Movie Review: Peninsula (2020)

Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula (2020) co-written and directed by Sang-ho Yeon

As people are fleeing the Korean zombie outbreak seen in Train to Busan, Jung Seok (Dong-wan Gang) is getting his sister and her family out on one of the last boats leaving for Japan. As they drive through the countryside, they bypass a family whose car has broken down. On the boat, one of the passengers is infected and mayhem breaks out, resulting in the deaths of Jung's sister and her children. His brother-in-law (Do-yoon Kim) survives. They wind up in Hong Kong as refugees with nowhere to go. 

Four years later, they are recruited with two other people by some Chinese criminals for a heist. The four people are to go back to zombie-infested Incheon, find a truck full of money that was left near a bridge, and bring it to the port. The Chinese will split half of the twenty million US dollars, enough money to make everyone comfortably rich. The brothers-in-law agree to go, but in true heist-film fashion, the plan does not go off without a hitch. The hitch is two-fold. First, there's a group of ex-military running around capturing supplies and survivors whenever they can for their own entertainment. So the truck gets snatched the them with the brother-in-law inside. Second, the family Jung left behind at the side of the road is also running around collecting supplies and looking for ways to escape. They save Jung from the military folks. He immediately recognizes her though his long hair and injuries make him unrecognizable to her. The family had been with the military people but split after the military went all Mad Max. The survivors in Korea quickly realize that the truck is their ticket out of the zombie hell they've been living in for four years. Everyone schemes to escape, though few scheme together.

The movie is presented as a sequel to Train to Busan though no characters are in both films. The setting has become more post-apocalyptic as the people try to survive the zombies and each other. They also drive around in cars that have been armored and adapted for fighting with zombies (so definitely Mad Max vibes). The abandoned city has lots of junk in the streets and zombies hiding all over the place. Thematically, this movie is no where near as strong as the first film. The family here is less compelling than the father and daughter in the first film, which was the real heart and purpose of the original. The action is more frequent, creative, and destructive (probably due to a higher budget?). Some moments do not make much sense and seem in the movie to heighten the tension. The tension does not get high enough to distract the viewer from the inconsistencies and melodramatic happenstances. The movie is more like Army of the Dead than Train to Busan.

Mildly recommended. Peninsula is entertaining but I don't think I will watch it again (I did rewatch the original in preparation).