Latest / The Kulturecast / Train to Busan (2016) — "At a time like this, only watch out for yourself."

Transcript

Train to Busan (2016) — "At a time like this, only watch out for yourself." · The Kulturecast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Wearying.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Wait, you an everybody sold? You tell us a question
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: a little pologically to join that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast. I am
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Christashue, and I am joined by one good
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: friend and well another who is an an aficionado as
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a self label doctor Pearl Mutter, all the way from
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Texas Tech joining me once again. Hello Chris. She is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a K drama anthropologist, which I think is a very
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: good way of putting it, especially if you don't grow
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: up in Korea and it's not a form of media
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that you're watching all the time. Miranda is here to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: join us to talk about Train Sony.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Chris, thanks for having me.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're welcome. Well, I I don't watch a lot
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of K drama, So before we talk about Trained to Booston,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: which is a K action horror film that seemingly made
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it quite across to the United States in a rabid,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: big way. Talk about it, but tell me a little
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: bit about why K drama because that's very specific. It's
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a very specific thing, especially for Western audiences to be
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: kind of getting in.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. K dramas have a really
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: specific aesthetic. They started way back as a miniseries and
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: sort of soaps just like we had here, Just like
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: our grandmothers would watch these serial dramas that were really
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: intense and had a lot of like intercosal relationships, and
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: they grew into this industry that has spanned worldwide. Even
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: if you are not interested in K dramas or Korean culture,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: you know who BTS is, and you have probably heard
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: of at least one Cooeen and drama that's been popular
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: at least here with Western audiences. For such a small country,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: it's really remarkable that they have suja booming entertainment industry
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: specifically for media, for movies and TV shows. So, speaking
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: as someone who's seen a lot of romance specific genre
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: K dramas, because that's mostly what they're centered around, I
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: can definitely say that there's tropes and things that often
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: show up that a very specific audience enjoys and can appreciate,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: even if you see it over and over again, it's
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: something that you always can enjoy, even if you're seeing
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: the same kinds of characters and the same kind of
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: love story. There are just probably like at this point,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of Quean dramas where you can sort
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: of watch the same love story unfold over and over again.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: That's really appealing to people who watch it for just
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: pure enjoyment.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: But then there's also something as the closest analogue. I mean,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I know you said soap operas in American culture, but
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I mean something what would be something more contemporary would
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: it be? I mean, it sounds somewhat And this is
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: not to be dismissive at all, because this is a
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: massive industry. It sounds in a way like Hallmark. It's
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: kind of in terms of like trope expectations in the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: way they're received by the audience. There are people that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: outside to it look at it and go, well, that's
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: quaint and kind of kitchy and saccharin, but the people
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: that watch it don't care. And I mean, I'm is
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: it somewhat in that same.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Vein I would say there are definitely k dramas that
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: are created for that particular audience. But it has changed
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: in the same way that, like our early two thousands,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: shows feature a lot of things that we would now
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: consider inappropriate, a lot of kinds of relationships and a
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: lot of phobias that now Netflix or any other streaming
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: service would absolutely not approve of having on their family
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: friendly show. And again, it's just like shows here where
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: there's many different genres and approaches that they take to
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: these stories. So I would say, yeah, some of it
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: is kitchy and some of it is hallmarky, but some
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: of it can be just as violent as Western You know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: trainabis as an excellent example as Western media because it's
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: a really fast evolving industry that's changing as the country
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: is changing.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So, as you mentioned, we are going to be talking
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: about Trained to Boos on which if you've listened to
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: episodes of my show that feature Doctor pearl Mutter, you'll
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: know that he's not necessarily a fan of horror movies
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: at least well not the Witch anyways, from the sound
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of it. So I'm I'm actually glad that you're on
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: this episode, Doctor pearl Mutter, because I think that this
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: movie is a great kind of bridging of the gap
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: between horror action and Miranda to your point, drama, like
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of it, like to the point of I
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: mean again, I wouldn't say maud Len or Sacherin, but
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: it's definitely of a tone and type that is very
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: specific and aimed in a very specific direction and very
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: successful for what it's doing. But on this episode of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the Culture Cast, we are going to be talking about
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteens Trained to Busan. So the film is directed
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: by Young Song Ho. It stars Gong you Jung You
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Me and nia Ma Dong Siolk and the film is
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: about a father and daughter on a train together going
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to Boossan and then the zombie I wouldn't say apocalypse happens,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: but a zombie infection begins in the country of South
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Korea and the worst and best of humanity happens all
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: at the same time. It's a lot, it's it's a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: fun movie. Maybe I don't know how. Yeah, I don't
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: know if it's fun. I think it's a movie, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I think it's a movie that is well, we'll talk
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: about it, but uh, Miranda, I'm gonna kick it to
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you first. And then doctor promoter why Trained to Bouson
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: kind of already alluded to a but why specifically This movie.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Was extremely popular both here and in Korea, and it's
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: easy to see why because it's very exciting. They do
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: a great job of keeping the tension up the whole time.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: It's unique because it's it's on a train so not
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: only are they keeping a fast paced like within the narrative,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: but they're literally keeping a fast pace because they're on
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: a speeding vehicle. And it also has a really start
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: studied cast. So Gong You is a very famous actor.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: He was in Squid Games, he was in Guardian the
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Great and Milany God, which are too extremely famous Korean
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: pieces of media that I've come out within the last
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: ten years. And Ma Dong Suk, who is another extremely
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: popular actor who's usually in action films, you know, just
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: because of his physique, and he's sort of he's sort
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: of like the rock. He plays the same guy every time,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: but he's you know, he's an incredible actor. He's really funny.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Most of the jokes in the film. You'll be talking
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: about how the jokes are kind of few and far between.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: It's mostly tense drama, but most of the jokes were
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: you know, from him, right, And that's that's a character
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: that he plays in almost every single piece of media
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: that he's in. So it was it was really set
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: up for success. And then this director also, i think,
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: utilized a lot of things that are difficult to employ
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: in like in a Western movie. For one, there's no guns.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Nobody ever fires a gun. The military have guns, but
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: none of our characters do. There's not a single civilian
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: that has like an automatic weapon, and I think that
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: makes it much more exciting. They mostly use baseball bats
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: or their fasts, and I think it's much more exciting
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: to watch somebody hit a zombie in the face with
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: a bat than it is to just watch them shoot
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: them from farther away.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It's a level of snakes you can't get with with guns. Yeah, no,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and yeah, no, it's I hadn't thought about that, but
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, okay, yeah.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: I think it makes a big difference to the kind
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: of weapons that you're using. And also there's a heart
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: to the story. There's you know, very very tender scenes
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: between many of the characters, not just the father and daughter.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: It establishes really really realistic and frankly like super moving
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: to the point of tears by the end of the movie,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: when we've we've you know, spoiler, we've lost some people.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Along the way.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Every every element of it is really well bad whilse
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: There's just enough action and there's just enough how it
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: felt scenes that the whole movie is is entertaining all
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the way through because it never it never lets up,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: like there's always there's always something going on, whether that
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: be the characters talking to each other, fighting off zombies
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: or whatever. But I think ultimately it's really interesting because
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: the director understands how human relationships work, and he understands
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: how to connect his characters to the audience, so we
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: actually care if they live or die, which is one
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: of the most important things when you have a film
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: like this.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And it's rare in I mean it's rare in horror period,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: regardless of who's making them, be it a Korean director
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: or an American director. To get your audience to resonate
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: with the people in the movie is not I mean,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it's not something a lot of horror directors care about
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: because they look at it from the other direction, with
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: killer or the kills are more important, not the people
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: being killed. And that's the way so many horror movies
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: have no lasting power at all, is because there's nothing
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: for the audience to really connect with other than effects,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: which is fine, but those are not as few and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: far between as they used to be. Doctor Perlmutter, I'm
