Harper Kingsley blog

Train to Busan

“Train to Busan” is such a perfect movie. It’s one of those ones that can be watched multiple times and it’s still good.

The first time you watch it, the focus is always on the “zOMG zombies!” angle of things. But on following views you can’t help noticing the deeper messages of corporate malfeasance, corrupt government officials, and personal responsibility.

The biggest hero of the movie is the conductor that did everything he could to protect his passengers and get them to their destination. He went above and beyond the call of duty, because if he’d only focused on saving himself he could have locked the engine cabin, not announced that there was a blockage on the track up ahead, and sacrificed the passengers to get himself to the smaller train that is used at the end.

The father is a corporate dickhead that ignored environmental warnings and instead of warning people or doing what he could to halt the disaster sold the stock in the company and went about his business. In a regular, non-zombie related environmental disaster, he would have gone on with his life and not faced any consequences for his actions. That he rediscovered his love for his child and showed a bit of kindness toward others doesn’t change the fact that he did a great evil in the name of personal wealth.

The government official was an ahole from his very first scene and he only got progressively worse. He went from pushing people and not apologizing for his own rudeness to literally opening doors and shoving people out to be eaten by zombies. He actively made the whole situation worse and it was likely his fault that nearly everyone died. Because when people were saying “Let’s all work together!” he was saying “We should kill some of these guys so the rest of us can make it.”

That everyone kept listening to the government official even after he showed himself to be a giant piece of shit… Like, someone should have stood up and said “Dude, you ain’t leading but two things here: Jack and shit. And Jack left town.”

The most innocent characters of the movie are the little girl, the pregnant lady, the teen girl, and the baseball player. The strong husband was a hero even when showing that he likely had a history of delinquency. There were some times when his rough edges wanted to show, but then he would look at his wife and you could visibly see himself softening his manner and trying his best to be a kind person, especially toward the little girl.

The homeless man showed that owning a house and having money doesn’t make someone a good person; their inner spirit does. There were several instances when he could have left the group behind and survived on his own, but instead he chose to put himself into danger to save the little girl and the pregnant woman. He was a hero. The kind of person that will give someone coal in the snow.

There are multiple ways to enjoy “Train to Busan.” If you like gory horror movies, you can simply think of it as a zombie movie. If you like interpersonal relationship pieces, you can see the interactions between the father and daughter, the husband and pregnant lady, the girl and pregnant lady, the father and husband, or the teen girl and baseball player. If you like corrupt politicians getting their comeuppance… you can be a bit disappointed because that asshole lasted way too long, which is likely a metaphor for real life and how some monsters will keep on doing what they’re doing until they die, by which time they’ve already poisoned the well and ruined things for everyone.

You can watch the movie and imagine how their lives could have gone if only there hadn’t been a zombie outbreak. What would have happened if the father’s stock shenanigans had been investigated? The life the little girl would have lived with a father in prison; whether she would have missed him and their fancy life, or if she would have come to hate him for the things people would say he had allowed to happen. The environmental damage he’d helped cover up.

You could imagine the husband and pregnant lady reaching their destination. Their life together after their daughter is born. How they might struggle, but their love would remain strong and their child would grow up in a loving household to have a brilliant future where she would take her elderly parents on expensive vacations and she would bring a love interest home to meet them and there would be kdrama hijinks and getting together to make a giant batch of kimchi in a bright kitchen. And she would look beautiful in her wedding dress as her father leads her down the aisle.

You could imagine the corrupt politician reaching his mother’s house only to find the police waiting. All his wheeling and dealing coming to light, and a “Law and Order”-type situation taking place. There would be the satisfaction of watching him be led out in cuffs to serve a very long sentence.

You could imagine the teen girl and the baseball player having a thoroughly cute kdrama romance with easily solved problems and a happy ending. Or maybe they would have a cute high school romance that would end during their college years and they would separate for a decade and meet each other again in their adult lives. And there would be issues to get past, but their love would be lasting and true.

There’s an open-endedness to the characters in “Train to Busan.” We get a taste of who they are, but nothing is as concrete as the life of the father and daughter. Their story begins and ends and we are left satisfied by the ending of the movie even as we lament the fates of the people within.

It’s a movie worthy of being a classic.

The sequels, the animated one and “Peninsula,” were disappointing. They both tried much too hard to be popular rather than having stories worth watching. None of the original characters appear, which could be forgiven, except the stories are more intended to shock and show “Zombies! There’s zombies!” rather that displaying any furtherance of human emotion. They’re all flash and gore with “cool” characters that are actually very difficult to connect with as people.

