Review: Train to Busan (2016)

"Train to Awesomeness."

Think Snakes on a Plane (minus Sam Jackson) with shades of Snowpiercer (trapped on a speeding train plus the whole class war thing); the "strangers band together to survive in a world suddenly gone mad" aesthetic of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake; the frenetic, rabid infected intensity of World War Z; and some acrobatic craziness like only the films that populate the world of Asian Cinema can offer, and that's basically what Train to Busan is.

That's not to say that it isn't it's own film, or that it borrows too heavily from the aforementioned efforts to be its own thing, but it played like an amalgamation of those movies, amongst others, and it bears noting.

Seok Woo is a workaholic fund manager and a great provider for his daughter, Soo-an, but he's not the best dad, because he's always working and doesn't spend much time with his baby girl. For her birthday, Su-an wants her dad to take her to Busan (by train) to see her mom, because she's a kid, and she wants some attention from at least one of her parents. So, desperate to make her happy, even if it means being without her, Seok Woo takes them on... The Train to Busan!

"ENJOYING YOUR TRAIN RIDE, HONEY?"

Aboard the train are a colorful cast of characters: a tough guy and his pregnant wife; a hot K-Pop star pretending to be a naughty schoolgirl; a stereotypical old business tycoon who thinks commoners are beneath him; two old sisters who you just know are going to die; a crazy homeless guy who looks like the dude from Snowpiercer; and a woman with a wound on her leg, who turns into to a zombie, and infects almost everyone else, thus turning them into ravenous zombies too.

IT SPREADS QUICKLY.

Everyone else who isn't infected, which is only a small band of folk, have to come together to survive the long training trip to Busan, because the train can't stop, because the world outside has gone to zombie shit too. Can Seok-Woo get his daughter to Busan, and to safety? Will Sang-Hwa prove to be the biggest badass in S.Korea? Will we be left feeling sad and dejected at how everything turns out for everyone? Maybe, yes, and sadly, yes.

WORST TRAIN RIDE EVER.

If nothing else, S.Korean movies tend to be sentimental, action-packed, and a bit out there, which is usually the reason that so many of them end up being so good. Train to Busan is all of those things, all while being one of the most intense and exciting infected flicks that we've seen in years.

For a movie that is so claustrophobic in its setting, Train to Busan is full of big action. Director Sang-ho Yeon uses the cramped quarters of his train setting to maximum effect, giving we the audience plenty of fights, chases, and narrow escapes to keep us on the edge of our seats. And blood. There's plenty of that, too.

As exciting as the movie is, it's made all the more harrowing thanks to a cast of realistic and well thought out characters who are played by some very likable actors. Sang-Hwa was easily one of our favorite characters of any movie that we saw in 2016, and he's a perfect example of why we loved this movie so much.

IT'S ALSO AN EMOTIONALLY INTENSE MOVIE TOO.

I'm usually a huge sucker for emotional subplots and beats in movies, even if they are heavy-handed, but some of the ones in this movie were even too sappy and forced for me.

SOMETHING ABOUT HER MOVED ME THOUGH...

I understand that most Horror movies are going to be downbeat, and most of their endings are anything but happy, but for the love of God the fates of most of the characters in this one were huge bummers. Seriously.

CHONG-GI SMILED ON THE INSIDE, KNOWING THAT SOON HE WOULD FINALLY KNOW WHAT HUMAN FACE TASTED LIKE.

It's a S.Korean zombie flick, so yeah, there's plenty of typical bloody zombie action throughout this one.

"FASTEN YOUR SEATBEEEEEELTS!"

Not that kind of movie at all.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN THOUGH. OH, IT COULD HAVE BEEN.

When Sang-Hwa strapped up and had a street brawl with a car-full of infected zombies. Good stuff.

IT'S GO TIME.

Train to Busan does the infected/zombie thing about as well as any movie since the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, and that's saying something. It's intense, heartfelt, crazy, and one of the best movies that 2016 had to offer.

See it when you can.

A

Train to Busan is available now on VOD.

Sohee is apparently a huge pop star in S.Korea. We can see why.

Theatrical Review: The Wailing (2016)

"Comedy, Horror, Police Procedural... we won't soon forget this one."

And here we go again with South Korea dropping another top-notch Crime Thriller on us, only this time, it's got a Supernatural bent to it. We're all about watching Korean Gangsters war amongst themselves, or seeing a Seoul Cop or two trying to track down a Serial Killer, but throw in a Demon, a Shaman, and some good old fashioned possession, and that just takes it to the next level for us.

Director Hong-Jin Na is no stranger to us, as his excellent films The Chaser and The Yellow Sea have long since been a part of our Foreign Film lexicon. When we heard that his newest movie dipped its toe into the Supernatural pool, we knew we were in for something special. Or at the very least, different. Maybe even odd.

The Wailing is definitely all of those things.