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: very curious what did you think of training to busan Well,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it surprised me because I loved it. I really I had.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: Watched zombie movies in the past, or Walking Dead type
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: television shows. Certainly I'm old enough to have watched like
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: the original Night of the Living Dead, not in a theater,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: but like you know, maybe ten years after it was made.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: And I think it was.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: About season seven of The Walking Dead that I said, Okay,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: that's it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I'm done.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: I will never watch another zombie movie again. I was
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: so mad at some of the decisions, including some of
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: the characters they killed off. I think, honestly purely for
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: financial reasons in the TV show The Walking Dead, that
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: I just said, I don't have to sit through this now.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: On the other hand, I have been writing probably my
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: whole academic career about violence in media, and I wore
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: criminal violence, and I'm interested in that as a top
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: So I'm always curious at how different cultures, different directors,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: different storytelling lenses approach seeing exponential violence, like you know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: people being killed, but in the worst possible way. So
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: I think this film does violence in a really creative way.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, again, I'm not a lover of horror and violence,
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: but like I sat through this every minute, I never
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: checked my phone. I never thought there was a scene
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: that could have been cut. Actually, that's the second point,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: is that it's such a taut film. As Miranda was saying,
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: is that what would you cut out? I couldn't think
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: of a scene that they could have dropped in this movie.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Everything made sense in a sequence, and they kept coming
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: up with sort of new ways for the zombies to
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: be threatening, I mean, new positions for there the protagonists
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: to get themselves in trouble. And then going back to
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: something you said about CGI, this is such a well
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: executed film. I think I looked it up, and I
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: mean the budget is was I don't okay, Yeah, I
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: have a note here what the budget was, and I
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: guess this is an American dollars, Yeah, eight point five
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: million dollars.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: And I was.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Thinking World War Z, remembering if anybody except me watch
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: World War Z, there was a scene in Jerusalem where
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: the zombies are climbing up a wall, right, and it
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: was so badly done. And this like two hundred and
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: fifty million dollar movie or whatever the heck could cost.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: The zombies all looked like blurry CGI. And then there
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: is a there's a miniature version of this, and where
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: the zombies are climbing trying to climb on a moving train,
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: and every individual zombie looked actuated. And I don't know
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: to this day whether it was like incredibly well directed
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: extras and stunt people or or it was cgi. It
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: just looked so good. There's a crowd scene where the
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: soldiers who have been converted to zombiesm fall through a
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: glass door and run. And again every single zombie when
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: you freeze frame looks like it's an individual who's become
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: a zombie. And then the zombies on the train again,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: they're all individual. It's so well executed, with a budget
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: that must have been like a rounding air or the
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: lunch budget of World War Z. And I just was
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: so impressed by that. And then lastly, picking up on
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: something Miranda said, I teach a global communication class, and
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: maybe and I've did teaching a version of this class
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: for thirty five years, and maybe thirty five years ago
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I would have talked about American cultural dominance and hegemony,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: so like that people in Tanzania and Ecuador and Korea
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: would be watching American box office Jaws and Star Wars,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: but we wouldn't be watching too many of those, in fact,
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: foreign films like a character with Sawa Sarai movies or
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: ingmar Bergmann, you know, relationship movies. We're sort of a
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: specialty thing like only like certain audiences watch them. So
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: now we live in this multipolar cultural world. There's a Balywood,
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: but there's you know, a solely wood. I mean the Korea. This,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: as Miranda said, this tiny country, tiny population, tiny geography,
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: has this outsized cultural footprint where I'd say one hundred
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: percent by Generation Z and now Generation Alpha and maybe
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: some early millennial students are pretty well aware of what's
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: going on in the world of k anything. That's a
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: remarkable phenomenon itself, and this movie is just a perfect
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: example of that.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: When I was in college so to date myself, when
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I was in college in the late two thousands, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: couldn't remember anybody being into anything culturally Asian other than
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: maybe anime, manga something to that extent. And it's so
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I think for someone who is a fan of Korean culture,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I think, just broadly, I think it's really refra rushing
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: to see to your point, both at your points that
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Korean culture is kind of not only being given its
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: due but also really being allowed to flourish in a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: way that doesn't feel forced. I mean, the I remember
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: when Si was the first Korean artist most Americans had
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: ever heard. That is so, I mean, he's a great artist.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I mean what's funny is like his best music never
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: made it to the side of the world. It pretty
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: much stayed in Korea. But it's really funny that that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: was kind of one of the early points of Korean
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: culture that the world was exposed to, and then within
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of years it was snow piercer and trained
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to Boo Son and BTS. And it's like, Okay, now
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it's not just it's not just a blip on the radar,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: it's a full fledged thing that is actually Randa to
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: your point, taken over to the point where it is
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: popular every Korea. I think, I personally think Korean culture
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and I think both put it pretty aptly. Korean culture
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: is rather popular I think globals, which is again to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: go back to what you've both already said for a
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: country that does have such a small footprint and has
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: had so many issues in the past globally with possible
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you know, political issues and you know, socioeconomic issues due
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: to the country north of South Korea. It's I don't know,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to see that Korea is making a reason
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: for the world to be invested in it as a country.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And media export is like, you know, one of the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: easiest ways to do that, especially especially in the day
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and age of streaming, where you know, pretty democratic to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: put things on the internet. Because, if memory serves, the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: reason size video got so famous was YouTube, which is
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the ultimate democratic video platform. As far as I'm concerned
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: for good and for bad, but Korean culture, I would
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: say the last ten ten years has been pretty big
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: for the influx of Korean culture into American culture, Western culture,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: as it were.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: That's definitely true. I think a part of that is
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: how stylized it is. There's it's very specific. I mean,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: there's there's waves of different aesthetics in k pop or
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: the types of kate armis that are being released, but
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: they're all really curated. I think that's part of the
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: appeal is how professional everything is specifically en right, Yeah.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: San And as someone who's been to South Korea and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Tokyo Soul was cleaner than Tokyo like which as as
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: most people who go to Tokyo always comment Tokyo is
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a very clean place. I can tell you soul even
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: cleaner like the Korean culture. I just I respect their
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: cleanliness and attention efficiency. Yeah, unlike anything else, like as
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: close to the Japanese as any culture is.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely agree. I think especially in movies like
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: like trying to busson what we were talking about before,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: with the tightness of the narrative, how there's like doctor
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: promoter said, there's just nothing that you can cut. I
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: think that's pretty levolent throughout the entire K drama industry.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I think that they're very good about creating a narrative
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: and sticking to it.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: I have a question on that you mentioned about the
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: sort of esthetic of everything clean, but also like everything
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: in its proper place. Like the Korean movies I've seen,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: which are K comedy or K drama, part of the
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: plot is driven by the sort of prescribed relationships people have,
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: maybe like elders and young people and people dating or
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: something like that. And this is a movie, of course
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: about total mayhem and chaos, and so I thought maybe
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: it even has more power to a Korean audience or
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: to people who have watched a lot of Korean movies
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: that this is so. I mean, in a typical KK
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: drama or K comedy, correct me, Randa or explained to me,
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: that would be a little bit of chaos, like two
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: young people meet and they go against the sort of
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: prescribed rules, and there's a little bit of breaking of
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: the rules. But in this film, like everything has gone wrong,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: like everything's filthy, everything is broken, everything's blowing up, everything
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: is being rubble, isn't I mean, you wouldn't see a
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: lot of rubble in the street, you know. By the way,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: just in historical context, we have to remember that this
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: is a country which was completely destroyed in the war
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: in the nineteen fifty nineteen fifty three of the Korean
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: Civil War. The Korean War just devastated in the same
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: way that you'd see some towns in Japan and Europe
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: during World War two. And subject especially South Korea and
