The Train Everyone Wanted A Ticket For
When the movie Train to Busan was first announced in 2015, reactions in South Korea were largely mixed. South Korean audiences were not accustomed to the genre of zombie thrillers. South Korean audiences mostly consumed polished chillers, emotional dramas and were captivated by the idea of zombies on a high-speed,- infected train, and the chaos that would ensue. Still, the concept of a train filled with potential zombies and high-speed zombies on a train was enticing.
The film was to be a convergence of human and emotional and apocalyptic cinematic horrors, a first in South Korean cinema. The trailer sent fear and anticipation of the film by showing passengers on a train who were to be zombies, giving a glimpse of the horrors that would be witnessed, and the train turning into a zombie apocalyptic battleground. Korean audiences were ready to see if South Korean cinema could surpass world hits like World War Z with emotional depth.
The Korean cinema was liberated on July 20, 2016, when the movie Train to Busan was released and became the first Korean cinema to break the preconceived box office numbers. The film was able to breaks Korean cinema box office records and was able to become the symbolic film for liberation of Korean cinema from Hollywood and the restrictions that came with it.
The KTX Journey
The film starts deceivingly calm. Busan bound, Seok-woo, played by Gong Yoo, is a divorced fund manager who is too busy with work to pay attention to his young daughter, Su-an. On her birthday, Su-an supports a trip to see her Busan bound mother. As a holiday treat, Seok-woo reluctantly agrees. They embark on KTX, Korea’s bullet train, pride and progress, slicing through mountains and plains and the promise of modernity with each passing second.
Moments later, an infected girl stumbles aboard KTX and collapses, unaware of the chaos to come. Within chaotic. minutes-all it takes is a bite-zombie passengers. An infected girl collapses on KTX and the children’s party train transforms into a modern prison.
What follows is more than just a simple survival story; it’s a moral test. Who would you save if you had no time to think? Who is worthy of your sympathy when death is racing toward you?
At first glance, Seok-woo seems just like the archetypal selfish man. He is cold and pragmatic, believing that empathy is a luxury that few can afford. However, as the train hurtles toward its destination, he will have to confront the emptiness of his life and his relationships, which include Sanghwa (Ma Dong-seok), a tough and witty everyman, his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi), and the elderly sisters whose quiet sacrifice was the unforgettable and haunting highlight of the story.
By the time the train reaches Busan, the metaphor is unmistakable. It is not just about reaching safety; it is about regaining your humanity.
Gong Yoo’s Seok-woo has a mask of apathy
Gong Yoo was already a respected actor before Train to Busan for roles in the drama Coffee Prince and the film Silenced, which displayed his considerable range. However, he was typecast as a romantic lead and his characters were sanitized, composed, and aloof. Seok-woo was the first role where he was allowed to confront and dismantle emotional barriers.
Gong Yoo has talked about how fame entails certain expectations and commented on the industry’s emotional toll. McKee pointed out that the fatigue of that type of industry will sink Seki’s weary eyes and restrained voice. One can sense the quiet guilt of a man that doesn’t know how to articulate sorry.
Gong Yoo’s transformation is as painful as the emotional toll on a character that he is playing. His last scene on the train is the emotional peak of the film and resonates with the audience as he watches his daughter’s face. Profits mean nothing to a parent willing to sacrifice everything for his child. It is Seok-woo’s torch moment, but you get the sense that for Gong Yoo, the old screen image he has been lugging around is finally dying.
If Gong Yoo carries the emotional arc of the film, Ma Dong-seok (or Don Lee) is the film’s pulse. He plays the role of Sanga-hwa and the character brings the film the muscle and the humor. He anchors the film and keeps it from drowning in the despair that surrounds it. His chemistry with Jung Yu-mi provides warmth to the narrative and offers a glimpse of ordinary life and love, in an otherwise apocalyptic story.
Ma’s offscreen persona as a former personal trainer, combined with his gentle humor, fitted Sang-hwa’s duality perfectly. He was both physically strong and emotionally open, protective yet teasing, and his line directed at Seok-woo, “You only care about yourself, don’t you?” was more than dialogue; it was the film’s moral pivot.
As a matter of fact, Ma Dong-seok was not a mainstream hero before this movie. Train to Busan made him one overnight. His character’s death, which became one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in Korean cinema, was a turning point for global audiences to notice him.
The women who carried the emotion.
Jung Yu-mi’s Seong-kyeong stands out for her quiet resilience. She is heavily pregnant, yet calm when others panic, and her character became a metaphor for life pushing through death, a reminder that hope and fear can coexist. In contrast, Kim Su-an, the child actor who played Su-an, brought astonishing emotional clarity to her role. Her crying scene near the end, when she was singing “Aloha ‘Oe,” turned even stoic viewers into puddles of tears.
People were impressed by the maturity of Kim Su-an who was filming for the first time at age of 10. Gong Yoo stated in interviews that working with Kim made him “rethink how adults express emotion.” That chemistry, the hesitant father and the understanding daughter, blossomed into one of the most beautiful father-child relationships in cinema history.
The train as a symbol — society on tracks
Director Yeon Sang-ho, who made The King of Pigs, a feature in animation, did not simply make a zombie flick. Each segment of the train is a layer of society — with the rich in first, the middle in second, and the working in the last. During the pandemic, the class society was even more pronounced. The businessman Yon-suk was the main antagonist for the ‘virus’ of class fear and was played wonderfully by Kim Eui-sung.
The pacing is powerful and the cinematography is masterful. The small amount of CGI and the close camera work made the horror surreal and personal. Instead of using jump scares, Yeon used emotion in a masterful way. Each scream and each frantic hand against the train window was filled with meaning.
Skepticism to sensation
Prior to its release, Train to Busan didn’t seem likely to become a global success. When the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, it was placed in the less prestigious Midnight Screenings section, which is typically reserved for genre pictures, and received a 10 minute standing ovation. By the end of its theatrical release, it had become the highest grossing Korean film of all time, garnering more than $90 million in box office revenue.
In many cultures, the film was able to tap into universal themes. Train to Busan became a word-of-mouth success on Indian streaming platforms, resonating in particular with audiences who enjoy emotionally charged thrillers. The themes of family, sacrifice, the struggle between the heart and duty, and duty make the film feel oddly close to home, even with the foreign setting.
Behind the speeding Train
What many do not know is how difficult the shooting of Train to Busan was. The cast had to film many of the scenes in a motion simulation train set, and execute scenes while countering mechanical train movement. The zombie choreography which was created by stunt dancers who were trained for weeks to move robotically, was also choreographed for weeks.
There were rumors that Gong Yoo fainted due to exhaustion during one of the more intense night shoots, although he downplayed the incident afterwards. Director Yeon Sang-ho’s reputation for perfectionism extended to emotional scenes, making actors rework the same scene repeatedly until they were drained to the point of tears, not out of a desire for perfection, but for absolute emotional truth.
There were also discussions around the film’s depiction of state-sponsored inequity and class divides. Some critics framed the film in the context of the Sewol ferry disaster, a disaster still fresh in the Korean psyche, where inaction and self-interest led to devastating outcomes.
While Train to Busan ended in tears, it also instilled a rare emotional hope — that, even in the most trying circumstances, people can choose to be kind. When the film ended, audiences the world over recalled far more than the zombies. They recalled the father, and the civilization, and the little girl who sang as the train reached its destination, and they all recalled the father’s redemption.
That’s likely why, even after all the years, when people think of Train to Busan, it is the emotional elements that most people remember, not the horror.