Train to Busan 2: Peninsula (2020)

Surprise! I actually liked and enjoyed this movie.

Gonna lay this out first. If you're expecting Peninsular to go exactly as Train to Busan did, you might as well go rewatch the first movie and not have your high expectations be dashed. If you dived into this movie without any set expectations you might surprise yourself to realise that you actually enjoyed this movie. I mean, I watched this in the cinema and regardless of how much CGI had been used in this movie compared to Busan, I haven't even had time to think about that. Because yes, the movie was quite fast-paced but it was exactly due to that what made any kinds of CGI barely noticeable.

I mean face it, the setting was four years after the escape to Busan. And even then, the situation was already chaotic. And the setting for the movie was focused on the other surviving people who had to try to escape the zombies by other ways BESIDES taking the KTX to Busan. Certainly, you can't expect the situation to unfold exactly the same as the people on that particular train. And the story still has a similar theme; how fear and desperation will affect the people trying to escape from the virus that will turn you into an undead. And what'll happen when the efforts to curb the zombie pandemic did not show any results as other nations decide to abandon the people still trapped in the zombie-ridden country because they find it pointless to help an already fallen country?

And to be honest, this isn't the first zombie movie that does use CGI for some of the zombies (like seriously, you don't run actual people down with high-speed cars so how else you wanna film THAT correctly?) and that never stopped people from enjoying movies like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Heck, I enjoyed this movie a whole lot better from Rampant and that's saying something. Besides... I love all the Fast & Furious parts. That was fun. It's so fun that I felt like screaming in fear but it's still fun. And it's amazing how the survivors made use of the sensitivities to light and sound to try to divert the zombies around in order to make their escape. And of course like in Busan, there ARE assholes in this movie as well. More than a bunch of selfish assholes to make good people's lives harder just to survive. And we do get a great climatic 'battle' near the end. And we also got an unexpected plot twist just as hope seemed to be lost near the end of the movie. So all in all, this movie is good in my book.

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Train to Busan is one of the most enjoyable movies that have seen come out of South Korea the last few years, and one of the best zombie movies ever. The story is so simple and so straightforward and tight, the pacing is just excellent, the action and the horror works well together with the more emotional scenes. It just seems to be able to strike a good balance.

The story in Train to Busan has a good heart with the father-daughter thing at its core. You really do care about those characters while also just being amazing action-horror with a really simple yet effective story that is incredibly fun to watch. And it is really re-watchable.

It was always going to be hard topping that movie and I knew the sequel would never truly manage to live up to it. But I was very hopeful and when I went to the cinemas to see it I was just hoping to have a really fun time.

Peninsula is not Train to Busan in any sense. It does not even come close. It has none of the charms of the first movie and it just feels like it's trying too hard to seem bigger and better, when the simplicity of Train to Busan and the whole movie just taking place in a very limited space was what really made the movie work and gave it that charm and this urge to survive that was really earnest and intense. Peninsula just wanted to much, with the action and the CGI but it totally lacked the story for me. As well as the characters.

The story, what is supposed to be the driving force of the movie and the thing that hook us (and not just people shooting zombies), just wasn't strong enough. Or really that good. It almost didn't feel like it was about anything as we follow so many characters that don't get a chance to shine in an over bloated story as they get limited screen time due to everything else that's also happening, or get that much depth so we actually care about them.

And sure, the movie tries super hard to queue up those emotional scenes that it had and did well in the first movie. But the problem is that none of it really feels earned because we have not spent enough time with a lot of these characters and therefor it just all falls flat. It feels like the movie is telling me to feel sad, while not actually putting in the work of making me sad.

There were some actions scenes that I really thought were cool and fun to watch. But after a while they just feel a bit too much or just the same. It is just people driving cars fast at zombies or shooting them with guns. And my issue with that sort of action might just be that I really do not like guns and I find it really boring to watch people just relentlessly shooting people (or undead people) with them.

People trying to kill each other with swords, magic, or some sort of superpowers? yes, can watch that again and again. But something about people shooting each other like they did here in Peninsula gives me no thrill. I just feel bored.

Train to Busan really made it all about survival and people just being desperate to survive and using whatever they could on that train to do so. This one does not manage that at all. Possibly because the scope of it all was too big. The action to felt so empty. And I know that there is only so much you can do with zombies, but Train to Busan showed us how it could be done. I have seen other movies were people really make that work, while also telling human stories along the way, while Peninsula was just a big blockbuster action-horror and nothing else. It was just made to make money.

