Peninsula (Train to Busan 2)
Yesterday, I wrote about my thoughts on the use of some movies as a pre-training tool before the events to be realized. Those who want to read it can access it here.
The fact that some films are preliminary research before the events to be realized
Today, I watched the Korean movie Train to Busan 2, which I thought might fit that kind of scenario. I think even those who haven't seen it know that it's a sequel.
The movie, which is based on zombies that have been stripped of their souls and can still walk, see and get hungry despite being dead, was fortunately staged as a Korean apocalypse instead of a world apocalypse this time.
When the area where the story takes place was narrowed down, there was no need for the remaining people to return to primitive life and the area was quarantined and closed to human life.
Our characters, who had to leave the region some time ago, return to the place where they had to taste the pain with those closest to them. This leads to a sad beginning of the story.
As far as I can understand from the Korean movies I have watched, Koreans are people who are very attached to family unity. At the beginning of Train to Busan 2, we encounter a similar family picture.
Although the brother-in-law and the nephew are the main characters in the story of the family unit consisting of brother and sister, the fact that only the brother and the nephew survive is in line with the tragedy in zombie movies.
Jeong-seonk (played by Dong-won Kang) is the main character as a navy soldier. He fights zombies with the training he received both during the evacuation and afterward, but because of his weak personality, he is constantly confronted with his past mistakes and has to face them. He is unable to develop his strong fighting personality to help others, he is unable to build conscience and benevolence into his personality.
In movies about the world apocalypse, the characters' instinct to think of themselves and their families first comes to the fore, and you can understand this while watching. However, when it comes to a limited space, this type of role is too grinning as a weak personality that cannot go beyond selfishness and cannot mobilize what he has for others.
I must say that I didn't like the acting throughout Train to Busan 2. While none of the characters added value to the movie, I don't think any of them were in harmony with the story. The biggest gap in the story was that the parties were trying to outdo each other. There was no explanation in the script of the movie for everyone working for themselves when they could have all survived together.
I'm saying this with the last scene of the movie in mind, where instead of choosing to save a woman with a gun to her head a few meters away, telling her that what she did was the best thing she could have done was one of the most ridiculous thoughts I've ever heard. If that scene had happened at the beginning of the movie, maybe I wouldn't have watched it.
You can watch the movie to add to the zombie movies you've seen, but don't expect the story progression of zombie movies from this movie. The struggle for survival is as incomplete as possible. In every aspect, the movie was one of the productions that I thought was below average and a waste of time.