'Train to Busan 2: Peninsula' by Yeon Sang-ho Review: A soulless corpse with nothing to offer

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Despite its many flaws, Train to Busan managed to reach worldwide popularity with its unique take on the zombie genre back in 2016. While it was yet another zombie film, it remained simplistic and got to the point quickly, using one specific theme and set of locations to drive the film forward. Its use of trains allowed it to stand out against the stale entries of the last decade, so it certainly felt more fresh compared to, for example, The Walking Dead.

It was no surprise that a sequel was to follow after the success of the film, at an unexpected global level. Though, unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that this sequel contains nothing particularly special and purely exists to generate more money from the prior interest the first title received. It follows Hollywood's awful methods of capitalising off of something mildly decent and crashing it into the ground into something completely unrecognisable. That is to say that this film should not and very well could not exist with no loss to fans of the original title.

Peninsula begins with a rather long, unnecessary amount of exposition, detailing a few events of the past and present. It is the typical style of treating the audience like clueless idiots, ignoring the fans of the original and focusing on those who may not have seen the first title. This is far from a sequel, but simply just an expansion of a universe that doesn't need to exist. This composition begins with an incredibly low budget style interview on a western talk show, with some truly atrocious acting that really pulls you from any immersion whatsoever. This serves as our spoonfeeding of information to the audience, and that's its only purpose within the film.

It's incredibly distracting but perfectly establishes what type of film this will be, and as stated above: a soulless corpse drained of its life for the entire purpose of making a few extra thousand dollars from the prior success. Despite my immediate disappointed, I continued on out of mere curiosity. It's rare for me to fully drop a film I've started watching, after all. While the introduction of characters in a film should never be bound to a specific structure, Peninsula doens't really introduce anyone or give you a reason to care for them, it simply dives immediately into the action and throws lazy special effects and fake environments at you in an attempt to wow you with purely visuals. It's rather jarring given the special effects have been implemented with very little budget and the dialogue with characters you don't know or care for isn't all that interesting.

Though when the special effects aren't distracting you, the attempts to portray an apocalyptic city lit purely by moonlight takes reign instead. Nothing looks particularly authentic. Everything is far too bright for moonlight and the characters have blatant lighting techniques to perfect certain features, which only adds to the confusion as to how this world is so bright during the middle of the night. It doesn't make much sense, especially for a horror in which darkness can be an incredibly useful tool to not only heighten suspense, but to increase the complexities of surviving in such a world where darkness may be your best ally in regards to moving around and searching for resources, but also the most dangerous time for the less experienced. Instead, everything and everyone has this strange glossy look to them that's supposed to serve as moonlight, while essentially lighting everything everywhere.

One particular moment that had me actually laugh out loud was where a character used his nightvision scope to look into a window during the light, to see a horde of zombies looking directly at him through the panel of glass. This wasn't the issue, this was actually done quite well and served as a suspensful moment. The issue that immediately after, coincidentally, the clouds move out of the moon's path and the moonlight illuminates the entirety of the glass panels, and only the glass panels, to reveal the full scale of the zombie horde. A good suspensful moment was immediately ruined. There was no need for it at all. And then the character returns to a vehicle in which other characters are waiting inside, watching the entire thing, only to ask why he returned in such a frantic manner.

It's quite a disappointing film that attempts to constantly go the extra mile for no real beneficial reason for anyone. While the first title certainly increased the action and special effects usage towards the end part of the film, it remained focused on a simplistic set of environments that contributed to the suspense and took the zombie genre is a different direction after years of stagnation and oversaturation. Rather than attempting to push the narrative an extra step while maintaining that mildly unique addition, the sequel simply joins that plague of oversaturated entries that are easily forgettable.

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