Mark Reviews Movies: TRAIN TO BUSAN PRESENTS: PENINSULA

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 20, 2020

One doesn't need to have seen Train to Busan to understand its stand-alone follow-up/sequel Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula. In fact, if one hasn't seen the original, it might be interesting to watch the second one first, if only to see an unexceptional zombie story and follow it up with a dynamically clever one.

It is almost impossible to consider this second installment (the third, actually, if you count an animated prequel that was released shortly after the original) without thinking of its predecessor. The filmmaking team, most notably co-writer/director Yeon Sang-ho, returns (including co-screenwriter Park Joo-suk, editor Jimmo Yang, and cinematographer Lee Hyung-deok). The story is set in the aftermath of the zombie plague that overwhelmed South Korea and, from the scant information we get in the prologue, the entirety of the Korean peninsula in the ensuing years. It's a combination of horror and action, with a decided focus on the latter mode and, within that mode, with a genuine affection for fast-moving vehicles.

The first film, of course, was mostly set on a high-speed rail train, as a group of people try to avoid, fight, and finally escape a zombie infection that has made it into the passenger cars. It was rather ingenious, not only because of the setting and how well the filmmakers took advantage of the close quarters, but also because the constant propulsion of the train seemed to inspire and certainly defined the filmmaking. Once the zombies turned up, Yeon kept the action moving. There was a real, exhilarating momentum to that film, and yes, the train was an essential component of that sense.

There is no train in this follow-up, although there is a boat, which makes us perk up as soon as the apparent heroes arrive on it—only for the whole seafaring incident to be a prologue. The story's next step feels almost as clever as the train conceit, as a team of refugees from South Korea have to return to the zombie-ravaged peninsula for a heist of sorts. That's set aside quickly, too, as some zombies and a former military unit, which has gone quite mad after being stranded among zombies for four years, interrupt the robbery.

Ultimately, it turns out that cars serve as Yeon and Park's central gimmick for the sequel. The conceit leads to some exciting chases, aided by obvious but necessary visual effects (There's little chance any professional driver could pull off some of these stunts, and even if one or two could, there's no way any insurance company would cover the majority of them). It also leads to a lot of downtime, in which we have to spend time with shallow characters and a plot that offers nothing special among the long list of zombie stories.

After the prologue, which also reveals that the main story is set four years after the zombie outbreak, Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won), a former military officer, and his brother-in-law Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon) have been living in Hong Kong since fleeing South Korea on a ship. Jung-seok's sister and nephew, Chul-min's wife and son, were killed during the escape.

The two men are enlisted by a local gangster to return to the Korean peninsula—specifically, the port of Incheon. There are rumors that U.S. dollars and gold had been abandoned in the city, and with the help of two disposable teammates (They last about five minutes), Jung-seok, still guilty about not helping his sister, and Chul-min, still resentful of his brother-in-law's inaction, find the money.

They're also attacked by zombies. Jung-seok is rescued by a pair of kids (played by Lee Re and Lee Ye-won), daughters of Min-jung (Lee Jung-hyun), whom Jung-seok remembers leaving on the side of the road during his family's escape. Meanwhile, Chul-min is captured by the unstable Hwang (Kim Min-jae), a member of Unit 631, a civilian rescue squad that was left behind. They've started organizing a "game," pitting people against zombies in fights for survival.

Yeon's sequel is definitely calmer than its predecessor—or, at least, relatively so, since there isn't the constant movement of the first film's setting. It offers some moments for these characters interact without the incessant threat of zombies, but there also isn't much to these characters to warrant such breaks in the story.

Jung-seok and Min-jung are connected by pure contrivance and convenience, and their relationship pretty much ends with that connection. Some internal conflict emerges within the rogue military unit, as Captain Seo (Koo Kyo-hwan) discovers the money and Hwang suspects something is amiss, but these characters simply exist to show the old standard of the social order breaking down—and to have some villains for the extended climax, a shootout that becomes a high-speed, heavily destructive chase through the streets of the city.

The movie definitely succeeds in its action sequences, as Yeon capitalizes on the freedom of using visual effects to make cars speed, swerve, jump, spin, and collide across the city. He teases us with the early escape from the scene of the robbery, but there's really no preparation for how far the director takes the vehicular choreography and carnage in the third act. Despite the exciting action, though, Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula isn't quite up to the standard Yeon established with the previous film, and leaving that direct comparison aside, the movie is fairly routine zombie story until its frantic finale.

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