Train to Busan

Genre fans jaded by an overkill of zombies on film and TV should rejoice because this superb South Korean action horror delivers tense, nerve-shredding excitement in spades. The premise is simple enough: a businessman (Gong Yoo) agrees to take a high-speed train from Seoul to Busan with his young daughter, just as the city is overrun by bloodthirsty ghouls. Of course, one of them gets on board and a familiar game of survival for an ever-dwindling group of uninfected citizens ensues. But director Yeon Sang-ho (The King of Pigs) skilfully adds to the claustrophobic tension by creating well-rounded characters whom you genuinely care about - Gong's workaholic dad-cum-reluctant hero: Ma Dong-seok's no-nonsense brawler who's not afraid to punch out zombies to protect his pregnant wife. The men's class-war bickering under deadly duress is an amusing diversion from running to tiny toilets for refuge or crawling along luggage racks to avoid the slobbering undead. However, teeth-grindingly terrifying though the film is, it's no out-and-out gorefest. Indeed, it's the savage behaviour of passengers like Kim Eui-sung's callous capitalist that is as horrifying, right up to the breathtaking "is anyone going to survive?" climax.