Chum thaang rot fai phii

Oh dear, my bad experiences with Thai cinema continue.

By the title you'd likely assume a zombie feature but no here we have something altogether different and I'm left thinking a zombie movie would have been more preferable.

It tells the story of a gang who botch their escape from a bank robbery. Taking a young hostage they flee on the first train they see only to question what they've gotten themselves into. Yes that's right this is a ghost themed film.

The start was actually very hopeful it managed to get my attention, had a great soundtrack and I liked the idea of a haunted train. Sadly it goes downhill fast after around the first third for a whole host of reasons.

For a start the tone is off, this is not supposed to be a comedy yet we have one outright comedy character and several others too goofy too be taken seriously. Then lets talk about the sfx, yikes! They're really bad, highly amateurish stuff which goes hand in hand with the dreadful camera quality which goes grainy whenever things get dark (Which is frequent).

So it looks terrible, the tone is all over the place and the plot? Disjointed and gradually it makes less and less sense the more it's explained (Somehow!).

Alas it doesn't find its feet again, it gets gradually more and more confusing until the very underwhelming finale.

I went into this with high hopes about the concept and fingers crossed that Thai cinema would surprise me for a change. I expected SO much more.

The Good:

Starts strong

Interesting idea

The Bad:

Poor camera quality

Weirdly imbalanced tone

Weak CGI

Ridiculous fight scenes

Everyone tries super hard in this film and I'm amazed the producers could make anything for the the peanuts spent on it. Sadly all the enthusiasm amounts to a paper thin mess. By the way this was my first Thai horror.

Transparent as a window, effects like a drunk first-year student, and yet! And yet! In the first three minutes we had this pegged as a B-movie, and yet the characters were so amusing I actually wondered, not what would happen, but how it would happen. The ghost-seeing druggie was particularly interesting. And remarkably progressive: the girls are pretty but don't get undressed or sexualised and there's an openly gay character whose sexuality is rarely mentioned, but more importantly wasn't a crime. To try to explain the plot would be pointless: if you want good effects, exciting fight scenes, and a complex plot, this not it. But if you enjoy a top-notch movie so bad you can't help but laugh, this is the one. Oh, and on Netflix, it's "the train of the dead". Good times.

I found this movie whilst I was looking for somewhere to watch Train to Busan. After being unable to find Train to Busan, I came back to Train of the Dead and decided why not? Asian horror is very versatile and it seemed like it would be a decent watch with so many views.

Yikes. Oh yikes. How I regret the last one hour, twenty eight minutes and twenty one seconds of my life. That's right. I even regret the twenty one seconds.

First of all, despite it's seeming connections and/or similarities to Train to Busan, without even having watched Train to Busan, I can very confidently state this is nothing to do with it nor does it even come close to Train to Busan's level of horror. This is crude in its performance and has a plot that could be guessed by a five year old.

First of all, around three quarters of the way through, the entire scenery becomes red and orange and yellow. It's almost impossible to actually see anything except the subtitles - which actually makes these scenes even more confusing. The editing is almost as thought they've super imposed the entire film section across just blood red film. It's sore on the eyes and very convoluted as to what's happening.

The acting. Some did very well, some did very bad. Some made their characters very believable people. Others made me just sigh and roll my eyes so hard I think I sprained a muscle or two in my eye.

The plot was basic and boring and if I say train of dead (ghosts), I'm pretty sure you could guess the entire plot and majority of what happens correctly.

The writing made me feel quite sick. I don't know much about Thailand and their attitude towards LGBT, etc. But one of their characters being a transvestite and being every single gay male stereotype you can possibly think of just isn't it. I almost turned it off countless times due to this one character being pretty offensive - at least to me as a gay male. People will find him funny, I thought it was trash.

Overall, I really regret this movie, I really just want to forget about it and I really recommend others don't even try. Find something else. It's worth the time to find something else.

There's nothing in particular to recommend this movie. The story is minuscule, the special effects ridiculous, the acting consistently over the top. The ending doesn't come close to being coherent. It's a major mess. Choo choo.