Train to Busan

Train to Busan is a 2016 South Korean horror film directed by Yeon Sang-ho. In the midst of a rapidly spreading zombie outbreak in Korea, a rush to escape the rapidly spreading chaos led an extremely packed KTX train heading for Busan, a city highly regarded for its seaport and free trade zone. At first, many of the passengers were oblivious to the disaster unfolding outside of the train, as frantic individuals struggle to reach their destinations as rapidly as possible. At the outset of the disaster, Sŏ Myeong-geun, a crippled and lonely corporate salaryman, attempts to rejoin his pregnant wife in Busan. The train, packed to capacity, appears to be an extension of the chaos engulfing the entire nation. Yeong-su, a husband and artist who boards the train in Seoul, along with his wife, Seok-woon, seizes an empty seat reserved for people with disabilities, which he misrepresents himself as being a soldier crippled in Afghanistan. Yeong Su is soon forced to join a group of survivors as order on the train continues to deteriorate. Disorder arises as people panic and struggle to keep a firm grip on what seems like their last chance of reaching Busan, an extremely safe-haven that all passengers firmly believe will provide security from the unfolding calamity. This includes a seemingly uncoordinated sequence of panic-stricken passengers as they attempt to grab all of the essential things including luggage, food, family members and children, as if expecting Busan to be some sort of haven of hope. As tension escalates both within and outside of the train, multiple fatalities began occurring amongst the passengers. It isn't too long before the disturbing truth about their predicament began unfolding before their eyes, highlighting a most hideous element: an infectious zombie outbreak. Driven by a deep-seated fear to stay safe and remain alive, the other passengers, including Su in this scenario, as well as an aspiring rapper and, most significantly, a fugitive being taken away by the authorities to confront their crimes, find themselves in extreme proximity to each other inside the metal container that would inevitably help them to stay alive or pass away from the dangers outside. After numerous group gatherings and misfascinations, passengers inevitably disintegrate and collapse amongst the increasingly large amount of rising dead bodies, they all disintegrate their chances by being merciless to each other. Given their panic-driven circumstances, a particular man aggressively pushes his colleagues to reach a closed compartment at great risk for unknown passage, finally uncovering it and fleeing the chamber, completely ignoring the fact that he may have left his pregnant wife with certain fatal injuries elsewhere on the train. Eventually, groups such as the one consisting of Si-woo and his mother manage to maintain a superior grip over their immediate survival prospects, after eventually and ruthlessly turning the tables on other, non-cooperative individuals who were unable to make similar breakthroughs in safety-oriented survival strategies. Their strategies in their desperate, however, ultimately proved futile, even though it seemed to have a very high value. Just at the time when the passengers actually think they can still preserve their lives along with those of their immediate families, it becomes clear that not all of them that matter - or that could have survived - are truly safe. It is very clear that no one feels secure with each other as the train rushes to Busan in its journey filled with blood-stained bodies. The final remaining people manage to fight the impending doom and deliver it to its total inevitable outcome. As the last few individuals finally leave the non-functional train, they are left standing within a completely desolate, blood-soaked stretch of station grounds, each survivor walking away in a sense of desperation that characterized their lives during the unfolding pandemic in the background of one of these countries most influential city. This narrative offers insight into the very meaning of preservation in the event of desperate survival situations in a world that's rapidly proceeding in the direction of both social anxiety and destructive disaster.