Train to Busan Presents Peninsula - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Train to Busan Presents Peninsula



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I think this is the first time that I’ve seen a “previous title presents” blurb as PART of the actual title of a sequel before, but here we are. If you didn’t know that Train to Busan Presents Peninsula was a sequel to Train to Busan, then you might need to take an extra cup of coffee. Sang-ho Yeon is back with a sequel to his hit 2017 film Train to Busan, and I’m more than excited to dig in at first glance. The original film was a revelation in a world that was over saturated with Zombie movies, giving us a simplistic film that is made altogether more than the sum of it’s parts due to the intricate character development. It blended pieces of 28 Days Later with World War Z, and typical Korean storytelling to make a near masterpiece that is still one of my favorite zombie movies EVER.

That being said above, I was still a little nervous about the sequel after watching the trailer. It seemed more of an action movie than the first, and had elements of Escape from New York in it from what I could see. After digging through the 2 hour film, I have to say that my suspicions were right. Peninsula borrows VERY heavily from Escape from New York (and more likely) and Escape from L.A. to make this into more of an action/adventure zombie movie. That’s not to say that Sang-ho Yeon forgoes the heart wrenching drama that made his first film so good, but that’s something to discuss in a minute.

It’s been 4 years since the viral outbreak in South Korea, turning the populace into zombies. While we though that Busan was a safe harbor for our train riding heroes from the first film, it turned out to be false. ALL of South Korea has been infected, and survivors gotten off the peninsula as fast as they could, with the world hard quarantining South Korea to just implode on itself. All that’s left is bands of roving warriors and starving humans midst a sea of mindless undead. Marine Captain Jung Seok (Gang Dong-won) barely escapes with his life, only to watch as his sister and nephew are eaten alive by lone infected survivor who escaped with them. Now he and his brother in law are basically in limbo refugees in Hong Kong while the rest of the world blames them for the virus outbreak.

A break comes in the form of a mission by Jung Seok’s boss, who wants him, his brother in law and 2 other refugees to sneak BACK into the South Korean peninsula and transport a truck transporting 20 million dollars in U.S. currency out, and back up to Hong Kong. Luckily the zombies are blind at night and as long as they’re quiet, it should be an easy job. Well, we all know how easy jobs go in movies like this, as their plan quickly goes to hell in a hand basket. A roving band of mercenary survivors known as the 631 attack the track not knowing who the newbies are, capturing Jung Seok’s brother in law, and stranding him with no support but a mother and her two young daughters. However, with their help he may be able to sneak inside the 631’s fortress and get the satellite phone to call for an evac and salvage the mission, but it’s going to take a lot of guns, and a lot of effort.

Peninsula plays out like an involuntary Escape from New York/L.A., just without the futuristic fascism and arm bending to get the main character to go into the post apocalyptic wasteland that is South Korea. The movie is a solid enough action flick, and a decent clone of the Escape from franchise, but it’s nowhere near the intricate quality that is Train to Busan. The director is there, the writers are there, but the simplistic plot is just so much more action oriented that it lost the in depth character motivations that were so engaging in the previous film. The powers that be DO try to make it a tear jerker at the end, much like the first one, but it’s a hard sell and feels a bit forced. Personally I felt they should have just accepted that they were making an action sequel to a character drama/horror flick and not try to make it all serious at the end. It’s a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. Again, not to say Peninsula is a bad film, it’s just that it doesn’t hold up to how great it’s predecessor was.




Rating:

Not Rated By the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

Even though it is a 2K to 4K UHD upscale in resolution, Peninsula looks really great on 4K. The film doesn’t lend itself towards tons of pop and wow as the colors are a bit muted and the gray night time locals don’t have a ton of color saturation to them. Details are generally great, but I noticed some mild banding and the blacks can look a bit smeary at times. Otherwise facial details are razor sharp, clothing is intimately detailed, and the colors that DO pop up really shine. Luckily the heavily night time dominant filming style doesn’t show black crush at all and the shadow details are a rather nice improvement over the standard Blu-ray release as well.








Audio:

The Korean Dolby Atmos track is really the highlight of the mix, as it delivers on all fronts with guns blazing (quite literally in many scenes). Dialog is crisp and clear as always, and the surrounds get copious amounts of energy pushed through them with the scrabbling and screeching of cars and zombies alike. The car chases where the daughter is drifting across the screen really makes good use of directional pans, and the overheads get some hefty workout as zombies fall from overhead (as well as some minor score cues). Bass is deep and crushing, with waves of low energy washing over the listener at every scene. Well Go USA DID include an English track as well, but it is in DTS-HD MA 5.1 only, as the Korean track is where all the Atmos magic is (and the Atmos track handily beats out the English mix, so my qualms about English dubs aside, the Korean track is the no brainer).







Extras:

• Making of
• Interviews
• Well Go USA Trailers

Final Score: ​

Train to Busan Presents Peninsula is a decent movie, but it suffers from being way too generic for it’s own good, and rather repetitive in the second half. It’s got sold action, decent special effects (the car chase effects were a bit too obvious), and a good looking and sounding disc to enjoy. It’s not high art, and works more of an Escape from New York/L.A. clone than a sequel to Train to Busan, but still rather enjoyable in it’s own right.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Dong-won Gang, Jung-hyun Lee, Re Lee, Hae-hyo Kwon, Min-Jae Kim, Gyo-hwan Koo, Do-Yoon Kim
Directed by: Sang-ho Yeon
Written by: Sang-ho Yeon, Ryu Yong-jai
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: Korean: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English, English Full
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 116 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 24th, 2020

Recommendation: Decent Watch

 

[Todd Anderson]

This one isn’t ringing a bell... at all. Weird. I’m going to stick it on my want list and wait for a price drop.

 

[Michael Scott]

This one isn’t ringing a bell... at all. Weird. I’m going to stick it on my want list and wait for a price drop.

the first one is one of the best zombie movies of the last 10 years IMO

Amazon.com: Train To Busan : Gong Yoo: Movies & TV

Amazon.com: Train To Busan : Gong Yoo: Movies & TV

www.amazon.com

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will first check out the first one in the series -- Train To Busan.