Train

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Preview

Synopsis

​When she was young Han Seo Kyung’s father was killed. That same day, so was Seo Do Won’s. Left alone, they grew up together, living under a police officer’s roof. Years later, Seo Kyung becomes a prosecutor and Do Won a cop. Seo Kyung investigates her father’s murder; while Do Won hides a secret about that night. One day, bodies are discovered at an abandoned train station. Do Won is in charge of the case and discovers that this station is connecting two almost identical worlds. Could the killer be coming from there? 

My Opinion (No Spoilers)

Train was a 12-episode drama that started so well! The first episode really intrigued me and made me want to see more. Then came the second and the third, during which I felt like the suspense disappeared. At first, I believed that the drama was setting the circumstances and the context. So I hoped, when I watched episode 4! After episode 4, I was convinced that finally the suspense and the mystery would come back strongly. Unfortunately for me, I happened to be quite disappointed. The more I watched, the more bored I was. Apart from some scenes, here and there in the drama (especially the end of the episodes), the plot started to confuse me and I really lost my focus, to the point that I wasn’t even sure who was whom and from which world in the last episodes!

A tragedy in my opinion if you consider the potential of the drama and the story! I tend to believe that OCN is not as good as it used to be back in 2017 and 2018. This channel was really able to produce incredible dramas (Save Me, Voice…) but it is always all or nothing. It is either incredible or disappointing. Same for Yoon Shi Yoon’s dramas I want to say! He is capable of the best as well as the worst. 

By the way, don’t you think that Yoon Shi Yoon always plays two-faced characters in his dramas? I feel like in all of his shows he either plays 2 different versions of himself or two extreme sides of himself. Your Honor, Psychopath Diary, Hit the Top, Nokdu Flower and now Train. Crazy right? 

Anyway, if you want to see a quick drama on parallel universes, you can still watch Train; but it is definitely not on top of my recommendation list!

Analysis

• Characters
• Ambiance
• The 2 worlds
• Fate and destiny
• The murderer’s identity

Characters: Seo Do Won (Yoon Shi Yoon) is a police officer. When he was young, his father died after running away from a crime scene. Do Won found later collars in his father’s pocket coming from the crime scene, but hid them away; preventing thus his father from being accused of murder. Unfortunately, his father died in a hit-and-run a few minutes after discovering the crime scene, leaving him an orphan. After that tragic accident, he met Han Seo Kyung (Kyung Soo Jin), the daughter of the man his father supposedly killed. She also became an orphan that night. Because Do Won felt guilty and responsible for his father’s actions, he decided to make up for them and to take care of Seo Kyung. He took her out of her terrible stepmother’s home and they decided to live together in the house of the officer on the case. They became their own family in a way. Years later, Do Won is now a police officer and Seo Kyung a prosecutor. Even though they have both grown up, they still carry the burden of that night. Do Won lives in fear Seo Kyung would discover his father’s involvement and Seo Kyung is desperately looking for the murderer. I have to say Do Won is very devoted to Seo Kyung and even though what he does is not necessarily the best for her emotionally; he is constantly trying to protect her. He doesn’t want her to discover the truth (or what he thinks is the truth) and more than that, he doesn’t want to see her leave his side because of what happened. As a defense mechanism, he thus prefers to hurt her and push her away, instead of creating a relationship that would eventually hurt her more. 

Moreover, Do Won is very good cop, very determined and strong-minded. He is not scared of going all in, if it means protecting his loved one. However, he is also quite secretive, doesn’t share emotions or thoughts and does everything by himself. This mysterious behavior pushes people away from him (he is quite a lonely character) and makes him difficult to trust. Still, I could see that he was a character in constant pain, lonely and trying to make the best out of his terrible childhood and situation. In the first world he is an upright and appreciated cop. 

On the contrary, in the second world he is quite the opposite of what he is at first. He remains that strong-headed and witty cop; but the twist of fate he had to go through in the other world broke him. Indeed, his father didn’t die in that world, but he was accused of murder. He spent 10 years in jail, while Do Won had to live as a murderer’s son. Moreover, he never met Seo Kyung and had to carry most of the burden on his own. His life was that of solitude and pain. Because of that, he became addicted to drugs and went down the wrong path as a cop; working with dealers for instance. Both personalities are actually quite similar, what really differs are the circumstances/environment in which Do Won evolved. 

If Do Won represents the distinction between bad and good in the two worlds; Seo Kyung embodies the bright and dark one. Indeed, in the first world, she appears as a bright and lively person, trying hard to solve the murder mystery. Her meeting with Do Won saved her life and made her believe there is good in people. She was also able to develop normal relationships and to live a normal teenage life. She was also loved and cared for by those she considered her family. However, in the other world, Seo Kyung had to go through abuse by her step-family (mother and brother), tried to commit suicide and therefore closed in on herself, not communicating with people nor bonding with them. She doesn’t talk much; she is a woman of action. Still, she shares some common points with Do Won: they’re both strong-willed and go to the bottom of thing; they are reckless and courageous; all of these turning them into the perfect match in my opinion. 

