Train to Busan (Movie) / Ep. 77

On Episode 77 of the Daebak K-Rambles Podcast, Jess and friend of the pod Nas from the Swoon Diaries Podcast kick off Spooky SZN 2024 with a review of Train to Busan (2016), starring Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Choi Woo-shik, and Jung Yu-mi.

Jess and Nas discuss this heart pounding and heartfelt horror flick, talking through a brief history of zombie cinema, what makes Train to Busan so critically acclaimed and special, the amazing performances, especially from child actress Kim Su-an, the themes and context that might escape the casual viewer, the most memorable scenes, and more.

GUEST: Nas

• Swoon Diaries Podcast: Available on Spotify, Google, Apple
• Instagram: @swoondiariespod
• Twitter: @swoondiariespod
• YouTube

Intro Music Credit: “Golden Coconut Club” by Tearliner, from the Cheese in the Trap OST. Used with permission from the artist.

Rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, follow us on all the socials, and be sure to let us know what you want to see in Season 6!

Episode Transcript

(00:19):
I'm Jessica and this is Teba K Rambles where a couple of
friends review Korean dramas, except we are officially out of
season 5. Season 5 has concluded.
We are not reviewing Korean dramas because we are officially
in spooky season. Woo.
So dad with me on this very first spooky season episode, Nas

(00:42):
from the Swoon Diaries podcast. How are you Nas?
I'm good. How are you, Jess?
Good. I'm so pumped to be here and
cover this first movie. This spooky season is going to
be a little different from the last one that we did in 2023.
We are going to be covering movies and it is solely because
your girl did have no time. I had no time to sit here and

(01:04):
watch another show in its entirety and cover it for spooky
season. And I thought it was just unfair
to not do anything at all for spooky season.
I think it's kind of nice to cover Korean cinema.
I go back to my roots. I did five years of movie
podcasting with always the critics.
I was like, let's do some K cinema, K horror, K thriller.

(01:28):
And today we are starting off our spooky season 2024 with
Train to Pusan. Yay.
So I, I did an APB on the Insta stories to see if any creators
were interested in jumping on and doing a guest spot for one

(01:50):
of these spooky season episodes because it was kind of coming
together really quickly and you were like, count me in for Train
to Pusan. I was like, yes, I'll do it.
And I was like, oh, OK, great. So like, I wrote your name down
and I, I penciled you in immediately.
It wasn't until a couple of daysago that you were like, OK,

(02:10):
pressing play on train to Pusan,excited to watch.
I don't know what to expect. And I was like, wait a minute,
wait a minute, wait a minute. You'd not watched Train to Pusan
before I, I completely had this all wrong.
I thought that you had already seen Train to Pusan.
Nope, Nope. You like sent me the message in

(02:34):
all caps like wait, you haven't watched it?
I was like, no, such a baby. I've never watched it before.
I like lost it. Like I told my sister I was
like, wait a minute, wait a minute, my friend as I watched
Train to Pusan, like this recording is going to be crazy.
And she was like really? Even I've watched Train to Pusan
and she loves watching anything with subtitles.

(02:57):
So I was like, I don't know whatto expect here.
Like, is she going to love it? Is she going to hate it?
So this is going to be a very interesting start to the spooky
season. Really.
Really fun and interesting startif you can't hear the smile in
our voices. We are so happy and so excited
to be here. We're going to get started.
But before we do, if this is your first time listening, go

(03:19):
ahead and subscribe on your favorite podcast app.
We're on Apple podcast, Spotify,Google podcast and many more.
If you like us, please give us afive star review on Apple
Podcast and Spotify. Come check us out on social
media to stay up to date on our latest episodes and reviews.
You can find us on X, formerly Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and
TikTok at Debakpod. Lastly, if you're a fan, please
consider becoming a patron. It's a great way for you to get

(03:42):
involved and show your support. Big change though, our new
Patreon page is patreon.com/debakpod.
Once again, the Patreon is patreon.com/debakpod and shout
out to our patrons Janet, Curtis, Bail, CD, Alana, Grace,
Lorna, Adya, Sammy, Caitlin, Julia, Michelle, Tenmi, Aaron,
Martha, Delphia, Maria, Kelly and Fatima.

(04:04):
Thank you guys, love you guys. All right, so we are going to
get going on Train to Busan. IMDb synopsis reads.
While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers
struggle to survive on the trainfrom Seoul to Busan.
And that's it. That's that's all there is for
the line to be synopsis. It's very accurate though.

(04:26):
It's that's That's it. Literally it.
Literally it. This movie was released July
20th in 2016. It is summer blockbuster.
It's an hour and 58 minutes long, basically two hours.
It's directed by Yon Sangho, andthis is actually their
director's first live action film.
Before this he was doing just animated features.

(04:49):
Oh wow. Yeah, and if you look at his
filmography since he's done somethings you might recognize, like
Hellbound from 2021. That's a six episode K drama.
Jung, I can't remember how you pronounce that but I watched
this movie from 2023 as well. It's kind of like a sci-fi

(05:09):
dystopian future. And then Parasite the Grey from
this year 2024. It's also a six episode K drama.
He also wrote the screenplay forTrain to Busan and his cool
screenwriter was Pak Jusuk Who Ialso wrote Hua Yi a Monster Boy

(05:29):
and Project Silence. I have always wanted to watch
Hua Yi a Monster Boy and when I looked up the cast for Project
Silence I was like Yep I totallywant to watch Project Silence as
well. So two other movies that look
really good and really promising.
This movie stars, I don't know, some little known actor named

(05:51):
Kung Yu. He plays the main characters so
cool. We have Ma Dong Sok as well.
He plays Sang Hua. He is married to the character
Song Kyung, who's played by JungYumi.
We've got Kim SU Wan, we've got Che Wushi.

(06:12):
And this is, this is like it's shaping up, right?
Yes. Kim We Song plays like this
Ajishi character on the basically a villain guy on the
train so he plays Jinhi and thena couple of Halmoniz, Ye SU Jung

(06:33):
and Pak Myeongchen as well. This is a very well liked, well
regarded cast. They've been in K dramas left
and right, other Korean movies as well.
What did you think of this cast?I so going into the movie, I
literally only knew that Gong Yuwas in it.
Oh really? But then I start the movie and

(06:54):
I'm like, whoa, I know all thesepeople.
So I was like, oh, this is amazing.
Like especially Che Wu Chic. I did not know he was in the
movie. I didn't know Jung Yu Yu was in
this movie. Like I saw all these familiar
faces and I was like, Oh my gosh, like these are my people.
So I was really excited to see like how they were all the kind
of going to interact like throughout the film.

(07:16):
So do you like zombie movies is my first question.
No. I don't like zombie anything.
Like I like I said in the beginning, I'm such a baby.
Like I'm so scared of everything.
Like I don't usually watch like anything like horror zombies,
like nothing. But I was like, I really want to
watch Train to Busan because I feel like it's like a rite of

(07:37):
passage. Like you have to watch Train to
Busan. So I was like, Oh my gosh, this
will be a great opportunity to watch it, which is why I wanted
to. And I was like, I just got to
put my big girl pants on and getthrough the movies.
Yeah, this movie did incredibly well.
I think it made 90 on a budget of 10 billion won, which is

(08:00):
about $7.5 million. And I don't know if you anything
know anything about movies. This is nothing.
Yeah. This is a budget of nothing.
Yeah, that was way lower than what I was expecting when you
said it. I was like, wait, wow.
And it ended up grossing $92 million worldwide.

