NEVER BOARD A TRAIN TO BUSAN

Seok-woo and his daughter are on a train to Busan on the latter’s birthday to see his wife. They board a superfast train that would take them from Seol to Busan. However, the journey turns into a nightmare when they are trapped amidst a zombie outbreak in South Korea. The apocalypse begins and almost everyone starts becoming zombies and infecting each other. Few passengers who struggle to survive fight for their families and lives against the zombies – and against each other.

The movie, ‘Train To Busan’ was released in 2016 and became the highest-grossing movie of the year, winning several awards and still has a cult-like following.

The movie is a must-watch for its special effects and storyline

In couple of hours, it touches on some of the most complex relationships

• There is definitely the story between the father and daughter
• The story between a husband and his pregnant wife
• The amazing story of two sisters (my personal favourtie)
• The story of a boyfriend and his girlfriend
• The story of some diabolical business motives
• Then there is the zombie angle
• Then there is the apocalypse and the survival angle

Though, it is a an extremely fast-paced movie, the movie still has the capacity to hold each of these complex plots and justify its presence in the overall storyline.

What makes the movie a masterpiece in catalyzing human emotions, is on one end, it stands for hope (a husband and wife who are now separated, still hope to raise their daughter in best possible way and maybe though it is still distant, amend their ways too to be amicable towards each other again), sacrifice, the way the father tries to protect his daughter and bring her to safe side and also subplots where another couple tries to help other passengers, teamwork, the surviving passengers knew they had to be together to give themselves a chance to see the day (all these and many more on the positives); and on the other hand, the dark side of human beings like selfishness, beautifully acted by the antagonist, indifference, the way people react towards each other, even when they were unsure if the other person was infected, despair and dejection, again very well depicted.

A friend of mine made a very interesting point while we were having a discussion about the movie. He said, all these things that the passengers realized in the train, they knew it all along. However, human greed and selfishness, puts an illusionary veil in front of our eyes which does not allow us to see who we truly are. And while we still have time, if we do not utilize this opportunity to become more humane, more helpful, more family oriented, it will not be long, before we are also put onto a train like the ‘train to Busan’ and maybe forced to realize, once, how fortunate we were.

He ended the conversation by saying, let us be thankful and kind towards others. Let us not board a train like ‘Train To Busan’, none of us would want to.

Do watch the movie, it will re-kindle your love for your family, though in a very unusual manner. Watch the movie and enjoy but avoid boarding it 🙂