Avis des critiques

The propulsively entertaining Train to Busan takes Snowpiercer's locomotive class warfare and adds zombies, resulting in the biggest Korean hit of 2016 (whose rights have already been snapped up for the inevitable Hollywood remake)... In his live-action debut, anime director Yeon Sang-ho turns train cars into cellular dramas of class resentments, nail-biting escapes and torturous moral choices.

Most of the lifts here are from Bong Joonho. The idea of a train with an 'elite' cloistered in First Class has an obvious debt to Snowpiercer, and the stuff about brutal military enforcement of infection-containment measures derives from The Host. But as we've noted, Yeon does know how to run with second-hand ideas. His fast-moving, acrobatic zombies (yes, he's seen World War Z) make possible a couple of really knockout images during the climactic scenes in East Daegu shunting yard.

Yeon's script could stand to loosen its grip on stock character behavior, but he's got a way with a setpiece that'll make you sit up in your chair. Zombie brawls, stealth crawls through dark compartments and various zombie footraces and train chases are this film's specialty and it dolls them out with just the right frequency. As close to literally 40 miles of bad road as possible.

Often chaotic but never disorienting, the movie's spirited set pieces owe much to Lee Hyung-deok's wonderfully agile cinematography. Dipping and levitating, his camera injects air into tunnels and washrooms and luggage compartments, giving the action a hurtling vigor. Even more impressive is the train itself: marveling at its freakishly strong doors and dedicated staff, you might find yourself mourning the state of our own rail services more than the fate of the characters.

It treats a cataclysmic event as a backdrop to the restoration of a nuclear family—or something close to approaching one. The film's drive toward a conventional sense of closure, executed with a clean sense of movement reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's work, becomes impossible to separate from a series of essentially socio-political talking points that suggest a nation's ever-increasing embrace of capitalistic values has unhinged its populace from the salt-of-the-earth ethos of an idyllic past.

As an allegory of class rebellion and moral polarization, it proves just as biting as Bong Joon-ho's sci-fi dystopia "Snowpiercer," while delivering even more unpretentious fun. Yeon has displayed recognizably cinematic sensibilities in his last three indie anime features — "King of Pigs," "Fake" and "Seoul Station" — so it's not surprising that he transitions easily into live-action, though his scathing, nihilistic vision of humanity is watered down for wider mainstream appeal.