Director Yeon Sang-ho
Starring Dong-Won Gang, Jung-hyun Lee, Re Lee
Rated MA
Score 4/6

Peninsula takes place four years after the zombie outbreak in Train to Busan. The Korean peninsula is devastated and Jung Seok, a former soldier who has managed to escape overseas, is given a mission to go back and unexpectedly meets survivors.

It was great to get the opportunity to do my homework and watch Train to Busan before watching Peninsula. Apparently according to interviews given by the director about the movie “Peninsula is not a sequel to Train to Busan because it’s not a continuation of the story, but it happens in the same universe.” I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that this wasn’t a direct sequel because part of me wanted to see what happened to Su-an (the little girl who sung “Aloha ʻOe” at the end). Also, apparently an animated prequel, Seoul Station was released a month after Train to Busan in 2016.

It was great to see that the writers and director of Train to Busan returned for Peninsula, though it should be noted that even with the directorial continuity Peninsula doesn’t have the same overall feel as Train to Busan. In Peninsula the zombies where secondary to the story. It was also good to see that the filmmakers did not ignore anything about the zombies weaknesses from the first movie.
With everything that is going on with the Pandemic there was a scene in a bar in the first half of the movie that I thought was oddly topical with the real world. I thought that the scene with the zombies and the drift car was probably one of the more stylistically chase scenes that I have seen this year.
I loved the performances of Kim Min-jae as Sergeant first class Hwang, Koo Kyo-hwan as Captain Seo and Lee Ye-won as Yu-jin (According to her IMDB filmography this was her second role. I hope to see more of her in the future).