(08:20):
That's amazing. It is was a runaway hit.
I think it's in the top ten highest grossing films in South
Korea. Certified fresh on Rotten
Tomatoes, like 90 something percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
I can't remember what it is. That just means that 90
something percent of verified critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave

(08:41):
it a positive review. Amazing, yeah.
It is incredibly well regarded. You don't like zombie movies?
Had you seen any of, you know, forget the Korean zombie media?
Yeah, had you seen other zombie movies pre 2016?

(09:03):
No, like I've never watched any zombie movie.
I've never watched Walking Dead.Like I stayed far away from
those. Things.
Oh my God. OK OK, so I'm going to give you
like a really quick crash coursein zombies really fast.
I'm talking like 2 minutes. OK so zombies have always

(09:23):
existed in folklore. The word zombie comes from the
West African word zombie, which means spirit of a dead person,
and the Haitian Creole word zombie, which means a dead
person that's been reanimated bymagical means.
So. Yes.
So it has been around in folklore and different cultural

(09:44):
traditions, and then it's been around in books, literature and
in movies as well. Movies have been around for a
little over 100 years. Like films in general.
Right. But the modern zombie basically
started in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead by George A

(10:07):
Romero. George A Romero directed and
wrote Night of the Living Dead and went on to basically make a
career out of making zombie movies and doing sequels and
different things like that to Night of the Living Dead.
And Night of the Living Dead is black and white, even though
they had color film by that point.

(10:29):
That movie terrified people. People had never seen something
like that before. Yeah, I would imagine so.
Yeah, and George A Romero set upa lot of tropes that we see in
zombie movies, zombie media, andwe see them subverted a lot in
zombie movies and zombie media. So train to Pusan knowing like a

(10:51):
quick primer on zombies. Yeah.
For George A Romero, the zombieswere always slow.
They were slow moving. They ate brains.
They were mindless. Since then, the zombies have
evolved from different creators.They have become faster.
Some zombies speak and have a mind of their own.

(11:13):
Some zombies are capable of loveand coming back to their human
selves. Some zombies are not created
from rising back up from the dead through supernatural means.
They are created from aliens, created from biotech disasters,
as in trying to push on, createdfrom human intervention, created

(11:38):
from disease and plagues. And they don't just eat brains
anymore, they just love to eat human flesh.
I think that, how do I put it, Chante Pusan doesn't do anything
necessarily new that's outside of the genre, right?
But it's still amazing. Yeah, I agree.

(12:03):
So tell me your thoughts, like how did you feel watching this
movie coming without like you'reblind, you don't know anything
about zombies at all. Right.
I going into it, I was just likebracing myself for like, OK,
like one of the zombies coming. And then when it started

(12:24):
happening, I was like, OK. And I have to say that I'm a
person that like I, I'm my tolerance for scary things would
think it's very low, like it's on the ground.
But like I watched this movie, yes, there were seeds and I was
like, oh, it's a little disturbing or a little like that
was that was interesting. But like I slept very well
afterwards. Like I was, I was fine.

(12:46):
But even though, like, the movieis very thrilling and you're
like, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen?
I just thought it was so well done because you're not only
seeing them like, you know, run away from the zombies and trying
to survive, but you're also seeing kind of human nature and
like, what people are willing todo to survive.
It's like some people take like this more selfish route.
Some people are like, we're selfless.

(13:06):
Some people started off selfish and then they become selfless by
the end. So it's, like, really
interesting to see, like, human behavior in that way as they
dealt with this complete catastrophe on the train.
So, yeah, I thought it was really, really fascinating.
And just like, so well done because it was so layered.
It just wasn't like a horror film.
There was so much more to it. And the acting was so good.

(13:30):
I know. And Gong, you looked amazing.
Yeah, he looked amazing in this movie.
Like the first scene. I was just like, wow.
Like this is 2016 Gong? He.
Looked so good. Yep, this is the same year that
Goblin came out. Yes, I want to say like 2016 was
a great year. I see.

(13:51):
It was just a general for movies, dramas, like things were
going really great, so. I'm really great.
I rewatched Train to Pusan and Iwas trying to pinpoint why I
love it so much and why it's so well received even though it's
not doing anything new necessarily in the genre.

(14:13):
And I think it has everything todo with sort of its Korean
sensibility and how it is focusing a lot on heart.
It has so much heart. Besides all the exciting and
captivating moments and thrilling action horror that the
movie has, it is compelling because of the characters that

(14:36):
you care so deeply for. Yes, this train crew, you're
like, none of these people can die.
Like I cannot stand it if any one of these people dies.
Yeah, you get so attached to them in such a short amount of
time, and when you see things start happening, you're just
like, oh, no, oh, no, oh, it's just another one and another

(14:56):
one. And it's devastating.
And I didn't think that I would be devastated in a movie like
this. I wasn't expecting it.
It is devastating. Oh my God, yeah.
I think that it leaves you emotionally drained, yes.
I think horror really works whenit's being done to someone you
care about. And what's cool about some of

(15:18):
these characters is that besidessome of them being straight,
like they're quote UN quote goodcharacters, Konyo is not
necessarily a good character. Right, Right.
He's very morally Gray, yes. And he's not a good father,
really. Right.
You know he's working through it.

(15:38):
And sure, the protection aspect is almost like baseline.
Every parent should protect their child.
Right. But like, he's not doing the
day-to-day, being present, beingan active listener, caring for
his child's emotional needs. And that is a huge part of this

(16:00):
very nuanced and interesting father daughter dynamic that you
see throughout the movie. That is the emotional touch
point. That's what makes you cry at the
end of the. Movie, yes, yes, exactly.
If you put that so well. But yeah, I totally agree.
So it's thrilling, it feels fresh, and it's almost like if

(16:25):
you're gonna do something, do itwell.
Yes, exactly, exactly. And it does everything
particularly well. Yeah, it managed to just have so
much depth and I was like, I understand why this movie is so
popular and like well loved and well regarded, especially in the
realm of like zombie movies, because I feel like it's so much
more than that it. Is, and that's the thing, right,

(16:46):
is that I feel like a lot of Korean media that we are so
entrenched in and we're so familiar with, they are tapping
into emotions, relationships. And that's what this movie does
incredibly well, and it does it within two hours.

(17:08):
It packed so much in it packed. A lot in.
Yeah, yeah. Wow.
OK, there's. A lot of tenderness between the
characters. Yes.
I think this movie does well. A lot of zombie movies, most
zombie movies do this as well, is that they comment on things
through the lens of zombies or using zombies as a metaphor.

(17:32):
And in this case, the movie comments suddenly on class
warfare. You know, you have characters
who, and we're familiar with this too, like being so familiar
with Korean media, Korean entertainment, and getting a
huge dose of Korean culture through that.
The Korean hierarchy, how peoplewith better jobs, better

(17:55):
positions, people who make more money get more say in how things
are are done, how important matters are handled.
People with less power are relegated to lesser positions,
are silenced in high stress situations, in situations where

(18:17):
maybe they're in our society. That's not necessarily how it
is. Like when you watch zombie media
over here, the class warfare thing doesn't come up very
often. Right, right.
Right, right. It's more like every person has
an equal say. Exactly.
When you watch Train to Pusan, it's very clear that certain

(18:41):
characters are given a lot bigger of a voice.
And so you have this like subtleclass warfare going.
Many concepts double as opportunities to comment on the
government's inability to handlethis situation.
Yeah, yeah. And what sucks is like four

(19:01):
years later, we go through a pandemic.
Right. Zombie movies and Contagion
movies, like the movie Contagionitself was like, that's very
triggering. Yeah, yeah.
Because it's handled kind of better in contagion than it was
in real life. Why couldn't we have done that?