Jong-Goo is a bumbling Police Sergeant in a small South Korean village who seems ill-equipped for his job: he shows up late; appears to be afraid of confrontation; and overall, he doesn't seem to have a clue about much at all. After being called to a grisly murder scene, it's obvious that neither he, nor any of his fellow officers are prepared to deal with what they find. Then again, they probably don't see many zombie-like killers with irritated, boil-covered skin, so it's understandable.

YEAH, YOU DON'T SEE THAT EVERYDAY.

Soon enough, more murders occur, each of them involving some sort of sickness that leaves its victims covered in angry, weeping boils. At one point, the Police decide that wild mushrooms are to blame (?!?), but after hearing rumors of an old Japanese stranger who lives in the forest, Jong-Goo begins to wonder; everything was fine before the stranger arrived, and he's shown up at every murder scene to watch the Police work, so there has to be something sinister about him. After a local man swears that he saw the stranger feeding on wild animals, with red, Demonic eyes, that stared into his soul, Jong-Goo is convinced of it.

HE IS KINDA CREEPY...

When Jong-Goo's daughter falls ill to the plague that's been sweeping through the village, he sets out to confront the stranger with the help of his partner and a local Deacon. It doesn't go well. Desperate for help, a suave Shaman is called in to put a Death Hex on the Japanese stranger, as that will no doubt cleanse the village of his evil presence. Add to that a mysterious woman in white, and things go from bad to worse pretty quick.

WHAT IS SHE ON ABOUT?

The Wailing is a long movie. clocking in at 2 hours and 35 minutes. It's a tough watch in that respect, and it could have benefited from a bit of a trim here or there, but even in its over-long state, it's one of the most engaging Thrillers that we've seen this year.

I'm still trying to grasp what the movie was truly about, as some of it makes very little sense. There's definitely an evil presence in the small village which is making people sick and causing them to commit some heinous murders, but then again, there could be more to it than that. I view it as a straight-forward Supernatural tale, but that doesn't mean that it is.

That very mystery had us going the whole time, wondering just who was causing the sickness, possessions, and re-animation of corpses, or if it was anyone at all. The Japanese guy is obviously an evil Demon, but then again he could be a innocent man who is swept up in some good old fashioned xenophobia once things start to go wrong in his new S.Korean hometown; then there's the mysterious woman in white, who seems to delight in tormenting Jong-Goo, and is also sufficiently creepy, so what if she's somehow behind the occurrences; and of course there's something not completely right about the flashy Shaman who shows up and makes a big production out of cleansing the village of its evil...

***BEWARE SPOILERS*** This movie had us guessing as to what in the hell was really going on up until the end, and in the end, we were satisfied. Without giving too much away, there's a biblical element to the movie that involves spirits using human beings for their own ends. It kind of felt like a chess game between good and evil, with Jong-Goo being the main pawn. It was clear to us that the Japanese stranger was a in fact a Demon, and that the Shaman was also one, perhaps even the strangers apprentice. As for the woman in white, we're pretty sure that she was a good entity who was trying to help Jong-Goo. I'm not sure why he was punished (the woman in white's explanation that he had "sinned' made no sense, because that "sin" didn't happen until well into the movie, and by then he had already been plagued with terrible things), but in the end, it was all about his journey.
***END SPOILERS***

Then comes the ending, which wraps everything up in horrific, heartbreaking fashion.

DUDE, SHE'S CONTAGIOUS. BACK OFF.

There's some nasty bits throughout the movie, including animal sacrifices, some grisly murder scenes, and a disturbing, blood-soaked finale.

WELL, HELL....

A sex scene, but nothing gratuitous at all.

THIS MOVIE WAS TOO CREEPY TO BE SEXY.

S. Korea is rife with Supernatural activity. And Serial Killers. And inept Cops.

THE KOREAN TONY ROBBINS.

We really liked The Wailing, and it was a fantastic movie, but it left us with an odd taste in our mouth. I think that its over-abundance of humor towards the beginning caught us off guard, as we were expecting a scary and more serious movie from the get. I think we'd have to watch it again to see how we truly feel about it. It may even go up a half grade or so, who knows.

As it stands though, The Wailing is an excellent Supernatural Thriller, and one that you should seek out and experience when you get the chance.

B+

The Wailing is in theaters (Limited) right now.

Woo-hee Chun is in this.

Blu-ray Review: Snowpiercer (2014)

(aka The Train of Life)
Release Date: June 27th Limited, U.S. 
Country: S. Korea, USA, France, Czech Republic.
Written by: Bong Joon-Ho and Kelly Masterson.
Directed by: Bong Joon-Ho.
Starring: Chris Evans, Song Kang-Ho, Tilda Swinton, Ah-sung Ko, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, Luke Pasqualino, Alison Pill, John Hurt, and Ed Harris.

Snowpiercer has already been released in plenty of Countries around the World (its best to check IMDB for which ones, because it's a long list), but we here in The States won't be seeing it until June 27th, when it gets a Limited Theatrical release. Of course with Transformers Part 14 coming out that very same week, Snowpiercer will go largely unnoticed by audiences as they instead flock to see the latest big budget tent-pole juggernaut.

