Train To Busan: Peninsula (2020)
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho

In 2016, Train To Busan exploded onto the movie scene, taking the world by storm and establishing itself as an instant classic in the process. It was the highest-grossing movie in Korea and the highest-grossing Korean movie ever in several other countries, and there’s already an English language remake in the process (because the Oldboy remake turned out so well). It’s not hard to see why, as Train To Busan’s simple story, colorful characters who tug on your heartstrings, and utterly terrifying interpretation of rage-zombies all come together brilliantly to go above and beyond the typical zombie fare. As you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of Train to Busan, and I was pretty pumped for this sequel, I’m pretty into zombie fiction generally and zombies done right are a wonder to behold. So let’s get into the big question; does Train To Busan: Peninsula live up to its predecessor? Keep reading and find out!

Everything Changed When The Infected Attacked.

Train To Busan Peninsula mainly takes place about 4 years after the events of the first film, where it turns out that the zombie virus was so bad that the entire country of South Korea was completely abandoned by…the world I guess? It’s now a barren wasteland and Korean refugees live as second-class citizens in the slums of the nearby countries who reluctantly accepted them. We follow a former Korean soldier, Jeong-Seok, who joins a desperate group heading back to the Korean peninsula to locate a huge stash of valuables and go from paupers to nobility overnight. As you can imagine, things go from bad to worse on the peninsula, and our heroes find themselves in more trouble than they predicted, putting their chances of escaping from Korea twice quite low.

A Lot More Guns Here Than I Remember.

What’s really interesting to me about Train To Busan: Peninsula, which I’ll just shorten to Peninsula from here on out, is how dramatically the tone has changed from the original. Peninsula is far less of a pure horror movie and much more of an action-horror hybrid. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this, it makes sense in the context of the story they’re telling and the characters we’re focusing on, and I appreciate that they aren’t just trying to make the same movie again. This is something that will be jarring to a lot of people though because not everyone likes over-the-top action as much as I do, and Peninsula, especially towards the end, gets REALLY over the top. If you’re looking for the same feelings that Train To Busan gave you, this ain’t it.

If You Can Get Past That, There’s Some Good Horror Here!

Dramatic tonal shifts are quite common, and I’m still not sure whether I liked that or not. I can respect movies that tackle a bunch of different moods and emotions, but the excessive, and maybe a little overlong, nature of some of these action sequences kind of worked against the horror elements in a way that I’m sure disappointed many viewers. I was able to separate myself from those expectations and enjoy the action sequences for what they were, but I was also aware of the fact that for most of the movie I was watching more of a horror-flavored action film than straight horror. On the other hand, good action movies have a horror-like tension, and that was here, just in a different way than the original Train To Busan was tense.

What They’re Trying To Do Make Sense, It Just Isn’t Perfectly Executed.

One thing I enjoyed about Peninsula is the cast, who, for the most part, are all reasonable people making difficult choices in impossible scenarios. And to Peninsula’s credit, the cast isn’t just a copy and paste deal from Train To Busan, they’re all different people dealing with different problems, with one of the more interesting themes of the movie being that of survivor’s guilt. Less, how do you survive, and more, how do you deal with what you have had to do to survive. I wouldn’t say this is extremely well developed, but I like that they’re trying to evolve the storyline of these films in a natural way. I would have definitely not been impressed if this was just another ‘someone needs to escort a vulnerable person to a safe spot’ story, and the opening of the movie, which is great, kind of references and plays with that in an interesting way. Evolution is difficult though, and the much-expanded story reveals some weaknesses in the writing. Without spoiling specific plot points, I have a little difficulty accepting some story elements that are established, and some scenes don’t make any sense at all once you apply the most basic logic to them. Sometimes less is more.

Peninsula Isn’t Perfect. But I Had Fun With It And I Think You Can Too.

Still, none of that kept me from enjoying the movie. Yes, the tone is wildly different. Yes, this is a much more action-centered movie. Yes, the, still pretty damn scary, zombies aren’t quite as much of a threat as they once were. But that doesn’t make this a bad movie. There are still emotional moments, still, some pretty damn scary scenes and a lot of cool action sequences have been added for good measure. If you can manage your expectations and know that of course, this isn’t going to be as good of a movie as Train To Busan, then you can have a pretty good time with Peninsula. If you’re looking for something with the same tone, the same emotional jackhammering, and the same type of horror built around vulnerability, this probably isn’t what you’re looking for.