(19:21):
When you see the broadcasts in Train to Busan of like, trust
your government, don't worry, there's nothing to panic, stay
in place, yada yada. And then it is juxtaposed
against what is actually happening outside.
That makes the government look terrible, right?
Doesn't it make the government look inadequate at handling this

(19:46):
situation? Like they're not going to take
care of you. No one is going to save you.
It's commenting a lot on things zombies themselves have always.
You know, ever since George A Romero put his hands on zombies,
they have been a vehicle for commenting on social issues like
racism. 1968, right? Like if you think of what was

(20:08):
happening in the States in 1968,you're immediately like, Oh
yeah, like zombies and, and people that are other zombies
can be seen as being. Dehumanizing because they're
just animalistic. They're just based on instinct.
They preys on our fears of the apocalypse, of everything that

(20:32):
we've built being abandoned and destroyed.
If preys on like indifference, where zombies have no feelings
whatsoever, no, no anxiety, no happiness, no No Fear.
They just, they just are. They're indifferent to your
screams of pain and terror. You know, mass contagion, which

(20:54):
again, our fears of mass contagion now, the way we look
at trains, Pusana and fears of mass contagion now in 2024 is
way different than how we saw itin 2016, I'm afraid.
Right, right. Because.
But yeah, living through a pandemic will give you a
different perspective for sure. Exactly.

(21:14):
But zombies, you know that you can imprint whatever you kind of
want onto them because they can represent a lot of things.
I really like the zombie sub genre of horror and they are
still terrifying to me. I'm a I'm a huge fan of zombie

(21:38):
movies and media. I have not watched everything.
There is no way that I can watcheverything.
There is so many things even like B&C level movies that like
I've don't even know. I don't know what I don't know,
but there's a lot of media out there that I have watched and I
eat it up every time it's. Not eating up every time.

(22:01):
But yeah, I really appreciate Train to Pusan for what it does,
the cast that it assembled, the way that it looks, the
cinematography of it. I think it's done incredibly
well. So I'm glad that you enjoyed it
and that you were able to sleep well afterwards.
Yes, I was. I got through it and I yeah, it

(22:23):
was, it was a great experience. I'm really proud of myself.
Are you willing to watch other zombie movies out of Korea?
Movies I I don't know, I have totake it one step at a time.
I think I would probably maybe start with a show like I really
want to watch, like Happiness orsomething like that.
Like I want to try that, OK or like Kingdom and see if I can

(22:45):
like get through it. OK, I'd watch Happy.
OK, so let's take this slow. I would recommend for you.
I would recommend Happiness first, OK?
It will scare you. Yeah.
But it does have this central friends to lovers couple.
Yeah, that is very strong. I love Han Hyo juice.
She's like my girl crush forever.

(23:07):
And another member of the Luga squad in it.
Pakyung Sheikh. Yes, Pakyung Sheikh.
It's very good. I love that show.
Kingdom is going to scare the shit out of you.
OK, so I won't go. I won't.
Watch that. Yeah, just being honest.
I don't know if you can handle Cape Town.
You said just being honest. It's amazing.

(23:31):
It is amazing. Basically prestige television.
Wow. Highly recommend Kingdom, but
it's going to scare the shit outof you if you if you got through
change to Brusan and you're kindof like you're kind of like
this, like shaking a little bit.Still, yeah, I wouldn't go with.
Kingdom. OK, so no Kingdom.

(23:54):
Or all of us are dead. All of us are dead.
It's very good, but I think it might be also a little more high
stress than happiness. It's less stress than Kingdom
maybe. Somewhere in the middle.
Somewhere in the middle more more on the side of Kingdom,
but. Yeah, OK.

(24:15):
That's a good crash course. I'll start with happiness.
You know, if you wanna watch a zombie movie, a Korean zombie
movie, I would actually recommend The Odd Family AKA
Zombie for Zombie for sale. It's a horror comedy.
OK. So it's not like it's not
leading into the terror aspect of things too much.

(24:36):
Oh, no. It's scary, but it's not gonna.
It's funny. Like, have you seen maybe Shawn
of the Dead? Have you seen?
I haven't seen Shawn of the Dead.
So horror comedy might be a goodAve. for you to dip your toes
into like that aesthetic. You're going to get those scary
looking zombies, but it's funny.It's a dark comedy.
OK, OK. I think I could stomach.

(24:58):
That and then when you the next level would probably be like
hashtag alive with UI in who's like a trapped gamer, like the
apocalypse, those zombie apocalypse happens and he's in
his apartment just gaming. Oh wow, he's.
Like a He's almost like a recluse and he can't leave now.

(25:18):
He can't leave his apartment. Yikes.
It's good. It's really good.
That's a really good one. I think after that you can maybe
watch Rampant, which is historical with Hilben.
OK, he's fighting zombies in like the Jolson era.
I can't remember what era it is.Oh wow, the.
Jolson era. No, it's amazing.
It's really good. The last one.

(25:40):
I don't think you'll ever get tothis level.
It's the whaling. That sounds terrifying.
Like I feel like any horror movie that starts with the
anything, I feel like it's always just like, no thank you.
OK, so I watched the whaling several months ago, I think
towards the beginning of the year.
And I'll tell you something about myself.

(26:01):
I get really brave, like 1-2 in the morning and I thought the.
Middle of the night too. Middle of the night I thought
I'm going to finally watch the whaling, which I heard is one of
the best scary thriller horror movies out of Korea.

(26:21):
And I start, I press play on thewhaling and I was because I
don't like watching things that are almost like spiritual in
nature. Yeah, yeah.
And the ending of the whaling, it's like zombies but make a

(26:43):
spiritual slash ghosty and it was very disturbing.
It is a disturbing movie. Yes, and that's what I don't
like about it. Like, just things that I find,
yeah, disturbing, like. Disturbing like my spirit.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying? There's a difference, yeah.
Like I couldn't sleep well the next couple of nights.

(27:04):
I was very distraught after watching the whaling.
And I mean, if that's your cup of tea, definitely watch the
whaling. I thought it was excellent.
Like from a technical aspect, it's written amazing.
The acting was excellent. It's so atmospheric and all
these things. But then the actual experience

(27:24):
of watching it, I was like, I can't do that two times in a
row. And I put I put the whaling on
the pole, the Patreon pole of what I should cover for the
spooky season this year. And I was like, I hope to God
nobody chooses it. I think I got like a few votes
on it, but nowhere near as many as like Train to Pusad and like
some of these other ones. And I said thank God because

(27:47):
what the hell was I thinking? Like putting that on there and
saying I was going to watch it again and cover it because the
first time nearly took me clean out.
Yeah, and you watch in the middle of the night.
And I watch in the middle of thenight like, yeah, it was bad.
It's one thing for things to be like visually scary, but like
when stuff is like disturbing tothe point you feel like

(28:08):
unsettled and just like ooh, like it's I hate that feeling,
which is why I don't do scary things.
So I don't like to be disturbed,but trans to Busan wasn't
disturbing to me. Yes, yes.
So with that being said, I'll say some fun facts before we
give our scores and go into the spoiler section to talk a little
bit more at length about specifically what happens in the

(28:32):
movie and some of our favorite parts and sequences.
So yes, fun facts, Soul Station,I don't know if you've heard
this of this movie, Soul Stationis an animated feature length
zombie movie that serves as a prequel to the live action
horror hit Train to Pusan. So the director, as I said, has
a history of doing animated feature length films.

