Peninsula (also known as
Bando), is a 2020 South Korean
Zombie Apocalypse thriller. It serves as a standalone sequel to
Train to Busan. Like the previous film, it was directed and written by
Yeon Sang-ho and Park Joo-suk. The film stars:
- Gang Dong-won as Jung-seok: the protagonist, a former South Korean Marine Corps Captain who feels guilt for not saving his nephew and sister.
- Lee Jung-hyun as Min-jung: A mysterious lady who had seen Jung-seok four years back while attempting to get out of Korea.
- Kim Do-yoon as Chul-min: The brother-in-law of Jung-seok, who lost his son and wife to the infection during the evacuation of South Korea.
- Lee Re as Joon: The eldest daughter of Min-jung, who drives an armored car to help survivors.
- Lee Ye-won as Yu-jin: Youngest daughter of Min-jung, who controls toy vehicles to draw away zombies.
Peninsula provides examples of:
- Advertising by Association: The international title is Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula.
- All for Nothing:
- Busan was no longer safe, making the efforts of Seok-woo, Sang-hwa, and others who died trying to get there this.
- Jung-seok's heist to get the truck filled with $20 million to the Chinese mobsters is a failure and he's the only survivor of his group. Seo is the one who gets the truck to them.
- The Chinese mob never gets their $20 million back as Seo sabotages the ship by holding the ship door open with the truck and letting zombies overrun the ship.
- Alternate History: The dashcam footage in the introductory scene shows the zombie outbreak began on May 24, 2016 while the Present Day fast-forwards to an alternate 2020 where the world goes on while Korea has been abandoned for four years.
- A bigger divergence is the talks of a reunification with the North and the South but was ultimately halted due to the outbreak. No such talks of reunification occurred in OTL.
- America Saves the Day: U.S. Forces Korea is shown to be working alongside their South Korean counterparts during the evacuation of the peninsula. The U.S. Navy is also shown to be leading the UN naval blockade.
- Apocalypse How: Class 0. North Korea and South Korea are both abandoned and filled with millions of zombies. Only a couple dozen people are seen trying to survive in the Korean Peninsula. Everyone else outside the peninsula is implied to be fine, however.
- Asshole Victim:
- The Unit 631 members, Sergeant Hwang and Captain Seo especially.
- The Chinese mobsters, who planned on backstabbing the protagonists after they returned with the truck containing the money.
- As You Know: The talk show interview in the beginning has both the interviewer and interviewee recap the events of Train To Busan and what happened during the four years between that movie and this one to each other and the studio audience.
- Badass Driver: Joon is the best driver in the movie, and effortlessly drives past zombies and obstacles like they're nothing. Yu-jin is surprised when one of Hwang's goons is able to keep up with Joon in a tow truck.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Ultimately, it's the bad guys that end up taking each other out.
- First, during the Car Chase, the protagonists end up luring out the zombies to attack the Unit 631 members attacking them.
- Later, near the end, the Chinese mobsters gun down Seo after he brings them the truck with the money, but before he dies, Seo puts the truck in reverse, getting it stuck on top of the mobsters' boat latch, preventing it from closing as the zombies attracted by the noise rush into the boat and slaughter all the mobsters.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Min-jung locks herself in a truck surrounded by zombies and prepares to kill herself with her own gun, her own children cry out for their mother. This appears to reference Seok-woo's Heroic Suicide in the first film, where his own daughter tearfully watched. However, Jung-seok decides to do what he failed to do for Chul-min's family before, and diverts the zombies away from Min-jung. Thus, the two successfully escape.
- Big Damn Heroes: The Malaysian UN contingent was on hand to help Jung-seok and other survivors escape the ravaged peninsula.
- Bittersweet Ending: Jung-seok helps Min-jung, Joon, and Yu-jin, and they're evacuated by armed United Nations soldiers during an evacuation op. But some of their companions have been killed off and the quest to secure the truck with an amount of US$20 million was good for nothing as the triads were just going to kill them off in the first place.
- Camp Unsafe Isn't Safe Anymore: Busan was eventually unsafe sometime during the Timeskip between the first film and this.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- While looking for the truck filled with money, Jung-seok is surprised by a closed off glass stairwell filled with zombies. Later, while he is escaping from Hwang and his goons, Jung-seok passes by the same stairwell and breaks the windows to let the zombies out and block Hwang.