When “Peninsula” was announced I was very excited. I pre-ordered the movie and practically counted down the days until it would be out.

And then I watched it.

I honestly wish I would have just bought “Train to Busan.” At least then I would know that I would watch it over and over again. Because it’s a genuinely good movie. To the point that there are scenes in other zombie movies where characters don’t have to explain “There’s zombies! Run for your life!” to their shocked and disbelieving friends. They simply have to say “It’s ‘Train to Busan!'” and the situation is immediately understood.

Classic.

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News of the World

So, Israel on Twitter (and likely elsewhere) keeps recommending a link to hamas-dot-com–which is a site Israel owns–that is LOADED with malware and viruses. I don’t know why they would do such a thing, but it’s really quite terrible on their part.

Several people on the comment thread were complaining that while trying to swipe past the post, they accidentally clicked the link.

Why would a country do that? Purposefully use social media to load malware and viruses on peoples’ devices? It’s sick.

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movies

Currently watching “Gray Matter,” a movie about 16-year-old Aurora who has psionic abilities. Her mother has kept her hidden from a secret agency that wants to use their abilities for nefarious purposes. It’s all right so far.

This kind of movie makes me think of others in the genre: “Freaks” with Emile Hirsch. “Fast Color” with Gugu Mbatha-Raw. “Firestarter” with Drew Barrymore. “The Witch: Subversion” with Kim Da-mi (excellent movie btw).

One that seems part of the genre but that is actually something completely different is the movie “Stephanie” with Frank Grillo. I watched that one and was honestly surprised, though I would have to watch it again to know for sure that it holds up to my memory. All I know is that the ending was pure inspiration for story writing.

I needed to use the bathroom but a previous person had clogged the toilet. So I was using the plunger and flushing the toilet, trying to get the water to flow, but I really needed to go to the bathroom.

So finally I was like “I’ve gotta use this toilet. The afterwards is future-me’s problem.”

And the whole time I’m stressing out that I’m still going to have to clear up that clog.

But when I flushed… the water went down.

All the plunging I’d done had fixed the problem and all I’d needed to do was flush one more time.

And I think that’s what a lot of problems in life are like.

Sure, there are times when you flush and the clog is still there and you have to flush some more or you end up having to buy some chemical declogger. But other times you plunge and flush and plunge and flush and boom, the line clears and takes all the problems with it.

It’s the fear of having to deal with a clog–and possibly having the toilet overflow everywhere–that keeps people from acting when they should. And instead people just stand around stressing until they pee in the drain or go outside. Or they pee in the toilet, and when the clog is still there after they flush, they shrug and leave it to be someone else’s problem.

But sometimes a clog can be solved with a little bit of effort. A little concentration. A little bit of care.

All it takes is not leaving the clog for someone else to deal with. It’s rolling up your sleeves, setting your feet, and using the plunger until the problem clears itself away.

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Saw a video where a high schooler went around the school calling teachers by their first names, and that’s so disrespectful.

Like, this is a person that went to YEARS of schooling to be a teacher, and you’re completely dismissing that to win points with strangers on the Internet.

Plus I see it as a boundary issue.

There should be a separation between teachers and students. Teachers are not your friends and they should not be your friends. They for sure are not your peers and not people you should be hanging around outside of school hours and the safety of a school setting.

When I was a kid, there was a group of kids that boasted they went over to the science teacher’s house and smoked weed after school. It was not a surprise to find out later that one of them had sex with the teacher at his house.

The biggest red flag? They called the teacher by his first name. Like, they really thought of him as their friend. Zero awareness that he had preyed upon them. Why? Boundary issues.

It’s like all the stories of professors in colleges having sex with their teaching assistants. (Remember that “philosophy” lady that dumped her husband and married her teaching assistant? Like, abuse of power or what?!?) Or like the stories of people exchanging sexual favors for better grades and they’re like “I showed my boobs for an extension on that big important paper and later I got an A in the class. Winning!” And it’s like, “Nah dude. That was just prostitution with extra steps. You literally just sex-worked for a better grade.”

And it takes people like ten years or twenty years later to realize that “Hey, I was abused!” And yeah. That’s the subversiveness of rape culture, man.

I totally believe there should be a boundary between teachers and students. That “Mr” or “Mrs” or “Ms” or “Miss” or “Mizz” is there for a reason.

It’s to remind the teacher that no, you can’t have a personal relationship with your student no matter how sexy-sexy you find them to be. And it’s supposed to remind the student that the teacher is not just another kid in the class. That’s not your friend hanging out at the front of the room; that’s someone that can totally fuck up your grades if you hurt their feelings.

Boundaries, man. They exist for a reason.