(28:54):
And so he did Soul Station basically almost exactly at the
same time as Train to Pusan, andit serves as a prequel.
So if you want to, you can watchSoul Station.
It's animated. Then watch Train to Busan.
Then watch Peninsula from 2020, which is the sequel to Train to
Busan. It takes place four years after

(29:15):
the events of Train to Busan. And that one is like a heist
movie. Yeah, I watched Peninsula and it
was one of the 1st movies I watched back in theaters during
the pandemic. OK, it's OK, it's fine.
It does. It just doesn't have the heart

(29:35):
of the original movie, which is I think a lot of people were
expecting that same feeling. But you don't get it.
With Peninsula, it's a lot more standard.
Whatever. Sohi, who plays Shanee, is an ex
member of the famous K pop groupWonder Girls.
So when she pops up on screen, the Korean audience is like, Oh

(29:57):
my God, it's a Wonder Girl. It's a wonderful.
But even when she came on the screen, I was just like, she's
deaf. She has to be like in some sort
of group or something. Like I just knew it.
Yeah. You just know sometimes that
like the way that they they allow the character to enter the
scene that they were. There's somebody that you should
know. Yeah, this is not the first

(30:17):
Zombies on a Train film. Horror Express from 1972,
tackled a similar subject, albeit less frenetically.
Is what IMDb said. This is the last thing I'll say.
There is somewhere out there an American remake of Train to
Busan called The Last Train to New York was supposed to release

(30:37):
in 2023. We are still waiting.
Not sure anyone is really expecting much from that.
Perhaps it'll never get a release date.
I don't know if that's going to be any good at all.
I don't know if it's going to have the same like impact, I
don't know. Not everything used to be
remade. Yeah, I don't have high hopes
for for that at all. At all.

(30:59):
What would you give Chain to Pusan out of five Soulja?
Bottles I give a 5 out of five. I really enjoyed it.
It's I think it's excellent likeagain, it's not my usual choice
of of you know, film, but it is very well executed, very well
acted. The story is solid everything
made sense. It has a lot of heart to to it

(31:22):
and over a short amount of time you really do fall in love with
these characters and you're justseeing human nature just play
itself out. And I thought it was fascinating
and very well done. I have no complaints.
It was great. I agree completely.
I would give this maybe 4 1/2 out of five Soulja bottles just

(31:43):
to be a little fresh with it. Just to be a little.
Fresh, you know, just to be different.
But I love this movie. I watch, I rewatch it at least
once a year, especially during this season.
It still holds up. It's great.
It's very well done. It's very well done.
I love that you watch it once a year.

(32:04):
I do, I basically watch it once a year.
I don't know why I don't have iton Blu-ray, but I.
Definitely you should. At this point you should.
I'm a I'm a physical media person.
So anyway, we are going to talk more about Trent Pusan right
after this greatest trick. Houston, we have a problem.
I am the father. I see dead people, the devil.

(32:26):
Ever. Pulled.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Was convincing the world. You.
Can't handle the truth? He didn't.
Exist now what's in the box? All right, we're on the other
side of spoilers. You have just heard the old
Always the Critics spoiler bumper.
I wanted to bring it back for the spooky season.

(32:48):
It is one of my favorite things that we used to have for the
Always the Critic movie podcast.And I thought it was really
fitting because it's kind of like dark and seedy.
And I don't know, it gets a little bit of Hans Zimmer in
there. I wanted to start at the very
beginning because we get this shot of like this guy running
over a deer and the deer just like up and walks away like.

(33:12):
The deer, I was like, oh Yikes. Oh Yikes.
But we get this idea already that there is a leak in the
biotech district. This is a man made disease, a
man made pandemic. Kong Yu is a fund manager and he

(33:33):
tells his subordinate to, like, sell all related stock,
presumably of this biotech company.
He's looking at headlines of mysterious fish deaths and Chin
Yang reservoir. And it's all ends up being
connected, like he has a very small hand in this zombie

(33:54):
outbreak. How did you feel about that
small aspect or depending on howyou look at it, large aspect of
the movie that he is to blame? Yeah, I was like, oh, well, that
complicates things. Sounds like, Yikes.
That's not good because that's alot of, you know, I guess, like
harm and devastation that you'reresponsible for.

(34:15):
Like you've literally caused this countrywide issue.
Yeah, on top of this, he's a baddad because he comes, he's
fighting with his ex-wife over the phone.
He doesn't want to send her to Pusan for her birthday.
He doesn't have a present pickedout already for her birthday,
which is the next day. And he ends up just getting he's
asking like his assistant, hey, what do kids like these days?

(34:39):
Like he does not know his child.He gets her a Wii gaming console
and the moment when she looks upand there's already they cut 2
and there's already a Wii gamingconsole in her room and she just
says quietly like for children'sday, like you got me the.

(34:59):
Yeah. Devastating.
I know. Devastating.
Like the way that they both looked up slowly and the camera
just panned, I was like, this issuch a brilliant scene.
It's just like. Exactly.
It's bad that she doesn't want anything else for her birthday,
she just wants to see her mom and Pusan.
She doesn't want to bother Kong you since he's busy insisting

(35:22):
that she can just take the trainby herself.
Can you imagine this little girltaking the train by herself
while the zombie outbreak is happening?
Like she would have just gone inthe 1st.
Place. Yeah, yeah.
Disastrous. I was like, why was that even an
option? I know he doesn't attend her
recital. His mother had recorded it on on

(35:45):
this old like camcorder. And he watches her do this song
and she doesn't finish singing this song.
And later in the morning, he's taking her to the train to go
visit her mom. He's going to do it despite
being super busy at work. And he tells her, like, whatever
you do, you must finish what youstart trying to instill these

(36:08):
like little lessons without having He's trying to be like
finish what you start but not understanding like where, why
she didn't finish exactly. Exactly.
Would you find out later why shedidn't finish?
Anyway, we'll get to that. We'll get to that.
What did you think of some of these some of these beats?

(36:30):
Because I just think it's kind of masterful how they set up the
story and how they set up the characters and how in the first
act you like meet all of the players, you meet all of the
train people, they board the train.
Zombie one enters the train and you meet Madung Sook and his
pregnant wife and all all these people.
You see the the baseball team and Chaoshik and like the girl,

(36:54):
the the Wonder Girl coming on the train and like all of this
stuff. And you're like, you're
instantly because people are just living their lives.
Yeah, yeah. It was just so interesting
because you're like, everybody'scoming from like, different
walks of life and like everyone's just minding their
business. Like, you know, he's taking his
daughter to go see his mom. Like the baseball team was like
coming from a game or going to agame.

(37:16):
And like, you know, we have like, the businessmen and we
have the homies and we have the husband and wife and like, you
know, and the homeless man and like, everyone's just trying to
get by and just trying to go about their day.
And then, like, the first zombiegets on and I'm like, oh, no,
this girl. Because it was, I think it was,
yeah, it was a girl. And she was like in pain and she
was struggling. And I'm like, oh, no, oh, no.

(37:37):
And like, no one knows that she slipped off the train.
And then, like, all hell breaks loose.
And it was just just the way that it was filmed, just like
how easily it spread like wildfire in that first wave.
Like from that first bite, from that first girl that was
infected, I was just like, oh, it just happened so fast.
It just, it progressed so fast. Yeah.

(37:59):
And that was probably like the scariest part part of the movie
for me because it was just kind of like, ill like, you know,
everyone's biting each other andpeople are like rising on the
ground and their bodies are contorting.
And I'm like, ah, but it wasn't that bad after after that.
But it was like pure chaos. And you're just seeing all these

(38:20):
people just kind of look around and they're like freaking out.
And I'm thinking, what would I do if I was like on a train,
like minding my business? Yeah.
And all of a sudden, I'm seeing these zombies just like emerge
out of nowhere. It's like, what do you, what do
you do? I know.
Yeah. And you could feel the terror
from like, the passengers or just what the heck is going on?
Like, yeah, it was a it was a really great start to the movie.

(38:43):
Yeah, it's so energetic and there's so much movement in
there and the way that they shoot it is just impressive.
I think because it's the bulk ofthe movie is in a confined
space. You're on a moving locomotive
and I adore that they set it on a train, on a high speed train.