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A disappointment

After Train To Busan in 2016 blew my mind and became my favorite asian movie of all time, I was so looking forward to the sequel. It took 4 years and finally I watched this in the cinema on 15 July 2020 to celebrated my birthday. I was pumped up and excited for this movie. And in the end, it let me down because it's a disappointment.

Honestly I tried to give this movie a higher rating but I just can't. That 1 stars is for how hot Kang Dong Won is lol. This movie is around 2 hours and that 2 hours that I spent in the cinema, I only got scared twice, and that happened in the beginning of the movie.

Rather than a zombie movie, this seems like an action movie that doesn't have a solid plot. There was LOTS of car chasing scenes where the cars are CGI!!!! If I want to watch CGI/animation cars, then I better just spend my time watching CARS animation movie right? And of course during the car chase scenes there would be zombie right, but you know what, the zombies are also CGI!!!!!! Ugh I have enough of CGI crap in this movie. I know CGI is expensive and all but Train To Busan doesn't have any CGI zombies, and that movie was one of the scariest movie I've ever watched.

Oh and also there was a lot of drama. Boring drama that happened between the mother and daughters.

In conclusion, this movie is a waste of my time and money. I would never re-watch it again.

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What A Waste

Welp, Peninsula won't be following Train To Busan to Cannes that's for sure. Aside from the zombies and taking place in South Korea, it has very little in common with TTB. The script has little to no heart. The acting was phoned in. The entire production was a dystopian mess. It was difficult to pay attention or even care about the main cast.

A military man played by Kang Dong Won returns to Seoul after escaping the zombie epidemic with a team of people to look for riches to sell on the Chinese black market. This idea doesn't sit well with the survivors who are still trapped in South Korea. The movie is about his 2nd escape out of South Korea. The script seems like it was barely passable. There's not much of an idea to work with. I think that's why the acting was subpar for the most part.

The music wasn't bad. It was better than the movie. The re-watch value on this is in the negative.

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Painful lack of direction and vision.

Here’s the thing - I actually enjoyed it quite a bit at the beginning, up till they introduced the last group of characters. And that last group completely ruined the experience for me. I just did not understand what this movie wanted to be.

It tried to be a fun action, survival, drama, dumb blockbuster… and it ended up being nothing truly worth watching. The emotional scenes were flat and unearned, the action was decent, but the car chase scenes were laughable with full CGI cars, one whole side plot was useless and brought exactly nothing to the story except getting my brain boil from the stupidity.

I truly wanted to like it. I waited long enough to be able to separate it from Train to Busan, and see it as a stand alone movie. Sadly, it’s an awful sequel, and mediocre at best stand alone.

The movie lacked focus - too many characters, too many groups with their own individual motivations, too many plots to make it a well written and presented story. The more they added, the worse it got.

Some scenery shots were beautiful, some had such a strong game quality because of the editing and CGI, it ruined the scenes. Even the zombies were worse than in the Train to Busan. One would think they would improve over the years… It’s not like the special effects industry got worse in the 4 years gap between the two titles.

The acting was good, but the characters were so boring and had close to zero personality, it was not exactly a hard job to deliver a decent performance. Kids did the best. Loved their scenes the most.

Overall, skippable. All the driving in the dark got me thinking I'm watching the Fast & Furious Zombie edition. The movie ended and I went - that’s it? It lacked the impact - be it action and entertainment or emotional delivery like the first movie had.

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Well Done

I'm here after Train of Busan and this is one of the few sequels I wasn't disappointed in. If you want some unexpected badass female leads you'll find it here. It was just as intense and hardcore but a bit of a different style with the same general zombie theme of ToB. When things got tough I could feel myself tensing up with anxiety lol Very convincing acting and gives you a good idea of corruption and madness throughout within an apocalypse. Gave me a few ideas of what to do in a apocalypse too. If you enjoyed ToB or enjoy zombies in general I think you'll enjoy this! The stories aren't really connected other than it being in the future so you don't HAVE to watch Train of Busan first but I highly recommend for full enjoyment and appreciation of it all.

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Okay so... Here is the thing. I knew without a doubt this movie wouldn't get a 10 from the second I heard about it. I'll tell you why; as terrible as it is, It's because of that rumor that they were going to let Hollywood have at it. THANKFULLY - they did not. Don't even come at me because you know -YOU KNOW- Hollywood ruins great movies. But I guess Next Entertainment was like "lol no."

