Description: Seok-woo, a divorced fund manager, is a workaholic and absentee father to his young daughter Su-an. For her birthday the next day, she wishes for her father to take her to Busan to see her mother. They board the KTX 101 at Seoul Station. Others on the same train include the tough working-class husband Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, a high school baseball team, the rich and egotistical COO Yon-suk, elderly sisters In-gil and Jon-gil, and a homeless man experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.
As the train departs, a convulsing young woman boards the train with a bite wound on her leg. She soon turns into a zombie and attacks a train attendant, who then turns into a zombie. The virus quickly spreads throughout the train. Baseball player Yong-guk, a girl named Jin-hee, who has a crush on him, and several passengers escape to another car. News broadcasts report zombie outbreaks (reported as riots) nationwide and Cheonan-Asan station was attacked by zombies so they passed it. After the train stops at Daejeon station, the surviving passengers find the city and station also overrun, and they hastily retreat back to the train, splitting up into different train cars in the chaos. The conductor restarts the train to head to Busan, where a quarantine zone has reportedly been established.
Seok-woo, Sang-hwa and Yong-guk fight their way to where Su-an, In-gil, Seong-kyeong and the homeless man are hiding. Together, they struggle through the zombie horde to the front train car, where the other passengers are sheltered. At the instigation of Yon-suk, however, the passengers block the survivors from entering, fearing that they are infected. Sang-hwa and In-gil sacrifice themselves to give the others time to force open the door and enter the car. Yon-suk demands that the newcomers isolate themselves in the vestibule, and the others follow his lead. When Jong-gil deliberately opens the door to the zombies to be with her zombified sister In-gil, the zombies kill the rest of the passengers, leaving Seok-woo, Su-an, Seong-kyeong, Yong-guk, Jin-hee and the homeless man safe, as they are in the vestibule. Yon-suk and the train attendant escape the onslaught by hiding in the bathroom.
A blocked track at East Daegu train station forces the survivors to stop and search for another train. In the process, Seok-woo, Seong-kyeong, Su-an, and the homeless man are separated from Yong-guk and Jin-hee. Yon-suk escapes after pushing the train attendant to be killed by the zombies, then does the same with Jin-hee. Heartbroken, Yong-guk stays with Jin-hee and is soon bitten by her. The train conductor starts a locomotive on another track but is also killed by zombies while trying to save Yon-suk. The homeless man sacrifices himself to let Su-an and Seong-kyeong escape with Seok-woo into the train the conductor had activated. They encounter Yon-suk in the motorman’s cab, on the verge of turning into a zombie, having been bitten when the train conductor saved him. Seok-woo fights him off, but is himself bitten. He puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room and shares his last words with his daughter before moving outside. As he zombifies, he thinks of the first time he held his daughter in his arms and throws himself off the locomotive with a smile.
Su-an and Seong-kyeong get off at Busan and begin walking through a train tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel are soldiers stationed to defend the perimeter against zombies. Unable to see the new arrivals clearly, the soldiers at the checkpoint are instructed to shoot them. However, the soldiers then hear singing, which makes them realize the newcomers are human. Su-an tearfully sings the song she had wanted to perform for her father, and now sings it to honor his sacrifice.
Language: Cantonese
Country: Korea
Release Date: 2016
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Cast: Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi ,Kim Su-an, Kim Eui-sung, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee