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: North Korea are both incredibly poor countries, and so Korea
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: is assent to being this this first world country where
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: it's just assumed that their technology is always like three
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: or four years ahead of ours. That's just a fascinating
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: thing to see. But I'm sort of curious about this
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: idea of disorder, and this film like breaking up what
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: we usually expect from visually and behaviorally a Korean film.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I've only ever seen one other Korean horror well, I
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: guess two. One of them is gong JOm Haunted Asylum,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: which doesn't really count. I mean it counts but a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: dozen in terms of chaos because where that movie ends
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: up going, I think is very different. The other film
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: that I've seen is The Host, and that movie still
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: has that very not regimented, but very specific feel to it.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: It feels less chaotic than this movie. This movie has
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a feel to it that, like I have not felt
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with Korean films before, maybe outside of The Chaser, which
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: is one of the other Korean films I've seen, but
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that one again kind of leans more into horror and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: gore and serial killers, so it's kind of that's a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: little bit more of the point. But this movie is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to your point, doctor pearl Mutter, just like there's it's
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: chaos throughout, there's momentary lulls, but the momentary lulls, it
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't even in those times. They have to figure out
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: a way to make those lulls feel like not a lull,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: especially you know when you have a horde of zombies
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: pressing up against a glass door in the back.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's I think there's a problem in action movies,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: and I do see it in this one where the
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: characters are cleaner than they should be. Everybody's hair is
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: still like poofed and curled, and you know, you can
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: tell people still have makeup on, and I understand you
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: want your actors to still look attractive. They do a
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: pretty good job of roughing up the characters in this movie,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: but I still think they're pretty Nobody has any cuts,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: nobody has any scars. It's a pretty big deal whenever,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: or at least from what I've seen in KA dramas,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: of character ever gets cut on the face or anywhere
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: else on my box.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: I mean they've got scars of like their hands, but
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: like their faces are just like a little dab of blood, right.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: They're pretty pristine still, because that's important to Koreans to
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: have clean often you know, lighter skin. So in k
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: dramas you'll often see like if somebody gets a cut
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: on their face, it's a really big deal, like more
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: so than it would be in one of our shows.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: And I don't I think this movie is still guilty
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: of out of everybody would be a little more tussled up,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: like the Sue on you know's she's the kid, so
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: she escapes some of it. I still think she would
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: be grimier than she is. And the pregnant woman whose
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: name I don't remember. You know, her face is pretty clear,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: but I still think she would be a lot like
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: sweatier and grosser than she's depicted.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And the homeless guy is not that yeah standards, Yeah,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I actually for Santa Monica. That's about it.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he could just walk into any coffee shop here,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: I feel like, and get away with it.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not that grimy.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: He was also a really interesting character. I liked that
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: he wasn't evil. I liked that he also sacrificed himself
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: in the end. He was this you kind of really
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: didn't know what his deal was. He was just tagging along.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: He wasn't connected to any of the other characters, but
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: he got his moment. He got to be a great
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: guy in the end.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And I like the bait and switch at the beginning
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: of the movie as well, where you think it's going
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to be him that's the one who infects everyone, and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: then it turns out it's actually just this like young
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: teenage girl instead, which I like, I was gonna say, like,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the movie. I had never seen it
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: before I had heard about it, as I'm sure anyone
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: who watches a fair amount of horror movies and is
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: open to watching, what you know, non Western films, because
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: my favorite cinema outside of well, my favorite cinema is
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: probably Indian cinema still because the people that watch those
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: movies actually care about going to the movie theaters. That's
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: still an experience that matters, and so the people that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: make the movies are still I don't know, it just
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: feels they feel invested for a different reason. And it's
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: weird because the Korean films that I've seen, this one
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: was not one that I searched out, and I think
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it's actually for a similar reason to Doctor Pearlmutter, which
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: is I'm kind of burned out by zombies, and it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: not just the walking dead of it all, it's just
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: kind of the all of it all. Like I would say,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the most important zombie movie for me growing up was
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Sean of the Dead. It hit me at the right time,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it had the right notes, it was speaking to me
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: as someone who is a lifelong film lover and sits
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and watches movies all the time, like it's made by
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: someone who watches about zombies and horror and other things.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: And this movie felt the same way that Sean of
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the Dead did, like it didn't feel it felt like
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: a zombie movie, but the zombies were. Ultimately, the zombies
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: aren't the important part of this movie. The zombies are.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: You know, this just happens to be a movie about
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: zombies on a train, but it's really about a group
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of people trying to survive together on a train and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a dad trying to make good with the show that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: he actually cared. And that to me is very Sean
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of the Dead. It's very like putting the people before
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the panic, putting the actual human emotions at the core
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of it, and letting the fact that these are real
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: characters breathe, and then putting then forcing them to have
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to deal with. In both of these films cases zombie
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and this film hit me the same way Sean of
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the Dead did, where it's like, Okay, I feel like
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I've seen a zombie movie that for the first time
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: in as Shna the Dead came out in like two
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: thousand and four. So for the first time since something
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: like Shanna the Dead, I feel like I'm seeing a
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: zombie movie that actually doesn't care that it's a zombie movie,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and it actually like lives that all the way to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the end of the movie, where we almost have a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Night of the Living Dead esque ending, where I was like, man,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: they're just gonna kill them, It's just gonna happen. I'm
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: ninety nine percent convinced that we're just gonna have a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Night of Living Dead end, And if they had done that,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I actually would have been like, Okay, like it's completely
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: earned that ending. It earns the happy ending, but it
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: totally could have earned like a one hundred percent downer
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of an ending the way Night of the Living Dead does,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: because the themes of the movie are not about the zombies.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: They're about how terrible human beings are to one another,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and it's just by the grace of human beings being
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: decent to one another winning out in the end that
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the two surviving characters don't die. And again, that's just
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: very Night of the Living Dead Shanna the Dead movies.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I care about the characters, not the zombies. And George
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Romero got that you know better than anybody in terms
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: of putting the humans before the zombies. And I don't know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: like I think the Walking Dead was there at one point.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I think it lost its way long ago, but it
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: was there at one point when it was at its best.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That's what it was about. And to your point, doctor Promutter,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I won't hate watch it anymore, but i'll and I
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: really don't even watch zombie movies anymore because Poe is
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Sean to the Dead and its success and Walking Dead,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: there was just so much zombie stuff all the time
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that I stopped caring and this unfortunately got lost in
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that shuffle, and it's unfortunate that it did, because this
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: movie is really good. Like obviously I'm not saying any
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: sort of like dow thing, we're watching it and talking
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: about it because it's of the quality of the filmmaking.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But this movie's it lives up to what I Well, yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I obviously agree with that, especially about having a heart
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: to the story is the most important part of the story.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I definitely agree with the themes about it's showing the
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: worst of humanity and how willing we are sacrifice each
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: other and the very best and the nature of relationships
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: where you're willing to laid on your life for somebody
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: else or in some cases a complete stranger, and it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: the ultimate sacrifice that you can make, especially for somebody
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: that you just met a couple hours ago. But also
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: even though the heart of the story being the relationships
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: is what makes the movie great, as you said, I
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: think the zombies are still equally important. Like the type
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: of zombie and how they're characterized. These zombies are really interesting.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: They're really scary because they're fast zombies and they're not
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: trundling along Walking Dead zombies. I don't know if they
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: were every fast zombies and the Walking Dead I never
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: watched the series, but they're like zombie Land zombies. I mean,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: they're fully capable of getting you. Yes, yeah, and they
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: seem to be indestructible too. There's sad scene where they
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: fall off of a helicopter and land on concrete, presumably
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: breaking every bone in their body, and then they just
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: get up and run around and they're also I think
