Film #3: Train to Busan (2016)
Train to Busan (Sang Ho Yeon, 2016).
The purpose of this essay is to analyze the various genres in Train to Busan and to discuss the theories used in this film. The horror genre is to make the audience show expressions of being scared, frightened, panicked and shocked including a fast pace of heartbeat and being on the edge on their seats during the movie. For me, for a horror movie, it will be frightening to me, when I could not sleep after watching it. I will keep on remembering the horrifying scenes of the film and it will cause me to have trouble falling asleep. There are various categories in horror films such as action horror, comedy horror, supernatural horror, zombie horror and etc.
The semantic approach theory in films are the visuals shown in the film. Semantic is also known as mise-en-scene. In this film, the locations of the film are in Seoul Station, Daejeon Station and Busan. The scenes are mostly filmed in the train. These location showed us a bit of South Korea on how their train stations look like. As for the main character, Seok Woo, a divorced man, has heavy dark eye circles and it shows that he is an workaholic, not a fatherly figure to his daughter and always wearing a suit and a tie.The lighting in the film is more of a black and red color. Black color represents the evilness of the company, the fearfulness of the citizens and the power of the infected over the uninfected. Red color represents the love shown between Sang Hwa and his wife, the willingness to die together with their sibling, and the father's love to his daughter. It also represents blood from killing the zombies, using violence to protect one's self, and anger towards people who are self-centered. The actor's behavior and movement are mostly controlled by the director on how the director wants the film to look like and to portray horror in the film. The actor's expression in the film is being watched and analyzed by the audience on how it conveys the movie's message to the audience watching the film. The actor's movement on how to kill or get away from the zombies shows us a realistic way to defend ourselves from danger when necessary.
The syntactic approach is about the narrative of the film. In horror films, we anticipate the main characters survival. Mostly, there will be at least one in the film. In Train to Busan, there are characters of a workaholic, a loving husband to his pregnant wife, siblings travelling to Busan, a self-centered man and a team of baseball players. The protagonist or hero of this film most probably will be ones defending for their safety and protecting others from danger. They are Seok Woo, Sung Hwa, Yeong Gook, a homeless man, one of the sister sibling and Sung Kyung. The themes found in this film are love, sacrifice, resurrection, transformation and redemption. One of the themes is redemption because there are survivors saved or rescued from the apocalypse. The resurrection part is when the citizens got infected, died and transform into zombies. For the transformation part, the last zombie slayer, Seok Woo, in the end, got bitten and infected.
Train to Busan is a zombie action thriller horror film, but there is some twist of comedy in it. The first outbreak is when a young lady boards the train with a wounded leg. Then, it infected almost all of the passengers in the train to Busan. Seok Woo, Yeong Gook and Sung Hwa teamed up to fight the zombies in their way to save Seok Woo's daughter, Soo An, Sung Hwa's pregnant wife, an old lady together with a homeless man. Towards the end of the movie, Seok Woo got bitten on the hand when he is trying to defend himself, his daughter and Sung Kyung. Before Seok Woo transform into a zombie, he told Sung Kyung on how to stop the train and telling his daughter to stay put with Sung Kyung no matter what happens. Later, he jumped from the train to not infect his daughter and Sung Kyung.
Horror films usually ends with a return to normalcy and victory over the monstrous, which are the zombies. This film contains a few sub genres such as unnatural which is the zombies, massacre for the mass murders of the zombies and citizens turning into zombies. There are some parts of comedy and romance in this movie which makes this movie somewhat unique and memorable to audience.
Train to Busan is identified as a horror film because it consists of unnatural elements and massacre elements such as zombies and body horrors and mass murders of the zombies. For examples of unnatural elements, there are scenes of zombies infecting the people by biting their neck or eating off them such as ripping of flesh from their bodies. These scenes are horribly terrifying to imagine it onto ourselves. For examples of massacre elements, scenes that involves zombie apocalypse infecting the humans in the train or on the road and scenes where Seok Woo, Sung Hwa and Yeong Gook fight them in between coaches to get to the survivors trapped in Coach 13's toilet.
There are other genres in Train to Busan such as action, comedy and love.