(39:05):
There's something about trains that I just love.
Like, that to me is trains are very romantic to me.
They're from a bygone era. I feel like people are more
comfortable. How do I put this?
Trains are some of the oldest forms of transportation that we
have. They're very reliable.
Yeah. There's something also, like,

(39:27):
very Hitchcockian about it. Like, I don't know if you've
watched some Hitchcock movies, but like a lot of Hitchcock
movies and especially early Hitchcock, he would set his
stuff on a train. There would always be a train in
the movie. The people would get on a train
or something would happen on a train.
And I love that. It's very like the lady vanishes

(39:47):
on a train and what are they? What are you going to do about
it? Because you have nowhere to go,
right? I just think it is.
It gives it such momentum automatically that.
They're stuck on the train with zombies.
Yeah. And it like raises the stakes as
well because they're like, they're literally just stuck
there. Yeah.

(40:07):
And so there's nowhere for them to go, and they just have to
fight their hardest to survive. So yeah, I loved the fact that
because I was wondering when I started the movie, I was like, I
think they're really going to beon the train, like the whole
time. Like, how is this going to go?
I think they did it so, so well because you could feel like the
fear or the stress, the, you know, the fact that they're
confined, you feel all of that. Yeah.
As you're watching it. So yeah, it was a great choice.

(40:29):
It's a great choice, the conceptthat you're even though you're
in a confined space and you wanna get off, you can't get off
exactly because nowhere is safe.The stations are not safe.
You can't let more zombies on. You can't let infected people
get on. Yeah, Yeah, I adored that.
I thought that was part of the brilliance of the movie was that
they just set the whole thing, most of it on the train.

(40:52):
And then they had different types of shots.
In the movie, they strap a camera in front of a zombie and
like have the camera facing the zombie and have this like awful
perspective of looking straight at the zombie as it's yes, yes,
moving about and stuff. And.
Yeah. You haven't watched a lot of
zombie stuff, but the fact that the zombies are moving very

(41:12):
fast, that goes against like theoriginal 1968 Georgia Romero
trope of them moving very slow. Yeah.
But that's what I thought too, was interesting because I did
notice in this movie that they were really fast.
Yeah. Because like my sister, she
loves The Walking Dead. At least she loved it until
apparently the show got bad. But.
OK so I stopped watching The Walking Dead when they killed

(41:34):
Glenn. Yeah, that's when she stopped
watching too. Yeah.
So yeah, yeah. And she and she was saying how
slow they are. So she was saying like, it's
very easy to like run away from them.
True. You know, you it's like, yes,
they're scary, but like you can easily kind of manipulate them
because they're so slow. So in this one, it was really
interesting to see like they would, they could Sprint.
They are. Sprinting, yeah.

(41:56):
And the speed at which they turnas well is something else.
Like some zombie movies. It takes a few hours or whatever
for it to happen. I think that this isn't new
though. Like this isn't something that
Transpo sound like just came up with.
We had already seen like fast zombies before in I believe we'd

(42:17):
already seen it in World War Z, But the first person to do fast
zombies I think was Dawn of the Dead from 2004.
So that's a remake of a George ARomero, Dawn of the Dead and
Zack Snyder, like the Zack Snyder directed that one and he
was like, I'm going to make my zombies fast.

(42:39):
So now everyone was like, Oh my God, we got to make our zombies
fast because otherwise it makes no sense.
So 2004, the fast zombies hit World War Z.
You had the quick turn. You had mere seconds before
somebody who was infected turnedinto a zombie.
I love the look of the zombies in this movie as well.

(43:01):
Like they kind of gave like a film.
They put a film over their eyes as well, so look like they kind
of had cataracts all of a sudden.
I love that they would pile on top of each other.
That's something that we've seenbefore as well.
But when they're piling on top of each other and mass, I feel
like that always works. It's always terrifying.
It's so. Terrifying.
Yeah. The violence of their movements.

(43:23):
You had like contortionist movesand stuff like that.
That's all terrifying. The sound design of them and the
crackling noises and the different thing.
Like you're just like, Oh my God, it is awful, terrible.
It's terrible, Terrible exactly.But I thought it was all really

(43:46):
well done. Like if you're gonna do the same
thing as other people, like, do it well.
And they did it well. Right.
They did. They did a great job.
It wasn't like it didn't feel, you know how sometimes you can
watch something scary and you'relike, OK, like it just feels
very campy and just over the top.
It was genuinely oh, like I feellike I'm on this train.
Like it just felt very real. It felt very real.
I think they did a good job withthat.

(44:07):
Exactly. Exactly.
So you like that first outbreak where it goes, it just runs
through the trains? Yes, yes.
Because I feel like I set up thestory just like, OK, now we're
getting started. And it didn't take too long.
I was like, OK, all right, now things are happening.
The homeless man they give you like a first fake out.

(44:27):
Yes. Where the first zombie one
boards the train and she goes into a bathroom.
The Ajashi businessman, first ofall, fuck that guy.
But anyway, he was so awful, that guy.
The stuff that he does later in the movie, the first thing that
he does is he notices that someone has boarded the train,

(44:49):
and you think he's talking aboutZombie One?
Yeah. He pulls aside one of the
attendants and he's like, somebody's on this train, you
got to get him out, yadda yadda,and he's snitching.
They go to the bathroom. They open the bathroom.
You think it's zombie one? It's not.
It's the homeless guy. Right.
Who's traumatized saying over and over, like everyone's dead.

(45:10):
Everyone's dead and shaking and like all this stuff completely,
completely out of it. This asshole says to the little
girl who's the best little girl in in, Oh my God, like ever.
I love her. She's perfect.
She was amazing in this role. She did a great job.
This guy says, hey, kid, if you don't study in school, you'll

(45:31):
end up like him. So disgusting.
And she turns to him and says, my mom says whoever says that is
a bad person, which we know how much Korean society values
education and getting ahead, doing well in school and all
this stuff. The fact that her mom is even

(45:52):
like, whoever's saying all this stuff, this cliche nonsense
about like, you better do well in school or else you're going
to be homeless or else you're going to do that.
You're going to be on the streets or whatever.
They're a bad person. Yeah, yeah.
So I feel like the mom is already in the audience's good
graces even though we never see her in the movie.

(46:13):
Even though we never meet her, never meet her, we get a glimpse
of like the type of person that she is.
Like we don't do that class of stuff.
We don't think we're better thanother people.
We don't do that. Exactly, he says.
She must have flunked. What a terrible man.
Automatically you're like fuck that guy, I hope he dies.
Terrible man. Oh God Lee he's terrible.

(46:35):
But Kong You is not that far behind because when shit starts
to go down, he's like shutting doors in people's face.
He shuts the door on Madong Sock's face, on his pregnant
wife. And later on, he tells his
daughter, you got to look out only for yourself in desperate
times like these because she gave up her seat for one of the
homonies. Yeah, yeah.

(46:57):
The little girl tells him at onepoint you only care about
yourself. That's why Mommy left.
Yeah. She said what she said.
And I feel like the daughter taught him to become more
selfless. And so throughout the movie, you
see him gradually change and he starts helping people.
He starts putting other people before himself.
And it wasn't before hearing that influence from his daughter

(47:19):
that he was like, oh, like, I need to kind of rethink how I'm
going about this. She definitely.
Because she doesn't think I'm a good person.
I also really liked that when after Kong you close the door,
I'm I don't suck. And he was just like, oh, so I
think you owe me an apology. Yeah, you just you tried to slam
the door and me and my wifes face.
You need to apologize to me likebecause I was like, I'm just

(47:40):
gonna sweep that under the rug. Yeah, I know You're like, leave
us for dead like. What?
What the fuck was that like? Yeah, Hollinson calls him on his
shit. Yes, I'd really love that, that
he was like, yeah, no, we're notgonna just pretend that didn't
happen. Yeah.
And they start talking shit about Kong you when he walks
away. At some point, I think he's on

(48:01):
the phone and they're like, hey,is that your dad?
Like your blood relation? Because blood relations are
important in Korea. And the little girl says, yes,
that's my dad. And he says, oh, sorry about it.
What does he do for a living? She goes, oh, he's a fun
manager. And he says, oh, so he's a
Leech. He's an asshole.