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: it's interesting how they they all have this specific character.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: It seems as if they were sort of trained. I
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: think they did a really good job with the with
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: these extras of having them move in a specific way,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: because they all seem to lead with their mouths. They're
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: kind of Naruto running towards the main characters with their
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: arms are behind them, and they're trying to get the
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: mouths as close as possible to the main characters. I
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: thought that that was really interesting. I've watched this movie
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: several times and I only really noticed it on this
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: last We watch how they all move the same way
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: teeth first, as if like whatever whatever this virus is
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: is obviously making them do that specifically to spread.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the choreography is astonishing to me. I mean, I
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: obviously it's a professional movie. You sort of expect the
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: stunt people to do what they're told to do. But
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: it was almost like I was watching like the ballet
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: in New York, which I don't do. So I'm creating
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: an analogy that I've never seen, but I would expect
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: that if I went to a professional ballet and people
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: were dancing, or going back to K pop, you know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: you see a K pop video where there's like fifty
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: dancers and they're all in sync. In fact, Miranda didn't
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: this sort of remind some of the sequences, not in
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: a funny way, not in a self depth silly, super
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: silly way. Some of the sequences felt like the choreographer
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: from a K pop video came over and positively gave
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: him advice on how do you get fifty people to
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: be in sync like they the zombie? Whatever it is, right,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: we're told some by the way, we're told just enough
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: and not too much to what's relevant to the plot.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: There's no thank god, there's no cutaway to a bunch
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: of scientists talking about, well, you know, I think the
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: virus or the leak came and it did this. No,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Thanksfully, Get the Dead, Shawn of the Dead. I think
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: put the nail in that coffin by having every every
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: possible scenario be present jokingly in the first fifteen minutes
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: of that movie, where it's animals, a meteorite, a satellite,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: and then you know, one other thing, and it's like, okay,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it does it?
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Like it?
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: It stopped mattering, like I'm don't belabor the point. But
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: then there's a prequel animated film that talks about it.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: So it was like, but you know, at the end
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: of the day, cool, They still they got to make
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: money somehow, you know, and then they're going to make
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a what is it? They already made a sequel to
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: this movie, and then they're going to make a American reboot,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: which I both know. Yeah, Like, just god, why I
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: actually watched this is a good example of that, right,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: animad Miranda and you could talk to Avouch.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: This is why this movie was accessible. I don't see
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: why an American audience couldn't have watched this movie and
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: enjoyed it. I don't see why we have to have
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: The Rock do.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: This, right, the Rock and Kevin Hart in Trained to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Like they could do on the Subway. I think that
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: would make a kind of interesting movie. They would have
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: to change some things. They would have to be you know,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I can't just repeat the story they have to.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, if nobody's seen Trained to boost On, you
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: can you can just repeat whatever you want. I mean.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: That's the sad thing is like I'm such an advocate
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: for watching inter national cinema that I'm not like I'm
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: waiting for the Train to boost On remakes so people
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: in America will have seen it. To your point, doctor Promoter,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: It's like, at this point, there's no reason to not
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: just watch it. You can rent it for four dollars
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: on Prime Video. People are more app to rent I
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: don't know, Mandalorian and Grogu probably than they would be
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: to watch this movie. And it's like, Okay, I get it,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: that's fair, but I don't know. I think, and again
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I always kind of go back to this bemoanment of
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: people being unwilling to read while they watch movies. But
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I also think, you know, a movie that requires subtitles
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: will always be something that loses a percentage of the population,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: which is unfair because that should not be a stumbling
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: block in this day and age. It really should. I
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: know why it's not because you actually have to pay
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: attention to the movie and you can't just do something else.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: It used to be people were too lazy, and now
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I just chalk it up to people don't actually want
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to look up at what they're doing. They want to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: look at something else, And okay, but then nothing you
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: watch is going to be worth anything, which is why
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: we live in a hell scape of a Netflix second
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: screen experience where we got to remind the audience the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: stranger things what happened in the last fifteen minutes by
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: saying it every five minutes, Like what, Okay, I don't
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: need a remake of this movie because you could just
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: watch this movie. Just like k pop doesn't need to
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: exist in America. K pop just needs to exist as
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: its own thing. And you just like you don't have
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you don't have CA. Well, I guess you do have
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: some K pop artists coming over here and doing American
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: like American mus like a music with American artists, or
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: like English language music. But I don't think it would
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: be as popular. I just like I inherently don't think
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it would be as popular. I just don't think it's
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: as It's like they don't ask Justin Bieber to go
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: sing baby in French, like they know who the audience
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: who's going to consume this primarily is. I think this
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: movie is. I'm glad this movie was successful outside of
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Korea because there are still not enough Korean movies that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: have been successful in the United States. I think a
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: horror is a very easy way to get people outside
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of the States interested, because horror fans are always looking
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: for the next best horror movie that nobody has heard of,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and this one kind of falls right into that camp
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of a low budget Korean horror zombie film that is
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: way better than ninety nine percent of the zombie movies
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that have come out in the last twenty years.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: You definitely spent money where it mattered. Like we were
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: talking about the choreography, They got some really really stellar,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: very popular actors. They have these beautiful sets. I maybe
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: it maybe it was cheaper to shoot on a train.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're in a train car for maybe like
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: half of the film.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And we're impressive because they're shooting on a train. All
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that choreography that y'all have talked about is ten times
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: more impressive because they're executing it in a smaller space.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Like it's infinitely more impressive then, you know. I mean, again,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: they can do things out in the open, but the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: fact that it looks so good and seamless and expertly
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: crafted on a moving train. But again, just the ramifications
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of shooting in his face like that and it being
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: so convincing and well done is like, that's even more impressive.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Would say. Movies on trains, though, tend to all fall
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: into the same camp for me, which is there are
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: some good ones, there are some bad ones, and then
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: there's some that are so good they can have the
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: train stop and people get off of it and then
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: they can get on another train. And this is one
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: of those movies, because that's kind of the problem with
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a movie where people are all on a moving vehicle,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: is what happens when the vehicle stops. Is at the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: end of the movie, or is at the end of
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the conflict. I mean, doctor Pearl Mutter and I know
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: one another because of the steven Sagall films and the
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: steven Sagall podcast I used to do. And one of
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: his more famous movies is Under Siege Too, which takes
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: place on it and when that train stops, it's just like,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: wait a second, what are the stakes here? And I
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: love that this movie. The steaks are the zombies are
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the stakes. It's like the moving train is part of
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the stakes, but because there zombies are the ever present threat,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: it makes it feel so much more like a ever
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: forward moving film, like the momentum carries the film forward.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And it's not just because of the train, it's also
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: because of the zomb.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Also the feeling of being trapped. They're so and they're
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: in such close contact with the zombies the whole time.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, though, just on the other side of a door,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: so and the door is I can't tell if it's
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: made of plastical glass because when it breaks, it's like
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: a glass. It shadows like a glass, but when they're
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: banging on it, it's it bends like plastic, So I
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: can't tell what that material is made out of. But
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: it's even more exciting because you know they're hiding in
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: a bathroom or on top of those ledges for your suitcases,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: and it's it's very frightening to have your main characters
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: be right next to those creatures, just like an arm's
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: length away. I thought that was very clever.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: That was probably the scene that whoever is trying to
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: remake the movie saw and was like, this is it.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: This is this is the scene where they're crawling in
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the the luggage rack, where it's like, this is the scene.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: This is the scene that people will remember because yeah,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: it's memorable in a way that things aren't. Don't you
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: think that?