The running and fighting scenes are part of the action genres. When the zombies are chasing the citizens on the road, it is action. Citizens running away from the zombies to save themselves from being infected, it is action. There is a scene where Sung Hwa twisted one of the zombie's neck when it is blocking his way to save his wife. The cracking sound effect sounds so painful to be experienced on a person.
When Sung Hwa tries to not bother his wife, Sung Kyung using the toilet, for a big guy like Sung Hwa, in the society, big guys are portrayed as masculine and tough. For Sung Hwa, he treats his wife like a queen. His wife would curse at him and he would not throw tantrums or get mad at her. Instead, he calms down his wife and let her curse or hit him on the chest. Plus, this creates love too.
Love is when Seok Woo decides to give in and bring Soo An to Busan to meet her mother. Love is when Soo An screams and cries profusely when she knew her father has got infected on the way to being safe from the havoc-ness in the cities before Busan. She knew her father is going to leave her and die. Love is when Seok Woo decided to jump off the train before he would attack his daughter and Sung Kyung before he realizes it. Love is when Sung Hwa told Seok Woo to take care of his pregnant wife because he knew he could not make it being not infected.
To summarize this essay, Train to Busan is definitely a film to watch alone, with your friends, with your family members or relatives. You can share the thrills and the excitement among each others. The lighting, colors, location, costumes and actor's movement used and portrayed in this film shows how a horror film should be filmed. According to Jeannette Catsoulis (2016), Train to Busan is a public transportation horror movie with a side helping of class warfare.
References:
1) Lathrop, G and Sutton, D. (n.d.). ELEMENTS of MISE-EN-SCENE. Retrieved from http://www.proseproductionsink.com/1102_Licata_Elements_of_Mise-en-scene_modified.pdf
2) Flattum, J. (2013, November 11). What is STORY? Retrieved from http://www.scriptmag.com/features/craft-features/what-is-story-story-types-plot-types-themes-genres
3) Marshall, D. (2008, September 7). 12 Colors and Their Meanings. Retrieved from
http://filmdirectingtips.com/archives/157
4) Catsoulis, J. (2016, July 21). Review: All About "Train to Busan" for Zombie and Class Warfare. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/movies/train-to-busan-review.html?referrer=google_kp
The purpose of this essay is to analyze the various genres in Train to Busan and to discuss the theories used in this film. The horror genre is to make the audience show expressions of being scared, frightened, panicked and shocked including a fast pace of heartbeat and being on the edge on their seats during the movie. For me, for a horror movie, it will be frightening to me, when I could not sleep after watching it. I will keep on remembering the horrifying scenes of the film and it will cause me to have trouble falling asleep. There are various categories in horror films such as action horror, comedy horror, supernatural horror, zombie horror and etc.
The semantic approach theory in films are the visuals shown in the film. Semantic is also known as mise-en-scene. In this film, the locations of the film are in Seoul Station, Daejeon Station and Busan. The scenes are mostly filmed in the train. These location showed us a bit of South Korea on how their train stations look like. As for the main character, Seok Woo, a divorced man, has heavy dark eye circles and it shows that he is an workaholic, not a fatherly figure to his daughter and always wearing a suit and a tie.The lighting in the film is more of a black and red color. Black color represents the evilness of the company, the fearfulness of the citizens and the power of the infected over the uninfected. Red color represents the love shown between Sang Hwa and his wife, the willingness to die together with their sibling, and the father's love to his daughter. It also represents blood from killing the zombies, using violence to protect one's self, and anger towards people who are self-centered. The actor's behavior and movement are mostly controlled by the director on how the director wants the film to look like and to portray horror in the film. The actor's expression in the film is being watched and analyzed by the audience on how it conveys the movie's message to the audience watching the film. The actor's movement on how to kill or get away from the zombies shows us a realistic way to defend ourselves from danger when necessary.
The syntactic approach is about the narrative of the film. In horror films, we anticipate the main characters survival. Mostly, there will be at least one in the film. In Train to Busan, there are characters of a workaholic, a loving husband to his pregnant wife, siblings travelling to Busan, a self-centered man and a team of baseball players. The protagonist or hero of this film most probably will be ones defending for their safety and protecting others from danger. They are Seok Woo, Sung Hwa, Yeong Gook, a homeless man, one of the sister sibling and Sung Kyung. The themes found in this film are love, sacrifice, resurrection, transformation and redemption. One of the themes is redemption because there are survivors saved or rescued from the apocalypse. The resurrection part is when the citizens got infected, died and transform into zombies. For the transformation part, the last zombie slayer, Seok Woo, in the end, got bitten and infected.
