#‘Train to Busan’ is a Case Study in Meaningful Character Death

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• Meg Shields
• September 8, 2020

All aboard! Watch a video essay that shows why Yeon Sang-ho’s film is better than most in the zombie subgenre.

If you haven’t seen Train to Busan, now is the time to close this window and open your home video provider of choice. This is one of the best zombie films of the 21st century, a rare blend of action and horror that delivers on thrills and chills in equal measure. It also answers the question “what if a bad dad became a better person while zombies invaded a train?”

It rules. Watch it.

I’m being insistent because we’re going to talk about character death. Which means spoilers abound from here on out. Death, and more specifically the death of characters we care about, is a constant in zombie movies. Loss is the implied threat and emotional backbone of the genre. Ragtag survivors, be they loved ones or newly allied strangers, are not all going to make it out alive.

Which brings us to Train to Busan, a zombie movie with character deaths that are emotional, satisfying, and, more to the point, meaningful. These aren’t deaths for death’s sake. After all, killing a character doesn’t mean anything if we don’t care about them. Train to Busan knows this and presents us with people, good and evil, who resonate and feel real, from soft, strong martyrs to selfish survivalists.

As the video essay below explains, if characters don’t feel alive, to begin with, then their deaths will be of little consequence. Looking at Train to Busan as a narrative cause study, the essay focuses on the character arcs and deaths of three main characters, ultimately arguing that the latter informs the former, underscoring morals, beliefs, and whether they’ve weathered or succumbed to the pressures of catastrophe.

Watch “Train to Busan: How to Kill a Character“:

Who made this?

This video was created by Accented Cinema, a Canadian-based YouTube video essay series with a focus on foreign cinema. You can subscribe to Accented on Cinema for bi-weekly uploads here. You can follow them on Twitter here.

More Videos Like This

• For another taste from Accented Cinema, here’s how the 1985 action-horror comedy Mr. Vampire places death front and center while remaining family-friendly
• And another, on why The Eye is a brilliant reflection of Chinese superstitions
• J-horror chiller Noroi: The Curse exemplifies why mockumentaries are more terrifying than found footage
• Here’s a clip of some behind the scenes footage of Train to Busan. Those train sets look claustrophobic as hell
• 100 Years of Cinema has a succinct look at the history, cultural influences, and enduring popularity of zombies on film
• Here’s The Closer Look with how to make an audience cry 
• In case you missed it, there’s a Train to Busan sequel set four years after the original film (spoiler: the situation did not improve). Here’s the trailer for Peninsula