I recently re-watched the South Korean film Train to Busan (2016) as research for a personal project.
If you haven’t seen it, here’s the log-line: A man, his daughter, and other passengers are trapped on a speeding train during a zombie outbreak in South Korea.
This movie is a reminder of how beautiful and heart-wrenching horror can be. The plot is simultaneously simple and complex, with interesting characters that are easy to connect and sympathize with. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in screenwriting as it is a great study for ways to show character arcs and connect full-circle moments that mirror each other from beginning to end.
At the point of publication, it’s available on Amazon Prime.
This article will include spoilers!
I decided to look at this film beat for beat through the context of the book Screenplay by Syd Fields.
On the Paradigm
The Opening
A farmer goes through a quarantine zone, hinting at the origin of the zombie outbreak. He hits a deer on the road, which convulses violently, and gets back to its feet, its eyes glazed over white. This simple and short opening establishes our location, the infection type, and what turning will look like for the remainder of the film.
Act 1 - The Set-Up
Our protagonist is a busy father, separated, overworked, and detached from his family. His daughter begs him to take her to Busan to visit her mom for her birthday. He tells his daughter on the way to the train station that he watched a video of her recital. He asks her why she couldn’t finish the song. Then he tells her, even when I’m not there, I’m always watching you.
Plot Point 1 (The Catalyst)
We board the train and establish the cast of characters. An injured woman boards the train just as the doors close, and she quickly turns, creating a swelling outbreak. Seok-woo (Protagonist) nearly blocks survivors from escaping the hoard by locking a door behind him, but his daughter (Soo-an) convinces him to let them inside.
Act 2
Act 2a Dramatic Context
The outbreak, every man for himself. Seok-woo is insistent that he will get his daughter to safety, separate from the rest of the passengers.
Pinch 1
The train stops in what’s supposed to be a safe, military-controlled city, but it has been overtaken. Multiple other passengers save Seok-woo as they flee a hoard of zombie soldiers. Sang-hwa (the husband to a pregnant woman who Seok-woo nearly locked out in act 1) holds the door for our protagonist so that he can escape the zombies.
Midpoint
After re-boarding the train, our characters realize they have been separated. Su-an is with pregnant wife, Seong-kyeong and our protagonist is with Sang-hwa and Yong-guk, a high school student who was on a trip with his baseball team.
Act 2b Dramatic Context
The guys must work together to reunite with their loved ones through multiple train cars full of the undead.
Pinch 2
They succeed! After traveling through multiple cars and realizing that the zombies can’t see in the dark, the men make it to their loved ones. Yong-guk has a friend, Sohee, one car over full of other survivors. They all have to travel through one more zombie-filled train car to get to safety.
Plot Point 2
They arrive at the survivor's car, but the other people, scared and paranoid, have barricaded the door closed. This clearly parallels Seok-woo nearly locking survivors out in the first plot point.
Sang-hwa is bit as Yong-guk beats down the door. Our heroes arrive in the survivor’s car, but only after losing multiple people to the hoard. Yon-suk (the antagonist) has made the rest of the passengers fearful of our group of heroes, going as far as to shout that the group is infected. They scream and shout at the small group until our protagonist and his group leave the safe space. The scared survivors barricade that door again, which proves to be their downfall when the hoard breaks through, and they can’t escape.
Break into 3
The tracks are blocked, and they have to switch trains.
Act 3 - Resolution
Off the train, they fight to survive as they travel to another mode of transportation. The antagonist sacrifices person after person to get onto the new train, going as far as to sacrifice the train conductor.
Seok-woo, his daughter, and Seong-kyeong (the pregnant woman) are the only three to make it to the new train. They find Yon-suk in the conductor’s cabin when they arrive, clearly infected. In another full-circle moment, Seok-woo tells Yon-suk that he’s infected.
Seok-woo battles Yon-suk’s zombie and ends up getting bit in the process. He reminds his daughter that he’ll always be with her, even though he won’t be there physically, in one of the most heart-wrenching climaxes in any horror movie I’ve seen.
Closing
Soo-an and Seong-kyeong make it to Busan. They walk through the tunnel towards the city hand in hand. The military has barricaded this entrance to the city and stands watch on the other end of the tunnel. They see the women, but can’t tell if the shadows approaching are human or undead. The soldiers are ordered to shoot when Soo-an begins to sing the song from her school recital, Aloha ‘Oe (Farewell to Thee), which lets them know that they are, in fact, human.