- As Min-jung and the others are preparing to leave, Yu-jin complains that she only gets to bring one remote-controlled car. It later comes into use as a distraction for Seo when he later takes Min-jung hostage.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Elder Kim appears to be playing with a ham radio calling a "Captain Jane" and insisting that she will come someday just to entertain Min-jung's daughters. At the end, a UN contingent commandeered by someone actually named Jane comes to their rescue.
- Despair Event Horizon: Chul-min's wife succumbs to this as she's holding her infected son and lets herself be attacked and infected by the surrounding zombies.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The name of the main antagonists, Unit 631, are just one number off from the infamous historical Imperial Japanese research group Unit 731. Like Unit 731, Unit 631 commits all sorts of atrocities against any survivors they catch. The lucky ones are executed right off the bat while the rest are forced to participate in sadistic survival games against captured zombies.
- Hammer and Sickle Removed for Your Protection: The North Koreans with Nodongs receive a cursory mention in the introductory scene where the man being interviewed mentions that the Hermit Kingdom may have survived the zombie outbreak though we never get to know fully if the DPRK survived or not.
- Heroic Suicide: Min-jung attempts to shoot herself in the head in order to force her daughters to leave her behind to be taken by the zombies. Jung-seok subverts this and gives Min-jung a fighting chance to get to the escort helicopter by making a path for her.
- Karmic Death:
- Sergeant Hwang: He sadistically forced outside survivors that they found to take part in survival games against zombies for him and his cronies' amusement, meets his fate as he is trapped in his car with a wave of zombies released by Jung-seok surrounding him from all angles and rushing to get in, with only a small handgun to defend himself, putting him in a similar situation as the other prisoners of his survival game, only with even less chance of survival and no break time.
- Captain Seo and the mobsters: After stealing the money truck by taking Chul-min hostage and shooting Elder Kim, Seo makes it to the mobsters, who promptly betray him to take all the money for themselves, meaning that they would have done the same thing to Jung-seok's group had they been the ones to bring the truck. However, before Seo dies, he backs the truck up to prevent the boat from moving and let the zombies in, leaving the mobsters sitting ducks for the zombies to slaughter.
- MacGuffin: The satellite phone which served as the only way for Jung-seok and his team to contact the Chinese mobsters. It was left inside the truck, but Seo was the last one who got ahold of it and allowed him to contact said mobsters.
- Militaries Are Useless: Justified since the outbreak spread too fast before the ROK military could contain it. The military is seen trying to evacuate on what civilians could be saved. In addition, the UN is able to keep the infection quarantined on the Korean peninsula.
- Multinational Team: A United Nations naval blockade is enacted on the Korean Peninsula.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By stealing the money truck from the protagonists, Seo ends up saving them from the mobsters' betrayal, and the protagonists end up being rescued by Major Jane's forces.
- Police Are Useless: Averted. The police are shown guarding evacuation ports along with their military counterparts.
- Rogue Soldier: A militia known as Unit 631 is made up of deserters from the defunct South Korean military four years after the virus ravaged the Korean Peninsula.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Jung-seok is the only survivor of the group assigned to get the $20 million and he doesn't even get to deliver it to the Chinese mob nor does he get to keep any of it. What keeps this from being bleaker is that he avoids getting backstabbed by the mob and the mob ultimately gets their comeuppance. In addition, he is able to redeem himself by saving the family that he had previously abandoned four years ago.
- Shout-Out:
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- In the previous film, Busan was one of the safe points in Korea. However, the military and civilians eventually evacuated Busan when the zombies grew too numerous.
- When there are surviving refugees from a country where a zombie disease went around wild, a majority of countries would limit bringing in refugees for fears that they could be asymptomatic refugees who may have the disease. This is also a case of Truth in Television and Shown Their Work as Japan is a country that rarely accepts refugees from war-torn countries due to being overpopulated themselves.
- Some Koreans from the country managed to get to other places like Hong Kong, but they are not officially recognized as refugees and have to scrounge up a living in the seedy underworld to survive.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Chinese mobsters don't care who delivers the $20 million as long as they get it. Once they do, they eliminate whoever delivered it.
- Zombie Apocalypse: For the Korean Peninsula only.
