Amy Love

B/S Editor

aml7458@psu.edu

Director Timo Tjahjanto, who has recently released films such as “The Night Comes For Us” and “May the Devil Take You” on the platform Netflix, has shared his next project. The next project consists of a  remake of the South Korean film “Train to Busan.” 

“Train to Busan” was released in 2016 and was a record breaking hit in South Korea. The film focuses on a father and daughter who end up trapped in a high-speed train while a zombie apocalypse is occurring. It is a heart-wrenching, horror film whose emotional ties allowed the film to stand out from others and be considered “genre-defining.” It was popular enough for a sequel to be made; it is called “Peninsula” and was released in 2020.

There is no need to remake this movie and I fail to see the justification in remaking it. This movie is widely accessible in America, being that it is on Netflix. Nothing is wrong with the movie as it is. Even with it being a foreing film, reading subtitles does not take anything away from the film. The emotions and feelings that an individual experiences while watching a movie is not hindered from having to read subtitles. 

Touching on the subject of the remake, screenwriter Gary Dauberman, who is known for his involvement for the horror film “IT”, commented: “It feels like there’s a reason to make the American version without ruining the experience of the original.” 

To label this film as the “American version” or even just as a  “remake” is not the impeccable advertising as they would believe. It is spreading promotion, however it is extremely negative. Word is spreading about this project, however I have not found one positive review of it other than media outlets. 

If Tjahjanto wanted to make a horror-film that was themed around a zombie apocalypse, it would not receive as much backlash as did announcing a remake of “Train to Busan.” If he wanted to comment that he was influenced by the style of Train to Busan, then less people would be upset by it. By stating that it as a remake, it seems it would essentially just be ripping the idea off of “Train to Busan” rather than creating his own zombie apocalypse themed film. 

It also does not help the fact that this remake became the general public’s knowledge after the aftermath of “Parasite,” another South Korean film, which won four oscars. One of them being the award for Best Picture. This was a historic moment due to the fact that it was unprecedented for  a foreign film to ever win that award. The news of this was not taken lightly, many saying that a foreign film should not be receiving “American prizes.”

 It went even as far as Donald Trump making a comment regarding the award show during one of his rallies. He specifically said: “How bad were the Academy Awards this year…We’ve got enough problems with South Korea for trade, on top of it they give them the best movie of the year?” 

“Parasite” was solely found on the streaming platform Hulu, and users of Hulu also began to vocalize their complaints to the streaming service regarding Parasite, one saying: “It’s not in English, no one wants to watch a movie that they literally have to read to understand what’s going on.” A growing pattern here is that the distaste in the movie stems from the fact that it is not in English. A point many people seem to be able to get not past, leading to the possibility that ‘Americanizing’ “Train to Busan” could have been desired from the idea that it is in a foreign language.

To immediately label this up-coming film as a remake of the South Korean classic is appalling. Simply saying that another zombie apocalypse is wanting to be made would have gone over so much better, but to immediately say that it is a remake, it just seems like an old idea is being recycled. Added on top of the fact that it was originally a foreign film, many individuals assume the worst reasons for why it is being remade.

It does not need to be remade, it needs to be left alone.“Train to Busan” has explicitly shown from its record-breaking sales that it is a perfectly fine movie.