Train to Busan is a zombie action thriller horror film, but there is some twist of comedy in it. The first outbreak is when a young lady boards the train with a wounded leg. Then, it infected almost all of the passengers in the train to Busan. Seok Woo, Yeong Gook and Sung Hwa teamed up to fight the zombies in their way to save Seok Woo's daughter, Soo An, Sung Hwa's pregnant wife, an old lady together with a homeless man. Towards the end of the movie, Seok Woo got bitten on the hand when he is trying to defend himself, his daughter and Sung Kyung. Before Seok Woo transform into a zombie, he told Sung Kyung on how to stop the train and telling his daughter to stay put with Sung Kyung no matter what happens. Later, he jumped from the train to not infect his daughter and Sung Kyung.
Horror films usually ends with a return to normalcy and victory over the monstrous, which are the zombies. This film contains a few sub genres such as unnatural which is the zombies, massacre for the mass murders of the zombies and citizens turning into zombies. There are some parts of comedy and romance in this movie which makes this movie somewhat unique and memorable to audience.
Train to Busan is identified as a horror film because it consists of unnatural elements and massacre elements such as zombies and body horrors and mass murders of the zombies. For examples of unnatural elements, there are scenes of zombies infecting the people by biting their neck or eating off them such as ripping of flesh from their bodies. These scenes are horribly terrifying to imagine it onto ourselves. For examples of massacre elements, scenes that involves zombie apocalypse infecting the humans in the train or on the road and scenes where Seok Woo, Sung Hwa and Yeong Gook fight them in between coaches to get to the survivors trapped in Coach 13's toilet.
There are other genres in Train to Busan such as action, comedy and love.
The running and fighting scenes are part of the action genres. When the zombies are chasing the citizens on the road, it is action. Citizens running away from the zombies to save themselves from being infected, it is action. There is a scene where Sung Hwa twisted one of the zombie's neck when it is blocking his way to save his wife. The cracking sound effect sounds so painful to be experienced on a person.
When Sung Hwa tries to not bother his wife, Sung Kyung using the toilet, for a big guy like Sung Hwa, in the society, big guys are portrayed as masculine and tough. For Sung Hwa, he treats his wife like a queen. His wife would curse at him and he would not throw tantrums or get mad at her. Instead, he calms down his wife and let her curse or hit him on the chest. Plus, this creates love too.
Love is when Seok Woo decides to give in and bring Soo An to Busan to meet her mother. Love is when Soo An screams and cries profusely when she knew her father has got infected on the way to being safe from the havoc-ness in the cities before Busan. She knew her father is going to leave her and die. Love is when Seok Woo decided to jump off the train before he would attack his daughter and Sung Kyung before he realizes it. Love is when Sung Hwa told Seok Woo to take care of his pregnant wife because he knew he could not make it being not infected.
To summarize this essay, Train to Busan is definitely a film to watch alone, with your friends, with your family members or relatives. You can share the thrills and the excitement among each others. The lighting, colors, location, costumes and actor's movement used and portrayed in this film shows how a horror film should be filmed. According to Jeannette Catsoulis (2016), Train to Busan is a public transportation horror movie with a side helping of class warfare.
References:
1) Lathrop, G and Sutton, D. (n.d.). ELEMENTS of MISE-EN-SCENE. Retrieved from http://www.proseproductionsink.com/1102_Licata_Elements_of_Mise-en-scene_modified.pdf
2) Flattum, J. (2013, November 11). What is STORY? Retrieved from http://www.scriptmag.com/features/craft-features/what-is-story-story-types-plot-types-themes-genres
3) Marshall, D. (2008, September 7). 12 Colors and Their Meanings. Retrieved from
http://filmdirectingtips.com/archives/157
4) Catsoulis, J. (2016, July 21). Review: All About "Train to Busan" for Zombie and Class Warfare. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/movies/train-to-busan-review.html?referrer=google_kp
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