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: Like that was when I saw that scene. Let's tell
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: people who haven't seen the movie, we're not really spoiling
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: this movie. By the way, You're going to get the
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: same experience if you haven't seen it. What after listening
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: to this podcast, But like there's a moment where they
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: there's about seventeen moments where they have to get like
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: ten feet. That's what's so exciting, right, Their objective is
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: to get ten feet in distance, but there happened to
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: be some human eating zombies in the way, right. And
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: they never repeat themselves. They never come up with the
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: same solution twice. It's so clever. And then this one time, yeah,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: they think, oh, we will crawl now. Now think about this,
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: how many how many times? I go back to the
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: original Alien and Aliens movie where the alien or aliens
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: goes into ducts, you know, and that's been repeated so
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: many thousand times, where humans are ready for the aliens
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: in like the regular space and oh they're coming out
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: of the ducts or they're coming out of like you know,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: but the air conditioning or something like that. Well, here
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: the humans to fool. The monsters are crawling along the
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: luggage rack. And I haven't seen that before. I was
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: really thinking, like all the zombie movies I've seen, or
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: all the you know, action on a train movies, I
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: remember spying movies on a train or you know, thriller
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: movies on a train. Nobody ever did that before. And
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: it was they whoever wrote this movie, whoever the people
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: who created this movie in did something really beautiful and intelligent.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Is they sat They probably went on a train, right
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: and they stood there and they go like, okay, I
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: have to get ten feet past zombies. What are my choices?
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: And they refuw to compromise and just have the same
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: thing happen every time. So I just thought that was
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: so clever.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: And I love that there's a conceit as well that
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the zombies can't see in the dark, so they also
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: have I mean, there's again to go back to the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: idea of like there's not a lot of mythology in
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: where did the zombies come from? Or how long does
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the infection take? Or what is what you know what
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: happens or what is the you know like you said
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: no cutaway to scientists And and I think the other
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: thing that's very smart about the usage of the space
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: and the zombies is this is not one of those
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you get bit and five hours later you become zombie.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: This is you get bit and you become a zombie
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: if you're not a main character, seemingly instantaneously. If you're
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: a main character, they give you like another minute to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: kind of judge, judge yourself or be judged by your
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: mental headspace. I think for me, the constant changing of
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the way that they get around the zombies and the
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: way that they use that space, it's just it speaks
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: to someone who, like you said, doctor Permutter, understands if
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: you do the same thing over and over again, we're
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: not really being entertaining. We're just kind of just giving
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the audience the same thing and expecting them to do
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: something different with it. And this movie shockingly doesn't retread
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: any sort of like tread you know, trodden ground at all,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: which again, for a movie like this on a train,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: it's like this is the first movie that's ever taken
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: place on a train, and especially not the first action movie.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And I would say this is more of a I mean, yes,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: it is a zombie movie and there are horror elements,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: but I'm not sure that this is I mean, it
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: is a horror movie, but it's also an action movie.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't say this movie is overly gross, like
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: we don't have like eyeballs popping out and heads being
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: chopped off, like we do see people getting eaten. But
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: then to Miranda's point, they look pretty normal after they
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: become zombies. Their eyes are white and their teeth are gnashing,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: but they don't look like they're not gross looking. If
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: this was an American film, they'd beat you know, arms
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: hanging off or jog one or heads flit open and
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and this is just like kind of look like people
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: with whited out contacts and blood capsules in their mouths,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: which is fine, I think again, it just goes to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the point of like it makes them scarier that they
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: have this erratic behavior and this like really specific choreography
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that makes them scarier than just you know, them being
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: gory or you know, intentionally gross, which to go to
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the other Korean films that I've seen, The Chaser is
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a lot more graphic than this film, and The Host.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I think The Host is about as graphic as this
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: film is in terms of it's more of like a
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: monster movie, not a zombie movie. But I mean, I
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: was impressed by how much they kind of held back
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: for it being a zombie movie with the gore, Like really,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: it's not I have Sean of the Dead is kind
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of gorrier in a lot of ways, like they show
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: dismemberment and shann of the dead more than they ever
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: show dismemberment or anything like that.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: In this one, I feel like the low hanging fruit
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: in zombie movies or any kind of like horror war
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: movie where people are getting sliced up or shot at
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: is showing somebody's intestines hanging out. Don't people? They love
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: that for shock value, that's in so many of these movies,
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: and they never do that. I think the worst thing
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: we see is somebody with a blood filled mouth, or
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: one zombie has his arm broken and it's like way
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: behind his head. It's never too egregious. That's something else
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: I appreciate, because they don't really need that. They're scary
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: enough as is. And I also really appreciated how then
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: it wasn't blocked down by the characters grappling with the
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: morality of killing them. Oh, you know, there's still people,
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: and you know we have to preserve them if we can.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: They never, really, nobody ever seems to question that, which
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: I applaud. I think if you have a long running
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: television series and you have a character who's like interested
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: in that and who who thinks that they can be saved,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: that can be kind of interesting plot point. But I
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: hate it when that's introduced in movies and zombie movies,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: where I think it's just kind of boring. I think
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: it's it's it slows down the plot to have people
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: trying to question whether or not it's okay to kill
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: the zombies. I think that they should just you know,
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: barrel through the like they did, and focus on keeping
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: the people who are alive alive.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Well, to your point from before, do they actually kill
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: any of the zombies, I'm not sure. Like the zombies
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: seem in a very Return of the Living Dead way,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: like rather indestructible. I mean to your point of them
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: falling out of a helicopter and then just getting right
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: up and just running around and running at the camera,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: so they seem of singular focus, which I mean again
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: is scary. I mean, in Return of the Living Dead,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: it's you know, brains, brains, brains, So we don't get
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: that in this movie, they're not I don't know, they
