The thrilling new Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula trailer gives zombie movie fans their first look at footage from Train to Busan 2. Released in 2016, director Yeon Sang-Ho’s Train to Busan took frenzied zombie action to a staggering new level, becoming a certified international hit with $98 million at the global box office.
Indeed, the energetic non-stop action of Train to Busan, which took advantage of the confined spaces of the titular train to bring tremendous tension to the story, injected a new shot of life into the flagging zombie genre in many people’s eyes, and fans have eagerly awaited a sequel ever since it arrived. Now, Sang-Ho is set to deliver with Peninsula, the long-awaited Train to Busan follow-up. After the original movie detailed the initial panicked stages of the zombie outbreak in South Korea, the sequel is set to explore the grim post-apocalyptic aftermath of those events.
The first trailer for Peninsula (via Well Go USA Entertainment) indeed shows that things have unsurprisingly gotten very bad since the zombies showed up, but of course the few plucky survivors are trying to carry on as a new social order arises. See the clip in the space below:
The synopsis for Peninsula reads:
Four years after South Korea’s total decimation in TRAIN TO BUSAN, the zombie thriller that captivated audiences worldwide, acclaimed director Yeon Sang-ho brings us PENINSULA, the next nail-biting chapter in his post-apocalyptic world. Jung-seok, a soldier who previously escaped the diseased wasteland, relives the horror when assigned to a covert operation with two simple objectives: retrieve and survive. When his team unexpectedly stumbles upon survivors, their lives will depend on whether the best—or worst—of human nature prevails in the direst of circumstances.
As the synopsis indicates, Peninsula treads ground that many zombie movies have covered in the past, depicting the desolation after the apocalypse and people’s attempts to put civilization back together while still staving off the zombie menace. And of course, as in many a zombie movie and TV show before this, other humans might actually be a much bigger threat than the zombies themselves. But the zombies are clearly still a pretty big problem on their own, as the trailer shows them whipping up more carnage among the ruins. And these are very agile, swarming zombies (more World War Z than Walking Dead).
Intriguingly, in this post-apocalyptic world, humanity seems to have broken into several factions, including a group labeled “The Corrupted” who appear to be outcasts who are forced to fight the zombies for the entertainment of the other survivors. In addition to that zombie Thunderdome action, the trailer promises loads of chase scenes and hyper-kinetic fights amid the rubble. Given that the world has begun feeling a bit apocalyptic for real, it will be interesting to see if audiences have any interest in delving into yet another disaster movie full of infected zombies and evil humans, even one that promises as much over-the-top action as this movie appears to deliver. Still listed only as “coming soon,” Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula is expected to arrive in theaters this summer.