(48:21):
Like, you're supposed to think that Kung Yu's character is an
asshole, right? And it's pretty great that they
had Kun Yu kind of playing against type.
Yes, yes, absolutely. Because I've I've never seen him
like unlikable before. So it was.
Very interesting. Did it?
Very interesting. Yeah, exactly.
So they get into Tejon Station, This is the one that's like

(48:45):
militarized, and they're going to go into quarantine.
That moment when they're going down the escalator.
This state, the staging and the editing of this scene.
Amazing. 10 out of 10 it. Was so good.
They go down the escalator and models like everything is.
It's eerily quiet. There's no soldiers anywhere,

(49:06):
there's no living people around and everyone's like, what is
going on? Where is everybody?
It should be a working train station bustling with people.
At the very least. There's nobody and you're
already on pins and needles. You're like, what the fuck's
going to? Happen and literally.
On. Edge.
You're on edge. But everything's working like
there's electricity, so they're going down the escalator and

(49:29):
there is a wall of a zombie soldiers.
Oh my. God, Oh my God, the moment.
My heart still sinks when I see that moment.
Oh my gosh. I think it's brilliant.
And then at the same time, Kong Yu is upstairs with a homeless
man. They've run into a soldier who's

(49:49):
like, help me. Like I guess the last dude
that's made it out and he gets taken down by a zombie and it's
coming at them from all sides and this whole escape back onto
the train. How they made it through like
that whole like scene with like the struggle and the fighting
and just how they were able to make it back to the train.
It was like you're literally on the edge of your seat and like.

(50:12):
Yeah, Oh. My gosh, I was like, are they
going to make it through? I was like, we're going to lose
like half the cast in this. Field.
Somehow they made it through. It's great.
And then the but the youth, theyget separated.
So Kong Yu get separated from his daughter.
The harmonies get separated as well.
Yes, yes. And Madung so get separated from

(50:32):
his wife. Here is my favorite part of the
whole movie is when our Three Musketeers, it's Kong, Yu,
Madongsuk and Chebushik have to get from car 9 to car 13 to save
Madongsuk's pregnant wife and Kung Yu's daughter from the

(50:54):
zombies trying to get into because they're trapped in the
bathroom. Yes, and all that's between them
and the zombies is the little accordion door.
Oh yes. My God I die.
First of all when the wife was like get your ass over here and
like click hangs up the phone. I was like, if I am not that
bitch, I would be like get your ass over here and then back to

(51:14):
the task at hand. Oh my gosh, it was so good.
That whole you're talking about the scene when they were in the
train and they're basically trying to signal the zombies to
all shift one way so they can like get through and they're
like crawling. All of this to get to them.
Incredible it was. Unassailable.
It is incredible. It was so good, just like the

(51:37):
teamwork. And then also like this is when
I start to get that found familyfeeling from the movie as well.
Yes. And like these, like this little
group of people, like they're really bonded now and they're
just, they're genuinely trying to help each other, but they're
like a little traumatized familynow.
They've got to make it through. Yes, but yeah, no.
Oh my gosh, amazing. That's the whole sequence of

(51:59):
scenes, that whole yeah time that they're trying to make it
to the yeah, to everybody else. Incredible.
And then I also loved how they were like, using their brains
and like, strategy. They're like, OK, what do we
know about the zombie? How can we get them to shift,
you know, and like, learning howto maneuver in a way that, like,
kept them safe. I was like, brilliant.
So good. And you get like some more
expansion of what the zombies doand don't do.

(52:22):
We had already established like if they don't see you, they're
based their attack is based on sight basically, right, Right.
They're like a freaking T Rex. So if they don't see you, they
won't attack. They were already using that to
their advantage. But then the moment when they're
plunged Into Darkness with the tunnel, oh, oh, the first
tunnel. Incredible.

(52:43):
Because you think they're on theropes, right?
Like Taylor Chic is frozen in fear because they're fighting
the zombified baseball team and he can't do those are his
friends. And he is just like so
emotional. He's trying to psych himself
out. Kong you is about to be go down
for the count. Ma Dung Silk is also up against

(53:03):
the wall and it's not looking good like for this trio like
they could die and then all of asudden boom, they go through a
tunnel. The zombies like they start
right, right. You know what I'm saying?
Oh my God, it's, it's remarkable.
Incredible. I love it, so well done.
Yeah, so well done. They make it so they do, they
get pick up the wife, they pick up the homeless guy, they pick

(53:28):
up the Harmony and the daughter,and then they make it all the
way to car 15, which is where the rest of the survivors are.
And this is when villain Ajashi this.
Guy. This guy had rallied those
people into sealing the door andhere is like this social
experiment pressure cooker to situation that you were

(53:52):
referring to in the non spoiler section.
This would totally happen in real life, that this more
powerful, commanding presence would completely prey on the
fear of everybody else in the room.
Yeah. And get them to do what he
wants. It was terrible.
He's just like, they're all infected.
We can't let them in. I'm like, clearly they they're

(54:14):
not. Don't do that.
I was like, they just made it through these trains in one
piece and then now this guy is like, no, don't let them in.
He was the worst. Yeah, and I think coming from
watching what we watch all the time, the dynamic between the
villain Ajashi and the guy in the blue jacket who worked for

(54:35):
the train line, that attendant, their relationship makes a ton
of sense. Why is that guy doing whatever
the villain Ajashi tells him to do?
Why is he following his orders? There's this whole like
hierarchy here that maybe the Western audience doesn't get
right, who's maybe not used to This rich asshole has a

(54:58):
definitely a lot of pull here. Right, just because of the
standing. A lot of social standing.
You can tell he's well off. You can tell he's a businessman.
You can tell that he's got some social currency here and he's
using, he's paying for things all the all the time in the
train and in these dire circumstances, he's constantly

(55:22):
using his social currency, the eye roll.
Could not stand that guy. It was like, yeah, can you just
go away now? Like you've caused enough
problems. The fact that they covered home
girls mouth, they covered the Wonder Girl's mouth, they had
her like pinned down. Yes, yes, because she was
calling her from the other side of the door and they like he

(55:44):
like literally like gabbed her and so he wouldn't hear her.
And it was just like what is happening here?
This is very low even for you. And this is when we lose 2
characters. One Madongsuk.
Yes, he gets bit the way that hegets bit.
Oh. He was so sad because it's like

(56:07):
he was so close, like he could have made.
It he could have made it if it wasn't for the villain Addashi.
Exactly. He's just like, no, y'all go.
He basically had to, like, sacrifice himself.
Yeah, for like, the others to get through to the other side.
And it was so sad because it wason his hand and like, he didn't
even realize. And he looked down and he was
like, Oh no. The zombie that was kind of like

(56:28):
by the floor noticed that his hand was on the door and then
like slid up. It was just so disturbing to see
as well. Like the zombie was like and
like went all the way up and boom bites him on the hand and
that's it. He's marked for death.
He names the baby before like his wife takes off.