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: don't seem to be eating people. They just seem to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: be biting people and turning them into zombies, don't. I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: don't know. I have I personally, I know that there
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: is a sequel and a prequel to this. I don't
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: have any interest in watching either of them because I
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: like that, like you said, doctor Perlmutter, there's enough without
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: being too much, without over explaining everything and force feeding
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: me what I should think, Like you know, we see
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the deer at the beginning of the movie, and that's enough,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Like you know, that is more than an enough for
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: me to understand that there's been some sort of outbreak
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of something I don't need to know what and over
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: explaining and to your point, Miranda, then having people like oh,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: that's my mom, Like at this point, even the characters
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: in these narratives would have seen a zombie movie, they
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: would know what zombies are. Like that's the problem with with,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: you know, creating fiction in this day and age is
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: if you've said something in twenties twenty six, people have
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: heard of zombies. Maybe the only people that haven't heard
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: of what a zombie is, like the bushmen of the Kalahari. Like,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you would make a zombie movie
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six and have the scene of like,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: well we can still save them when that scene is
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: synonymous with zombie fiction of any kind, like it if
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: if you know a zombie movie and it's a lazy
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: zombie movie that is going to be one of the trope.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: It kind of always is, and this movie, when the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: characters get bitten, it's just very matter of fact, and
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: because there's not a lot of time in between when
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: they get bitten and when they turn, which again I
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: think is one of the smarter things the film does.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: We don't get that hemming and haulling. It's just cut
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: out of the movie intentionally. You can't have a scene
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: where someone says we need to save them when from
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: bite to turning is like a minute. That's just not
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: a possibility. And I think for someone to do that
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: with the zombie narrative is really smart because it robs
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it of a lot of the tropes that, in my
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: opinion and might agree with Miranda, are very lazy. And
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I think the best kind of fiction that's worth sharing
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: with other people or talking about at length is not lazy,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: because there's even things that are failures tend to not
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: be lazy. They're just making choices that maybe don't resonate
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: with people. But I've seen plenty of bad movies that
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: make a lot of really interesting choices that aren't lazy choices.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: But I've seen plenty of okay movies that make a
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: lot of really lazy choices, and I'm just you know,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not here for in anymore. Randy.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: I had a question for you. When I first watched this.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: One of the things I was looking for was to
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: talk about in class, talk with my students about this
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: action or maybe some discussion makes sense only in ex
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: cultural set. Thing like sometimes somebody I know who's from
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: another country, so you know, I watched this American movie,
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: or I'll see this on Reddit. I just watched this
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: American movie, and I can understand why this person did this,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: and it's something that's an American cultural trait or behavior
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: was But this movie, it seemed to me like I
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: understood what people were doing. I didn't need to have
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: a Korean cultural translator next to me.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Did you feel that way?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Absolutely? There was. I can kind of see why they
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: wanted to make like an American remake of this, because
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: it really is conducive to just taking this narrative and
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: bringing in English actors. There's nothing really that the average
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: Westerner or really anybody from any other country probably would
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: be confused about. Just there are many archetypes, meaning you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: like a dad who's not paying attention to his daughter's
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: life and two high schoolers who are in love. That
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: are just kind of universal in probably most media industries,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: in most countries, they just have developed, either through influence
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: from other countries industries, or just from the way humans
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: are just human nature, the way we interact with each other.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: I really don't think that there is any culture shock
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: in the movie other than again, like the cleanliness of
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: the train station and.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: The cleanliness of the homeless man.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Maybe yeah, I or mess in general.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: I would ask you, Miranda, because as someone who watches
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of k dramas, for me, the thing that
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I've noticed with the Indian cinema that I've watched where
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the cultural kind of misses come in are comedies, because
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the humor. There is a lot of humor in cultural
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: and social mores that are specific to you know, Indian
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: culture or like Doctor Pearl Matter, my American culture or
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Korean culture. That's why I honestly stay away from foreign
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: language comedies because those tend to be the hardest ones
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: not to understand, but to appreciate. As a non speaker
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: of the language and a non understan a non I'm
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: not even non understand not understanding the culture as much
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: as just not having grown up in that culture and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: having been kind of raised in it in a way
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: where it's kind of second nature. There are plenty of
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: people that understand, you know, oh, you know, there's you know,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: let's say, you know, Mexican culture. Recently, Hispanic culture has
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: become very you know, like I think it's kind of
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: made more forays into you know, American culture, with you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: certain things becoming more popular or becoming more I guess
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: well known, but that there's still a lot of like
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: things even from those kind of cultures where it's just
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: there's a miss on what I know and what someone
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: else knows, and it's just I just wasn't raised around
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: it or I'm not aware of it, and that's I
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: don't watch Indian comedies. I really don't watch a lot
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: of foreign comedies because a lot of the comedy is
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: just lost on me as a Westerner because it's just
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: culturally and socially specific. And I don't know, I haven't
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: watched a lot of Korean comedies, but I'm curious if
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: it's the same way if you notice that in the
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Korean dramas, or if they're kind of similar to this,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and that they kind of stay more in a for
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: everyone who's watching it anywhere kind of gang.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. Sometimes there's Korean proverbs something from
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: their history that they would reference, Like we would say,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: you know, a boat in hand is worth two in
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: a bush, and a queen person would be like, I
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: don't know what you're talking about. That. There's some stuff
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: like that that's just you know, phrases that you grew
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: up with or depending on you know, where you grew up,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: where your district was, and what part of the country
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: you grew up. And again, I don't think trying to
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Bussan had any any any jokes that weren't accessible, like
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: there were there were some funny cute moments, like the
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: the song that was playing on moducs Songs Sucks Phone
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: when they were distracting the zombies and our main character
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: called it cringey. That's just like a funny cute moment.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: And there was this one, the one small moment that
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: I loved where he calls his he asks his his