Anyway while I'm glad they didn't, I still feel like this movie lacked a bit? I swear to you - I can't even put my finger on it.... Maybe because my brain instantly wants to connect Train to Busan to Peninsula even though the writer flat out told us there would be NO CONNECTION! They told us, yes, it's in the same AU but it is it's own storyline. I get it. I do. But my brain is like "Uhhh Train to Busan 2!" even though I have second thought literally saying "no connection, just same AU". Guess that just means my brain hates me?

Y'all... *shreaks* why did I think eorugheroghrohsgw KANG DONG-WON WAS CHOI SEUNG-HYUN!?!?

Anywho! The acting was amazing! But ... I think my main issue was that the movie starts off the bat with no warm up. Like we are already supposed to know all of these characters and have a bond with them? Like, okay... if this isn't really part three of this series then... shouldn't you help us warm up a bit? It's hard for me to care about characters I don't know much about but I have to admit, as time went on I really did like the main character. I mean come on. He was bad ass! Though the character I loved right off the bat was probably the teenage daughter. She was so freaking sassy and I swear she would make Han (Tokyo Drift) so proud with that drifting!!! Hahah (Though honestly I can't remember her name. If anyone remembers, please let me know and I'll fix this.)

The storyline itself was pretty good....ish? ... kinda? I'm still on the fence about this. Because like I said, we kinda got forced into this movie like we were already supposed to know everyone. I've seen Train to Busan a few times and nothing is clicking, but who knows.

Will I be watching this again? Oh totally! Because I'm a sucker for zombie movies... aaaaand because there is just something about Kang with a gun and being badass that just makes me swoon. Lol

I do recommend this movie to everyone. And while it doesn't pick up where Train to Busan leaves off, I do recommend that you start with the anime movie first, then watch Train to Busan THEN watch this. Mainly because they are all in the same AU and the anime explains what happened to even start Train to Busan.

So while everything is saying "Sequal" it's really the third movie.

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More Action than Zombie

Likes: Suspenseful thrill ride. The acting from the two young girls was great

Dislikes: It felt more like Fast & Furious than Train to Busan. As in most Korean films/dramas, the white people can't act.

So if you compare this to Train to Busan, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you look at it as a standalone movie, it's pretty entertaining if not generic. Instead of this mainly being a survival against zombies, it was more a battle between the bad guys and the good guys and a race to get off the zombie infested country. A blockbuster action movie with flashy car chase scenes, gun fights, and a side of zombies.

While the action scenes were thrilling, the characters felt too one note and weren't developed enough so you don't really build an affinity to them like I did with Train to Busan. Overall entertaining, but somewhat forgettable.

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A really good standalone 2nd movie

I absolutely loved the masterpiece that was Train to Busan - it had cool & interesting zombies, good plot, excellent characters & actors and also managed to completely tear our hearts apart and make us a sobbing mess by the end.

So going into Peninsula I didn't expect it to come even close to 1st one but was still optimistic thanx to the trailers.

Just saw it in the cinema and gotta say - for a 2nd movie it did really great! Actually didn't expect it to be so good, so that was a really nice surprise. The optimism paid off for once.

First movie broke our hearts, this one is more of an action movie and had more fun while still being part emotional here & there.

Character wise it's not a sequel, but zombie & South korea wise it is a sequel - you can take it as a standalone with the prequel set setting...lolz, that became a mouthful XD

The zombies were already familiar, but now we had new ways to deal with them and they were real funny.
Plot was also good and characters & actors did ok and the writers really managed to bring out...how to say it...PTSD from 1st movie at the end? This one's gonna die, no that ones gonna die...the writers really knew how to toy with us and totally bring out the fear/heartbreak of first movie's end, so I for one liked that 'cuz you think you know how it's gonna end, but that's not it.

All in all, it's a good one, I had fun, which did not expect.

Would I recommend to watch it? Totally, it's worth the time :D

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It's Not Really Train To Busan 2

This movie takes place 4 years after the first Train to Busan, but I wouldn't really consider it a real sequel. It's really more of a generic zombie movie that has connections to the first Train to Busan.

What made the first movie so exciting was its confined setting, character development, and suspense. This movie didn't really have that. It was more of an action movie, one that involved A LOT of CGI. A lot of bad CGI too, it was kind of jarring really. There were so many driving scenes, it felt like a mix of Fast and Furious along with a B Korean movie.

That being said, I still enjoyed the movie. The acting and the production (aside from the CGI) was good. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but you could spend 2 hours in many worse ways.

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