(56:49):
Come on. And I mean we also lose how many
one of the how many's in this scene, right?
Yes. The older 1, yes.
And they were sisters, the two how many's were sisters?
So it was really sad. And again, she sacrificed
herself too. But when they get through, you
can see this big change in Kong you because he's like, why

(57:11):
didn't you open the door? Like, how could you do that?
And he flies at the villain, Aja.
She starts beating on him. Like, rightfully so.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because they took losses there when they didn't need to.
Yeah, exactly. And then the other how many?
She really upset because her sister is gone.
She was. Already grieving for her sister,

(57:32):
thinking that maybe she was lostin the say at the train and the
Tejon station. Exactly.
And then lo and behold, she's alive and they have this moment
like across the glass, this elation because she's her
sister's alive. And then boom, like she gets hit
with this onslaught of zombies and you're like Oh my God to
lose her. Twice exactly, basically.

(57:55):
And like, she was just so distraught and hurt because my
sister put herself in front, youknow, before other people.
And she was just like. And so then she just, like,
opens the door, yeah. And let's all the zombies in as
like revenge. Oh my God.
And those two sisters, actually,they they're watching the news

(58:16):
earlier on the train. The outbreak is happening on the
news. And they say, oh, my God, people
will just riot for anything nowadays.
And one of the sisters says, back in the day, these people
would be re educated. And they're referring to Korea's
past with dictatorships, South Korea's past.

(58:36):
You know, the Western audience might not get that, that like
they are looking at this from a completely different lens.
And maybe the younger generationof Koreans who have no
experience and no memory of a time before a democratic Korea
such. A good point.
So this is probably very triggering for them, at least at

(58:57):
that point watching the news. Right, right.
Exactly. Oh, man.
Just so layered. There's just so much change.
It's not just zombies. There's so much happening.
I know so. They have to change trains and
this is kind of heading into thethird act of the movie.
They have to change trains and the that villain fucking guy.

(59:19):
I can't believe that he survivesthe onslaught in his cabin.
Exactly because the person released those zombies as
revenge on on that guy and like he managed to weasel his way
out. Him and the.
Him and the attendant, I thoughtthat he was like, surely a
goner. Yeah.
And like, I was like, oh, he's still.

(59:40):
Yeah. But Even so, like when they're
trying to, they're securing the side with the survivors.
Yeah, right. With Kung Yu, his daughter, the
pregnant lady, like everybody's been, they've been separated
into the next vegetable, and they're sealing off that side
versus the side with the real zombies on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when they're doing that, the

(01:00:02):
villain Ajashi is just sitting there delegating and barking
orders at people and looking kind of, you know, haggard and
annoyed at the whole situation. That's another way of seeing how
he's not even doing any of the work.
Nope, not at all. Not at all.
Not even doing any. Of the work to assure them,

(01:00:22):
yeah, yeah, he's like, I'm the leader because I'm better than
all of you, but I'm not doing anything.
Due to his maybe gender, due to his age, due to his position, a
lot of factors at play there that he's just sitting around
doing nothing. Exactly.
And that's why he's able to see the harmony all the way at the

(01:00:42):
other end of the cabin, open thedoor with the zombies.
And that's the massacre that happens in cabin 15.
And it's it's terrifying, it's terrible.
But he survives this onslaught. In this part of the movie he
lies to the attendant that the coast is clear and then pushes

(01:01:04):
him into a zombie to make an escape and this is when he goes
for a bad to worse. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reaches new lows. Yes.
He just kept reaching lower and lower, and he just kept getting
worse from here. Like there's so many people he
pushed into zombies by the end of the movie.
He not only like he fucks everybody over.

(01:01:28):
Yep. Because when he leaves the
train, he leaves the train door wide open, Yes.
And that's all the zombies escaped from the cabin exactly
where he was. There were no zombies out in the
train yard anyway. So then he runs into Che Bouchic

(01:01:48):
and the Wonder Girl, and literally it happens in a split
second. He comes across them and pushes,
shoves the Wonder Girl into the zombie on his tail.
I mean, the devil take him. Like he's just terrible.
Like after all of this, Oh my God.
Awful. And then, of course, Toshi is

(01:02:10):
devastated. And he's like.
Holding her, it was so sad. And then Toshi gets bitten by a
zombie too and I was just like. Him just holding her as she
convulses and he's like, yeah. The guy like he doesn't.
Know what to do and. Yeah.
And then he gets bit and so the you just you know what happened
that's. It like.
And it was just like, Dang, like, we're not reaching like

(01:02:31):
the end of this journey because people are just getting killed
off, right? And it was so sad.
The homeless man sacrifices himself so that the pregnant
lady and the little girl can getout from underneath the train
'cause it was a whole train derailment in the.
Oh my gosh, yes. Can we talk about that?
That scene stressed me out because the conductor.
First of all, God bless the conductor.

(01:02:52):
God bless the conductor. Yeah, RIP conductor.
He, he really tried. He really was so honorable.
And he was like, I'm going to golike, you know, hop across the
train yard to another train. And he told the people like, you
know, get off on the like this this side and like get on this
train. And so he hops over there, he
gets on the train, gets it going, and then all of a sudden

(01:03:12):
there's this other train that's like on fire and like derailed
and it crashes with his train sothat we can assume that the
conductor is gone. And but it causes like this like
little cave situation. He's fine.
Like he's, he's in the yeah, yeah, yeah.
He sees it coming down the, the track and he's like, what the
hell. But he he's not injured in that,

(01:03:32):
in that. Crowd OK, OK, OK OK good.
Yeah, but it caused like like kind of like this little where
the two trains meet. It was like a little like cave.
And so Kong, you pregnant lady. Yeah, Kong, you, the pregnant
lady, the kid and the homeless. Man, homeless man.
And they're like trapped under there.
And like the train is constantlykind of going lower and lower

(01:03:52):
and lower. It's getting closer and closer
to the ground. And so Ganyu gets out first so
he can like help everybody out of the hole, but then this large
metal thing blocks the hole. So we have to fight to get it
out. And those zombies are coming.
And he's trying to like, becausethe zombies are like falling out
of the train that crashed into the hole.
So like, like the stakes are high.
Like the weight of the zombies and they're struggling to get to

(01:04:15):
them because they see them through the glass.
Yes. And like how you gets his
daughter out, he gets the pregnant lady out, and then
those zombies start coming out of the train and the homeless
guy literally sacrifices himself.
Yeah. Was I blocking the zombies from
getting to them? I was like this kind of man was
so it was so stressful. I was like, I can't, I can't.

(01:04:38):
It was it was the stress more sothat was going to Take Me Out
before, like the fear of the zombies because I was like,
like, what's going to happen? Oh my God.
But then the conductor sees the villain and she running across
the tracks. Yes.
He's hounded by zombies following him and he's like, Oh

(01:04:59):
my God, he's not gonna make it because the villain and she
trips on the. My gosh, Oh my gosh, yes.
Okay, now I remember. Yes, the conductor was still
yes. The conductor leaves the train.
Yes. To help the villain Ajashi, and
the villain Ajashi basically pulls him down.
Yes. And this one, it's unclear if
the villain Ajashi meant to do this.

(01:05:21):
I think he did. You think he meant to do it like
pull him down and let the zombies get him because it was
very close. You know it.
It's unclear. The villain Ajashi gets clean
away, you know? Yeah, so, so sad for the
conductor because he tried his best.
He. Tried and they get him and then

(01:05:41):
yeah and. They got him.
And this decrepit man ends up onthe train.
So anyway Long story short, KongYu, the pregnant lady and the
kid end up on the one train thatis heading to Pusan.
Like this is the only train that's made it and is on the
track to Pusan. Thanks to this wonderful
conductor who put it on the track, who is there waiting for

(01:06:06):
them when he opens the. Villain Adoshi.
This fucking villain, Adoshi, And you know it builds upon
itself, right? So the zombies, it looked like
if their will to live was very strong, yeah, then it would take
longer for them to change. Right.