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: analysts subordinate analyst Kim when they're in the office at
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the movie, if he's one of the Lemmings,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: and I wonder if that was a reference, like a
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Korean phrase. I don't think it is. But later in
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: the movie, if you pay attention, you notice he's he's
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: calling this analyst and he has a folder of contacts
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: of assumably his subordinates, and the folder is titled Lemmings,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: which I thought was just such a cute moment, and
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: again I think transcends every every culture of like, it's
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: interesting that, you know, both our countries have this idea
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: of like Lemmings being these stupid creatures, which originated in
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: that Disney documentary which was faked. Yeah, careful, careful, he's
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: gonna come for your podcast.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: That's fine, you know what, Let them because it's that's true.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: But the truth is the horrifying truth. It is weird
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: that that's still a thing that's being used in HAD
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Is only ten years ago. It doesn't feel fat.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: It was just so it was just such a funny, cute,
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: little in joke, and we wouldn't have noticed it if
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: there wouldn't have been a captioning for the screen for
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: the what was being said on the phone, because there
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: was in Korean. So I think that's it's really important
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: to have captioning for even written stuff, because that can
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: be really important in foreign language films. But it's definitely
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: it was definitely really easy, easily accessible. That's one of
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: the reason why it was so popular in the United
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: States because it's if you're willing to read subtitles. So
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: if you're willing to listen to dubbed audio, which I
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: am not, me can Yeah, you can. It's a great film.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Anybody can enjoy it. Anybody probably above sixteen I would.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Say, I was gonna say, like, is it I assume
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: that you watch k dramas in the language and read
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: the subtitles, because for me, as someone who watches a
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: lot of foreign film, that is one hundred percent of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: hell I'm willing to die on and I do not care.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I will not watch something that is dubbed. I just
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: buy outright refuse, unless it's unless that's literally the only
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: way it was made, which I don't know if that's
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: ever been the case. I won't watch something that's dubbed
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: is not going to be better than just hearing the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: original language with subtitles, unless I literally have an unsubtitled
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: version and can't get one. I just I've never watched
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: a dubbed film that is better than the original with subtitles,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and the ones that always stick out to me are
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: those studio Ghibli films where I'm just like, I think
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: they make them worse. Actually, and I was already not
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: resonating with Howe's moving castle, but having to hear Christian
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Bale doing dubbed dialogue is not something that fixed this
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: movie any Petter, Let's put it that one. So I
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: don't know, like, I haven't seen yet. The Korean films
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: that I've seen have been all in Korean with subtitles. However,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: I was trying to watch this on Pluto TV, and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: this film is so popular that you can actually only
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: watch this film for free on Pluto TV with Spanish subtitles,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: which I thought about it. I was like, I don't
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: know how good my Spanish is probably not good enough
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to understand Korean translated into Spanish, which then I'm trying
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: to parse back into my head. So I thought about it.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: But you know, marian Don, you mentioned something else in
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: the movie. And I've watched probably no more than maybe
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: a couple of dozen Korean movies and maybe a couple
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: of actual tele dramas, they never have an international cast.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: I've never seen a Westerner as a student in the
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: high school or any I mean, I know this is
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: trained to Bussan, which is a regional city, and it's
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: not like a subway or a train in downtown Seoul,
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: But why do you think it is that they never
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: have just like a French couple who just happened to
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: be on the train. Because Korea is a massive tourist
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: destination and there's a lot of there are a lot
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: of foreigners or people who live in Korean and teach
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: English and think, you know, work in Korea. Is that
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: Do you think that's a cultural choice they make when
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: they make these or am I just saw a very
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: soball sample.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: I was pretty shocked the first time I saw a
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: non Korean person in a K drama, I think the
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: first time. I'm actually not positive because it's just so
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: few and far between. It's definitely happening more. They're definitely
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: introducing more people. I mean, there's more like people of
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: color in K pop music videos, and they're definitely diversifying
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: their casts, you know, nationally, I don't think there's I
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: don't know if there's a K drama yet that has
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: a non Korean as like a main character. But I
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: believe the last time I saw the first time I
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: saw a non Korean person in a K drama was
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: in the drama based off of the web tune True Beauty,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: which was released in twenty twenty, and I'm pretty sure
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: they had a white person in the background at some point.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure. So it's really I think that was
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: that's pretty novel. That was pretty novel for the time,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Like in twenty twenty, it's really not unusual to have
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: an entirely not just entirely Korean cast, but entirely Korean
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: background actors and crew. And I in the credits, I
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: didn't see a single person who didn't have a Korean name.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's definitely still very homogeneous. I wouldn't say,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say to its detriment, And I'm not really
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: quite sure why that is why they haven't really broached
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: including including more people. Yeah, you know, don't need part
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: of it. Maybe that they know people are coming again
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: for this really specific aesthetic.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: Part of the.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: Aesthetic is Korean people. And yeah, it's it's not something
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: again yet, it's a country that doesn't have so many
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: people who were born there, not just expatriots, but people
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: who were born there who were not Korean. So they
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: just maybe they just don't necessarily feel like they need
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: to include anybody of any different international and cultural.
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking the flip side of that. I remember the
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: original Godzilla that was shot completely in Japan with all
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: an all Japanese cast, but when they exported it, they said, oh, okay,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: if we're gonna show this the United States, we have
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: to have an American character better.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: Raymond Burr, right, played Perry Mason was most famous for that,
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: and they shot these scenes which they edited in. But
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: he's he's totally extraneous.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: You're being so kind to They edited him in Doctor
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Pearl Mutter. It's they forced him into a perfect film
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: and they made it a lesser version of them.
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I wonder, you know, I'm glad we don't
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: have those days anymore, where they were going like trained
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: to bussan. Yeah, we're gonna get some TV actor. I'm
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: trying to think of somebody. Uh today, we're gonna we're
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: gonna get Chris Pratt and we're gonna edit him. At
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: that time, he was of course a movie movie actor
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: as well, but like, let's have him do reaction shots
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: like he's at the train control. Hi, I'm an American
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: trained supervisor visiting here. What's going on?