Ambiance: The atmosphere in Train is very mysterious, if not sometimes confusing. As viewers, we are confronted with the tough reality of dealing with 2 existing worlds in which the path we went down is not necessarily the same as the one we know; just like characters in fact. The abandoned train station is very creepy and conveys an eerie feeling, telling us that something unusual is happening here. Even the sudden appearance of the ghost train is brutal and scary to some extent. To add to the fright and overall discomfort of the place, some punctual characters, such as Seo Kyung’s step-brother, enhance that feeling of unease and distress. His mental disability and his inability to express himself properly deepens the mystery and gives Do Won some clues in order to understand what is really going on there. 

I personally really liked the ambiance at the beginning. It truly felt like an OCN drama, that is usually so good at setting a dark mood and making us feel anxious. In overall the drama was really dark I believe, most of the scenes occurring at night or in obscure settings. Even though it started pretty well, I felt like the more I watched the drama, the faster that ambiance vanished and gave place to a pretty normal kind of drama. I was really disappointed to see that most of the scenes involving the train for example were completely cut. Of course some scenes at the station remained but to me, the drama is named after the most essential element of the story: The train. Yet, it almost never appeared and was let go of pretty fast. 

The 2 worlds: At the very beginning, I really wondered how they were going to introduce the existence of the two different worlds. The train station (abandoned on one side and still running on the other) worked as a portal between universes. Catching a train has never been so difficult though! Indeed, in order to switch worlds, Do Won has to run next to the ongoing train, jump on it and break a window to enter. In that matter, I found it quite unrealistic, unless he is Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible!

Even if the idea was good on paper, nothing in fact was explained as to why this specific place and that specific train could transport you somewhere else. I understand that they wanted to keep the mystery, but the scenario is even worse when at the end, we discover the existence of not only 2 worlds but a multitude of them. Since the train has stopped running and Do Won has gone to another world to protect Seo Kyung, I was pretty astonished by how easily he finds these doors to other worlds when Seo Kyung has so much problem finding at least one. Plus, we never know how they cross over and how they manage to reunite in the last scene. 

Fate and destiny: However, what I found quite interesting regarding these two worlds is the way they decided to show how one moment of your life (a split second) can actually change the whole rest of it. On the day of that tragic night, Do Won stopped at a crosswalk. In one world, he decided to go straight to meet his drunk father, enabling him to save his life. In the other world, he took a detour and gave Seo Kyung an umbrella. Because of this delay, his father died in front of him after escaping the murder house. Who knows then what happened in the other worlds? Nevertheless, there seems to be some certainties in the drama: Do Won becoming a cop for instance. Still, this switch highlights the fact that the choices you make will inherently influence your future. Moreover, Train has been very clever in my opinion in proving that some things in life can’t be changed; Some events are bound to happen, no matter what you do. It seems like all the paths you and the other versions of you take will diverge at some point. Yet, there are some milestones, for which all of them reunite. For example, Do Won’s father had to die as a hit-and-run victim, Seo Kyung’s mother and brother abusing her in her childhood… In that sense, Train provided an interesting interpretation of life and view on how to deal with terrible events in your life. Some bad things are supposed to happen, that is life. Nonetheless, you can always imagine that somewhere the people you lost are living a good life. 

The drama also emphasized on the fact that there is a sort of cosmic balance that has to be respected. If you upset it, fate, or whatever it is that decides your future, will try to restore it by every possible means. That’s why at the end, Oh Mi Sook (Lee Hang Na) is able to convince Do Won that he can’t stay in Seo Kyung’s world with her. As long as he stays, her death (like in the other world) is bound to happen. This kind of reminded me of Goblin, when Eun Tak has to die and be reborn to be with Sin! 

Knowing how overprotective Do Won is, it was no wonder that he would sacrifice happiness and leave, as long as Seo Kyung is safe. However, she doesn’t share the same opinion. She prefers to give it a go and at least try to live instead of being separated and fearing the other’s death. I agree with her on that one, if it is bound to happen, at least try to live your life to the fullest, since you can’t avoid it!

The murderer’s identity: The drama managed to keep the murderer’s identity well hidden until the very end! I was glad to see that the trick was not given away sooner. Moreover, I think the drama was able to make viewers empathize with the killer Suk Min Joon (Choi Seung Yoon) and his mother Oh Mi Sook. Funny to see that both either killed or buried the murder because of their fear of what would happen in the future. Indeed, both have Huntington disease (an unavoidable genetic disease making your cells degenerate). Min Joon is afraid of being sick and becoming unable to do anything; so he kills people who remind him of his condition. As for Mi Sook, she has seen her son die in another world and is afraid it would happen again. Therefore, she tries to stop it. Of course it doesn’t work because first, the mother-son relationship was already broken for a very long time; Second, remember what is supposed to happen in a world, happens in others. Thus, Min Joon kills himself as well in the other world. The circle repeats itself, over and over again. 

I personally don’t know what I would’ve done, had I been Mi Sook. What she did was terrible, but I can understand why she did it, as a mother loving her son. 

In a nutshell, Train started as an interesting drama about two worlds, combining existential questions on fate and human behavior in those circumstances. Yet, it didn’t manage to keep me alert throughout all the episodes, losing rhythm and dynamism in the middle. Such a shame.

P.S.: What would you do if you were in Do Won’s place? Seo Kyung’s? Mi Sook’s? Would you bet on destiny or not?

P.S.2: Loved the OST “I Will Never” by Jo Won Sun! Go check it out!