past two years, some Korean realist works began to decline after experiencing initial admiration. Those settings that deliberately blackmail the public prosecutors and criticize corruption in any story appear to be more performative, but lose the sharpness and strength of the early days. For example, the recent famous "Tunnel" inevitably fell into such a rut. Under such a background, it is not difficult to understand that "Train to Busan" is popular. It is another possibility that has grown up in the Korean film industry. A fictional, commercial and complete work that asks about human nature rather than just staying on the surface of politics.
There are a lot of gems in the zombie theme, let alone the movie, the American drama "The Walking Dead" is actually difficult to surpass. Due to the limited space, it is impossible for the movie to slowly show the transformation of human nature and people's heart like the American drama, a little trembling. Different people's world views and values fall out, and it is impossible to trace back to each person's background to achieve a sensational effect, but "Train to Busan" still presents the most important aspects of the zombie theme in a refined way.
Shi Yu, the fund manager, took his daughter to Busan, where he was about to send his daughter to his ex-wife. On the way, he accidentally encountered a zombie virus outbreak in the car. This kind of setting is very clever. As a low-cost movie, it effectively controls the investment in location and special effects, and abandons the majestic scene of zombies marching in the mountains and fields like "The Walking Dead", but completely transforms it into a A brutal human experiment in a cramped space. In terms of the story itself, it helps the audience to focus on several protagonists and maximize the benefits. In terms of effect presentation, the catastrophe of the external environment can be solved through a few scenes and zombies passing by the car window. The processing method of leaving blank has an unexpected fear effect.
In other words, the director not only clearly used the zombie theme, but also subtly reversed and dismantled the theme, drawing from works such as "Snowpiercer", "Murder on the Orient Express", "The Walking Dead", "Monster on the Han River" and so on. And mix and match, in the end, "Train to Busan" has become a narrative template in a closed space with the shell of customs clearance and monsters, the core of human experimentation, and the name of the zombie theme. After all the cruelty and collapse, there was still hope, and the child and a pregnant woman survived. The child sang a gentle ballad. The song that was originally dedicated to his father has now become an elegy for mankind. After just witnessing the fission of human nature, the child is still moved by singing this unique way of human beings. similar. All this meets the basic requirements of commercial genre films.
In this sense, "Train to Busan" can almost be used as a template and teaching material for East Asian small-scale disaster films. Disconnecting from the topic of external production, talking about the content, several flips of "Train to Busan" and the discussion of human nature are also just right.
Different from the setting of similar movies in the United States, basically that type of work has a standard leader-type protagonist, but the male protagonist in "Train to Busan" appeared with a problem, selfish and cowardly, but after that, it was reality. Some kind of brilliance came out. This kind of setting makes it easier for people to get emotional. At the same time, the pros and cons of this film are very clear. The hero Shi Yu and the uncle who is struggling to protect his family are obviously the righteous side, and the executive of the extremely selfish transportation company represents the "bad guy" in the ordinary sense. ", with the deepening of the catastrophe, everyone's careful thinking and the light and dark of human nature that burst out in the face of big right and wrong, all appear real and credible, which is a layer of individualized spiritual variation; and later, people's fear The feeling urges the speed of human hearts to mutate, and one group of people begins to disbelieve the other group. Under the instigation of some people, they refuse to enter their own compartments to avoid danger. At that moment, a strong torture arises: what determines a person? To be identified as human? The difference between humans and those zombies is obviously not just an explicit feature, because you look at those humans who have not been infected yet, but they have the same cruel heart as the zombies. But are they still human when they refuse to help their own kind out of danger, preferring to watch them die than to help them? This unanswerable question transcends the individual level and constitutes a question at the gang level. In fact, most zombie films are about people, and people are often more terrifying than zombies.
As for the handling of death, "Train to Busan" has also been very successful. To put it bluntly, both the good and the bad are dead. The father, who symbolizes the good side of humanity, chose self-determination because he was infected and did not want to hurt his children, and the uncle, who represented the bad guy, died tragically in the cataclysm. Everyone is equal in the face of death. This way of handling not only successfully triggers the climax of sadness, but also perfectly avoids the old-fashioned tune of punishing evil and promoting good.
"Train to Busan" perfectly transplants the typical Western-style setting of zombies into another civilization. It combines different backgrounds, but reflects universal human nature. In this sense, Korean films climb up again and again, allowing people to witness multi-dimensional digging, and this kind of non-stop experimentation itself is enough to be respected.
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