Train to Busan (2016)

[Drunk Monk]

I’ve been done with zombie films for years but this is a new spin. K-zombie films are a whole other ballgame. I thought I saw this but couldn’t remember much (and never recorded it here) so maybe I just saw a lot of clips and trailers.

This movie understands how to continually ramp up the zombie pressure and sustain high tension. The fast moving frantic zombies help - lots of them, bursting into train cars like projectile cgi vomit. Extremely sanguineous but not explicit organ gore, like brains and intestines. Lots of bloody messes pressed up against glass doors. I found myself at seats edge and them some new obstacle would rise and I was all ‘on no! RUN!’ i love how this story moves. Some deeply moving scenes buried in crazy. So Kflik. 

Don Lee shines again in this. On a bit of a Don Lee kick in the wake of my Tig Notaro binge. Not sure why that works for me right now but just going with it. Don really only has one note but he plays it so well and you can stick him in anything and it’ll work - as long as that chinashop needs a bull.

D00M QUESTION: Who here has seen a Don Lee flick other than The Eternals? He’s definitely one to watch. His choreography is brutal like a rhino and he delivers some nice fights here. Dude is thicc.

D00M recommended. Especially if you like zombie films. This now sits up in my top 3 zombie films.

[Drunk Monk]

Peninsula (2020)

The sequel to Train to Busan. There was a prequel too. Peninsula imagines the zombie plague destroys South Korea and the entire region is quarantined. A sketchy gang gets 4 Koreans to go back after escaping to retrieve a truck full of usd cash. It’s not really explained why that truck was there. That’s the thing about zombie movies - they’re pretty simple and you know what you’re getting. The retrieval plot is reminiscent of Escape from New York with a sprinkling of Mad Max added with a rogue paramilitary gang that manages to get the truck. 

The zombies are blind at night and only chase sound and light. They are the fast running zombies and one bite transfers the zombitis (my term). 

This is not nearly as impressive as TtB. It’s not as gory, the characters are not as interesting (no Don Lee), and the plot is pretty standard zombie stuff. There’s one solid oner with a game that the gang bets on where several prisoners are tossed in a wet pit with a bunch of zombie and the Mad Max crew bets chocolate bars on who will survive. It’s a frenzied chaos, zombie style. 

This didn’t do a lot for me. I’m past zombie movies. It had a few good moments, but pretty standard fair for the zombie genre.

Not D00M recommended.

[Greg]

And now comes Parasyte on Netflix by the Train to Busan director......