(01:06:27):
Into a zombie. Like that's what I'm inferring
because the villain Adashi looked like he was already a
zombie but he was speaking. Yeah, he was like trying to hang
on for as long as he could. Yeah.
And they, and then they throw inthis thing where he's like,
look, I have a mom, I want to get back to my mom and Pusan and
yadda, yadda, yadda. And he's like Ajishi, you're a

(01:06:48):
zombie. Yeah, like you're done.
Komyu sacrifices himself to savehis daughter and the pregnant
lady because this. Ajishi lunges at them at one
point during their fight and he puts his hand in front of the
zombie's mouth and that's when he gets bit and I.

(01:07:13):
Was like no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, Nope.
I was like, maybe the zombie didn't bite his hand.
There's no way. There's no way.
And like, just the realization that like, oh, it's all over.
So then like on you finally, like throws him off of the
train, right. He throws him.
Yeah. And yeah.
And then he, like, rushes to hisdaughter and the pregnant lady.

(01:07:35):
He's like telling told a pregnant lady.
Like this is where the break is.When you find a place to stop.
Pull. This.
Yeah, because it was all writtenin English.
Yes, yeah. So like, please take care of
her. And he was like, you know,
talking to the daughter and like, he's like, rushing,
rushing because he's like, I'm going to turn at any minute.
It was devastating because like,the daughter was crying so hard.
Please don't leave me. Which was something that she had

(01:07:58):
not. Really said exactly to that
point exactly. And he like had to leave the
cabin, obviously, because he's he's turning.
And like, you just see this shotof him and like, you know, the
film, you know, comes on his eyes and it's happening, like
the change is happening. And you just see this, this
flashback of him when he like held his daughter for the first

(01:08:18):
time after she was born. And like, he's like smiling.
And then he you just see like the shadow of him like fall off
the train. I was in tears.
I was like. Yeah.
When did you start crying? When did you?
Start that's when I I started crying when he realized he got
bit and he was like rushing to give the pregnant lady

(01:08:39):
directions about how to operate the train and then sue on is
like screaming, screaming, screaming like daddy, please
don't leave. No, no, no, no.
Like, Oh my God, she was, she was masterful.
Oh my gosh, amazing performance,Amazing performance.
But that's when I started crying, just hearing her
screams. And she was doing that like
Chesty. Scream.
You know. Yes, yes.
Like even when he's sitting outside the train, he could

(01:09:00):
still hear her screams. And I'm just like, I'm just so
crying. So I was like, Oh no, that's
when I started. I didn't stop till like the end.
Like it never stopped. And like you found out earlier
that the reason she stopped singing at her little recital at
school was because he wasn't there.

(01:09:22):
She practiced that song specifically for him.
And when she looked at the at the audience, he wasn't there.
So she stopped singing. And it just goes to show that
she was craving his affection, craving his presence.
She wanted to connect with him, but he was never there.
He was an absent father. Something that Ma Dung Suk said

(01:09:46):
during one of the about halfway through the movie was, you know,
fathers like, they get all the shit and they do all the
sacrificing and they and they catch all this shit.
And it was kind of like a small,profound moment with our trio
because I think they were lockedin the bathroom across from the
daughter and the homeless man and the the pregnant wife and
stuff, waiting for the next tunnel.

(01:10:07):
And he was like, she won't appreciate you until later.
And so you get this final scene of the two final girls.
This is the horror trope, right?The final girl.
You have two final girls here going through a tunnel.
You don't know what's on the other side.

(01:10:27):
And the soldiers, not that are on the other side, can't verify
if they're infected because they're back lit in the tunnel.
They're walking kind of haggard.They're not limping or anything,
but they just look tired throughthe scope.
And the soldiers get the kill order, but she starts singing.
I lost it. Her song for her dad, This is

(01:10:51):
When I start crying is like whenshe starts singing and she
finishes the song. Yeah, for her dad, man.
I I I lose it every time. Yeah, I lost it because she's
just, she's like crying really hard as she's singing the song.
And the soldiers hearing the song is the reason why they
cancel the kill order because they're like, Oh my gosh, those

(01:11:12):
are survivors. And so like, you're just seeing
Suan, like, cry and like, sing her song for her dad.
Then the movie ends, screen goesblack, and I was just like, that
was an emotional roller coaster that I was not ready for it all.
Yeah, and this is a great subversion of of the Night of
the Living Dead movie. I'm going to guess that you

(01:11:34):
haven't seen the 1968 Night of the Living Dead movie, but
spoiler for this very famous ending of Night of the Living
Dead. So this is the one that started
it all for modern zombies. The end of Night of the Living
Dead, The sole survivor, Ben, ismistaken for a zombie and shot
and killed by a posse of police.The added bonus is that he's

(01:11:59):
black, so like in 19. 68 This was incredibly.
Charged right? Oh.
My. God that this black man was shot
by police, mistaken for a zombieand all this stuff.
So it's very racially charged. However, the same thing almost
happens here at the end of Trainto Pusan, that these two vinyl
girls are almost mistaken for zombies and they're almost shot

(01:12:23):
and killed. But then because of our Korean
sensibilities, like the heart and emotions really shine
through here because seeds that they had planted before come
back in. And it's a full circle moment
where she finishes the song for her dad.

(01:12:44):
And that's what saves them, yes.It was beautiful.
I was. It's a sign that they are human.
Yes, yes, that they love, you know, yes, this overt expression
of love saves them. Yes.
And I remember, like, thinking at the end of the movie, it's
like, I hope that like as she grows up, she like is able to

(01:13:07):
even though their relationship was not the best, that she like,
does understand and see that like her dad really did love her
and like, sacrifice for her. But yeah, it was it was a
beautiful ending. It's beautiful.
I didn't expect it to be like that at all.
Like, I wasn't, I wasn't ready. I don't.
Think anybody was ready? And I think it still works.

(01:13:29):
I think it's wonderful and it's powerful, so powerful, so
powerful, and that's it. It ends kind of on a hopeful
note. A lot of zombie movies are kind
of open-ended. Does humanity survive?
We don't know. Whatever.
I don't think that necessarily matters for the movie.
You kind of find out what happens to humanity and how

(01:13:52):
things shake out in Peninsula. But again, if you don't feel
like watching Peninsula, you canjust watch Train to Busan and be
happy that it it kind of ends ona high, a bittersweet high that
they are saved. Yeah, it was an excellent movie.
I'm really glad I watched it finally.

(01:14:12):
Yes, the last person on earth that I watched it I it feels
like. Do you have any final thoughts
about Train to Pusan? I just really loved it.
And honestly, if you're out there and you're like me and you
don't like scary things, I thinkthat this is a very palatable
quote UN quote scary zombie movie.

(01:14:34):
So even if your tolerance is really low, like mine, it's like
on the ground. Like I think that you would
really appreciate this movie a lot.
So yeah, highly recommend. I really loved it.
Thank you for having me on for this.
Oh, thank you for volunteering like you were.
You were first in line, basically.
Oh. Yay.
So where can people find you online in case they haven't

(01:14:54):
listened to the other episodes with you on them or they don't
listen to the Swoon Diaries podcast?
Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at Swoon Diaries Pod
and then you can also find my podcast on Apple or Spotify.
It's called the Swoon Diaries Podcast.
Nice. Thank you, Naz.
I hope you have a wonderful spooky season and we'll talk

(01:15:16):
soon. Yes, you too.
Thanks, Jess. That's been our show.
I'm Jessica and it's been the Tiba K Rambles podcast.