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Just just edited in. I think I really hate that
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: I would say the thing that's interesting, and from someone
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: who watches a lot of Indian cinema, Korean cinema also
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the Indian cinema fallback, which is, we were
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a country conquered by British people for a while, and
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: so our villains tend to either be Pakistani or oftentimes England,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and so you have a bunch of we need white
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: English actors who can do white English, as in British
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: actors who will come in and do a high British
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: accent from the like eighteen hundreds and be villains in
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Indian period pieces. And there's like a cottage industry of
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: British actors who just go over to India and play
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: British villains in Indian period pieces, because British actors playing
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: British villains is just you gotta have a white person
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: to do it. Korean culture doesn't have Korean culture, doesn't.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean Japan, I guess, and you know,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could have a Korean actor playing a
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Japanese character. I guess. I'm not sure. There's none of
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: that in this movie. I would assume if they need
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: a Japanese actor for something, they will hire a Japanese
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: actor for something. But of the Korean films that I've
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: also watched, there have been no white actors. I've seen
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: this The Chaser, and then I've seen a film that
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: is about as tonally different from all of these films,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Mister Go, which is about a giant gorilla that plays baseball.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: So and it's a Korea. It's like Airbud, but with
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: a giant, mighty Joe Yung size gorilla that plays baseball
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: in Korea.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: I am shocked that that hasn't been made into an
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: American movie. I'm shocked that we have not remade.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Then, me too, and a little disappointed. Less fun than
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: it sounds, because it's like it's as serious as this
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: movie is. It's like a shockingly serious movie about a
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: girl in her cgi gorilla. And unlike yourself, I too
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: am disappointed it was not remade because the an American audience,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like would have to have a fun gorilla
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: playing baseball movie made for them, not a serious gorilla
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: playing baseball move. But yeah, I Korean cinema is is
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: very interesting because they just it all feels of a piece,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: but their sensibilities when applied to a specific kind of
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: genre are so unique and again specific, that it yields
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: very interesting results. And The Chaser is a very interesting
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: example of a Korean serial killer drama. I mean, I
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: saw The Devil very similarly, a very good Korean serial
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: killer drama. Like they they they're like serial killer films
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: are very brutal and go further than most Western cinema does.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: And I think it's just the Korean filmmakers. They have
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: a very specific and unique vision for things and they
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: know how to execute it. And I would assume that
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: that extends to k dramas as well.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's stn aesthetically, we were talking about that really
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: specific Korean sort of filter that was probably more easily
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: identifiable in the early two thousand. As I think I said,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: there's there's been some westernization and probably Kate dramas now
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: more resemble Western TV shows, or maybe Western TV shows
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: more resemble kind of k drama aesthetics, so.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Can it's a trade, right.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's definitely mingling together, so it's sort of
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: more difficult to tell and distinguish who's influencing who.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Ye. Indian cinema without musical numbers was not a thing,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: but then the more popular Western cinema became in India,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: the less required Indian cinema felt to include musical numbers,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And so now you have films that effectively feel like
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: a Western film with a musical number at the end
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: or one, you know, the rest of it is just
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: like what if Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible had a
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: two minute dance number, And that's what it feels like now,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: as opposed to forty five minutes of music intercut throughout
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: the entirement. It's kind of sad in a way to
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: see them kind of hewing closer to Western sensibility, because
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure Western sensibilities are the right ones to
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: be hewing close to in a lot of ways, especially
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: given the things that are popular here. And I'm not
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: sure I agree or want to watch the things that
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: are popular here, just because a lot of it doesn't
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: feel like it's doing much of anything interesting anymore, and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: that feels like kind of the p So why would
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: someone somewhere else want to do that to their things
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: that they make because a little shocking to me. But
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess Western audiences know what they don't like,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: probably more than what they do like. Probably.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: I really want to emphasize the eight point nine million
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: dollar budget. What they were able to do with such
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: a tiny fraction of what a typical, large, sloppy, poorly
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: executed Hollywood movie today costs is really remarkable, and it
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: followed all the rules of Western filmmaking. It's creativity, just
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: execution if you want, just get down the checkbox of
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: every single thing when the credits roll or like the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: carpenter and the sound design and everything like that. Everything
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: was just so well done on this fractional budget. And
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: I think anybody who has not watched a Korean movie
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: this doesn't have one thing. I remember there was a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: Korean k drama that I was watching which was going
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: along fine in terms of like an actual drama. It
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: was a historical drama set in the royal palaces when
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: Korea was a monarchy, and suddenly, out of nowhere you
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: opened they opened the door, and there were these two
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: ninety foot rabbits who were making lunch. It was a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: little bit Indian drama there where suddenly you're taken out
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: of the universe and people are dancing and things like that.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: But this film, I guess said no to magical realism.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: We're going to just make a straight, just super well
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: done action movie. And anybody who has not seen Korean movies,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: maybe maybe because I guess the subtitles are a block,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: you're I have to put your phone down. Yeah, it's true. Wow,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: please have to.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Watch movies like people used to. I don't know, if
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you're gonna spend time watching a movie, at least look
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: up every now and then, or actually look up the
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: whole time. Look, I don't know, is that too much
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to ask. There are things that I can put on
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: in the background. There are plenty of things I wouldn't
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: put on a movie I'm actively trying to watch in
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: the background for the first time, or especially one that
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: has a foreign language throughout. So I think if you're
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: looking for a Korean film to introduce to people, that's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: not going to feel too overwhelmingly like outside of the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: pocket of Western cinema, and people can be amenable to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: zombies as much as like they're monsters, but they're not
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: like heads exploding and none of that. Like it's about
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: as gory as an American action movie is. This is
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: a pretty good choice. And I don't you know, as
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: much as I appreciate that James Wand wants to remake
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: this movie, this movie's perfectly fine. Actually, this movie is
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: perfect in a lot of ways for what I think
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: you would want from a film that's both international but
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: feels very approachable for Western audiences, which is a gateway
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: to showing them more kind of challenging foreign cinema. And
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: to bring this full circle, doctor Promutter, you mentioned it
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: at the top four in cinema used to feel like
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: something that only weirdos would talk about, Like let's talk
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: about Ingrid Bergmann the Seventh Seal, and it's like, I'm
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: out of here. I don't care. It's like that used
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: to be a very specific kind of person, and I
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: think it's interesting to me that we're still fighting that
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: in a way that somehow Indian or Korean or other
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: cultures haven't been making action movies and comedies like no,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: there's all this really fun pop culture content from these
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: countries that is not heady and serious, just like there's
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: heady and serious English films, English language films, there's heady
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: and serious Korean, Indian and everything else. Like it doesn't
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: have to be that. And I think we're just now
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: because of streaming, coming around to the idea that like
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: we can appreciate just an Indian action film, and that's
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be some like gazing into the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: human existence in the void, like it just can be
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: a fun movie. Trained to boot Hunt doesn't need to
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: be anything more than a fun zombie. It pushes beyond
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: that in a lot of ways, and I think it
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: has a little bit more to say about the human
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: condition than most zombie movies do. But you know, I
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: think it's a really good off ramp for people who
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: are looking to start a journey down Korean cinema that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel overwhelming in what it's asking of the audience. So,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: but Miranda, since you picked this film, I will give
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: you the last word on Trained to boost Hunt.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: I think you really hit the nail on the head
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: at the end there. This is a movie that you
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: can just enjoy without analyzing a lot of good action,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: really sympathetic characters, it's a lot of fun if you
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: just want something to entertain you without thinking a lot
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: about it, or you could dissect it for an hour
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: like we did. There's a lot to talk about, but
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: there's also a lot to just appreciate in a non
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: complicated way. And those are as you said, the best
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: kinds of movies too, to introduce people to something that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: they may not have been have considered before.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I do agree.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: This is such a good movie that if I was
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: trying to get to a friend into Queen culture, I
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: probably if I didn't begin with BTS, I would start here.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Well, on that note, if you want to
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: find me and the things that I work on, because
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: these two don't want to be found anywhere, you can
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: find me over at wirdingwaymedia dot com, where doctor Promutter
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: and I can be found talking about a whole host
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: of films in the past on the Culture Cast. I
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: haven't gotten them on anything else yet. That may change
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: in the future, but for right now, the Culture Cast
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: is the main place you can find doctor Perlmutter and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I talking about things. But there's plenty of other content
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: on Wordingway Media that doesn't involve me, like Midnight Viewing
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: and the Projection Booth and eighties TV ladies and the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Feminine Critique. Plenty of things that I'm not on, so
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: go listen to those things. If you want to support
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: the show in a financial way. Patreon dot com slash
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: culture cat is where you can go to kick a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: couple dollars my way. Every little bit helps, and you
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: get access to the only thing that's not on weirding
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Way Media's free website, which is ranking on bond, which
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: is coming to a close. The next show will be free,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: but you'll be able to get the next show on
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: the Patreon for ad some people care about and so
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: all of the plugs out of the way. Thank you
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: both for joining me. I had a great time both
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: watching the movie and talking with you both about it.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: And yeah, as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.