Shame, that, because Snowpiercer is a great movie that has plenty of subtext and substance to offer audiences... which is probably the exact reason that they will go and see the latest Michael Bay Gem instead.

So it turns out that Global Warming is in fact a real thing, and a trickier bastard than we could have ever imagined; you see, it tricked us into fighting it, and by doing so, we triggered a new ice age which pretty much killed all life on the planet... All life that is except for the life which still lives on the massive, global-spanning train called the Snowpiercer!

Yeah, the world is pretty much a big freezer now, and it's our own fault.

The Snowpiercer runs on a perpetual-motion engine, which means that it never stops traversing the null the system of tracks that its creator, Gingle*, laid out years before in his bid to dominate global rail travel. *We think his name was Gingle, or something close. We can't remember. Either way, it's pretty much life as usual aboard the Snowpiercer, at least as far as class systems go; the "Social Elite" live at the front of the train, and they have it way better than do the "Poor Losers" who live in the cars at the rear.

It's good to see that the old "put shoe on head" gag survives the apocalypse.

Curtis, one of the aforementioned poor losers, is tired of the pricks at the front of the train treating he and his people like slave livestock; they feed them only mysterious, nasty, gelatinous protein blocks; they periodically take their kids away, never to return them; and they have bacon. Of course this means that revolution in nigh, and so a plan to get to the front of the train and take control of the engine, is put into motion.

"We're here for the fucking bacon!"

Will Curtis and his band of usurpers make it to the engine and topple Gingle's evil New World Order? Will freedom and equality ever be had for all aboard the Snowpiercer? And what exactly is in those nasty protein bocks? Far be it from us to spoil anything for you here, but suffice it to say that things get pretty crazy, and it's mostly Tilda Swinton's fault. Her and those damned eggs.

"Put... this shoe... on your FUCKING HEAD!"

It's not a movie without flaws, but on the whole, Snowpiercer was one hell of a good time. We're suckers for a good Post Apocalyptic story, and when that story is full of action and interesting characters (played by great actors), we're even bigger suckers. We'll admit that some of the CGI looked like CGI, but we were so sucked in by the dire and cold atmosphere of the frozen world, and the bleak hopelessness of the train and its downtrodden, that it didn't ruin anything for us.

At its heart, Snowpiercer is a movie about the haves and the have nots of a Post Apocalyptic world. In this dystopian future, the rich and elite members of society want to keep the poor and unfortunate in their places, so as not to disturb the status quo. Sure, everyone aboard the train is alive, but it's really only the people at the front of the train who are living well. Everyone else exists to make that better life possible for those lucky enough to be living it. This is definitely a movie that is heavily steeped in metaphor.

The movie boasts one hell of a cast as well. Chris Evans has been the man for a long while now, and not just because of Captain America; the kid has proven that he has chops (both dramatic and comedic) time and time again, and with Snowpiercer, he's raised his dramatic game up to an even higher level. On the Korean side of the same awesome actor coin, is Song Kang-Ho; if you aren't familiar with South Korean films, then you're probably not familiar with his work, which is a shame. The guy has a dynamic range, and is a pleasure to watch in everything he's in. These two guys together, made Snowpiercer a better movie.

Everyone else was great in this one too, and I'm not going to list them all individually, but I will say that as someone who usually isn't the biggest fan of Tilda Swinton, she was ridiculously great here. It was honestly mesmerising watching what she did with her character, and our hats are off to her performance. We also didn't recognize Luke Pasqualino from Skins until after the fact, and it was fun to see him kick so much ass as Gray in this one.

These guys look like survivors of the Michigan Winter of 2014.

We would have liked to have seen a bot more of the "aftermath" of the movie's goings-on at the end. The build-up to the climax was great, but then the movie ended abruptly and left us with a lot of questions. Then again, we had a lot of questions before the movie ended too, so I don't know.

We just wanted more! *Answers and movie.

Oh right, because chickens survived the ice age!

That song. What in the hell was with that song!? Even worse were the Stepford Wife & her Demon Kids who sang it. Truly creepy.

There's a lot of quirkiness going on in this movie, and that's to be expected from anything written and directed by someone from South Korea, but man was that scene just odd and uncomfortable.

"Praise be to Gingle! Gweechy gwee!"

Violence and gore are all over the place in this one, because it's a movie about revolution! The nastiest bits come during the very South Korean-esque group fight scenes, and we all know that South Korean genre flicks do not shy away from the violence and gore.

Nope.

Don't ever go head-to-head with Captain America, because you will lose, sir! Also, it was not Soylent Green after all.

"Then what was it?"

Snowpiercer is a great Post Apocalyptic Sci-Fi flick, that will undoubtedly end up being a Cult Classic for most fans of the genre. If you like your action balanced with an equal amount of substance, and if you're willing to suspend your disbelief as far as certain plot elements are concerned, then you'll most likely love this movie as much as we did.

If not, then you always have Transformers 32 to look forward to this Summer. Either way, you win.

B+

Here's a special treat for all of you guys and gals that love the idea of seeing Chris Evans with his shirt off. Also, some Alison Pill.