless gore; it’s heartbreak.

Sang-hwa. Deserves his own category. Best zombie fighter. Best lines. Best everything.

Social commentary. Selflessness vs. selfishness is constantly tested, with Yon-suk’s “every man for himself” contrasted against the heroes’ sacrifices.



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Cons

The dad’s arc is a little on-the-nose. We get it—he’s a bad parent becoming a better one. Subtlety left at the station.

Yon-suk. He’s such a cartoonishly evil coward that at times it’s hard to take him seriously. But hey, you really want him to die, so mission accomplished?



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Final Thoughts

Train to Busan isn’t just one of the best zombie films—it’s one of the best modern horror films, period. It takes the genre back to what it should be: scary, emotional, and relentless. The claustrophobia of the train, the speed of the zombies, and the raw humanity (or lack thereof) in the characters makes it unforgettable. By the end, you’re not just scared—you’re crying.


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Rating

10/10


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🚨 Spoiler Warning 🚨

Spoilers

The infection spreads instantly once the bitten woman turns, and car after car is overrun. The group learns to fight strategically—blocking doors, smashing heads, even timing their runs when tunnels throw the train into darkness (the zombies go blind).

One by one, our characters fall. The young baseball player and his girlfriend are cornered, trapped between cowardly survivors who refuse to open the doors and the advancing horde. Their deaths sting—not because they were deeply developed, but because of how cruelly preventable they were.

The emotional gut-punch comes with Sang-hwa. Cornered, he single-handedly holds off zombies so his pregnant wife and the others can escape. His death is brutal, slow, and heroic—he fights until his body literally gives out. Watching him fade while shouting instructions for his wife to survive is devastating.

Yon-suk, of course, causes half the deaths. He shoves people into zombies, slams doors shut, sacrifices strangers at every chance. When he’s finally bitten, it feels like karma itself climbed aboard the train.

The climax hits with Seok-woo, Su-an, and Seong-kyeong making it to the train’s final car. But Seok-woo is bitten. In a quiet, crushing moment, he teaches Su-an how to use the brakes and says goodbye. He throws himself off the train before turning, leaving his daughter with Seong-kyeong.

The film ends on a somber note: the two survivors approach Busan on foot through a dark tunnel, singing Su-an’s song from earlier. Soldiers almost shoot them, mistaking them for infected—until they hear the little girl’s voice. It’s one of the most bittersweet, haunting finales in zombie cinema.