Haeundae

Disaster movies have been fine-tuned by Hollywood into a fairly reliable and polished formula. One of the ingredient is usually a good dose of melodrama. Now, Asian cinema as well, is known to spice movies with melodramatic bits.

It therefore doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what an Asian take on disaster movies is gonna end up looking like: A melodramatic extravaganza.

The first hour of Haeundae (also known as Tidal Wave in English) consists of setting up the table by presenting the cookie-cutter characters (played by a rather weak cast which tends to overact) and their clichés relationships. The script and story is pretty standard for the genre (you've seen all of this in Twister, Armageddon, many of Emmerich's movies and so on) but the writing is just... immature. As if the script came straight from a high school play. I must still praise some of the comedy bits, which are indeed funny and make certain characters more likable. Unfortunately, the dramatic bits are as (unintentionally) funny as the comedic ones and that is a problem.

The final part of the film is where the disaster unleashes and ends up being a poor payoff. The special effects, cinematography, editing are uninspired. This film suffers from poor direction and you immediately feel like you'd rather catch an old disaster flick on cable TV. But what absolutely kills the disaster scenes are the tear-jerking attempts. It's like the director is trying to squeeze a dehydrated fruit and fill a glass with orange juice.

It still deserves a 3 because there is some heart to it and it maintains your interest with some of the quirky characters. Plus a few comedic bits are also worth it. But if you're not a fan of the genre, expect a big waste of time.

Koreans, apparently, have never made a big disaster movie until now. It's taken this long, until 2009, so many years after fellows in other Asian countries (like Japan or, well, Japan) have done the disaster-movie thing over and over, usually with monsters. Why is this? Perhaps Korea didn't have the budget for it - apparently, at a mere 11 million US, this is the biggest budgeted movie in Korean history, and it looks like a giant Titanic-movie as one might expect - or the intent with the subject matter. I don't know why Je-gun Yun decided now was the time, or this was the subject, but it probably has something to do with an actual giant damn tsunami taking apart coastlines all across the south-east Asian seaboard and killing hundreds of thousands and displacing so many more. It's one of those monumental disasters-of-the-decade that in its own circles (i.e. countries) is as horrible as Katrina.

So, perhaps, this is the first step towards healing: a big blockbuster that doesn't really elevate the form from previous American big-budget summer disaster-movie blockbusters, but doesn't suck like a box of Michael Bay d***s either. The film, named after a shore-line city, follows a group of characters in a series of semi (or not at all) connected plots, including one with a man who previously caused the accidental death of another while they worked on a boat during tsunami 2004 and has to reconcile with his alcoholism and a possible new love, another with a new coast-guard worker and his (unintentional) love interest, and a guy working at the weather-control center who has a very estranged relationship with his ex and his daughter who doesn't even know he's her father (since, you know, he works non-stop at a weather center tracking earthquakes and the like).

For the first hour, or maybe more, there are some big laughs and some entertainment to be had, if only on that shallow-surface level one might be familiar with in an Independence Day kind of fold-out (or for the older folks Towering Inferno). With the exception of the young coast-guard guy and the twerpy girl who is or isn't trying to court him depending on her mood, which just sucks, the plots are at least sort of engaging on a fun-dumb movie level. And even with the shots of visual effects that look terrible (and some of it is SyFy level quality), when the actual tsunami hits the city it is quite a sight and thing to experience, especially with a full audience. The problem that Yun comes with though is both the script, its uneven plot threads and hit-or-miss humor (some of it is very funny, intentionally so, including a giant explosion scene on a bridge during the tsunami climax), and in corralling some of the acting.

From what I hear, some Korean movies do swing and sway quite wildly between moods from scene to scene, and it isn't usually consistent even in the best films (exceptions I think might be Bong Joon-Ho and Chanwook Park's films). But here in Haeundae it breaks down like this: two-thirds of this is a decent crowd-pleaser, what my wife called a "mixed salad" kind of entertainment. And then in the last twenty-five minutes it turns into more or less a total weepy, so much so that you'll either fall for it completely Titanic style (and lo and behold many in the audience I saw the film with, mostly Korean-Americans or Koreans in town in NYC, were in tears), or you'll be scratching your head or simply cringing at the hysterics on display. It's never too terribly directed, but after so much of it... you wonder when it will end. It's a good start for a possible future genre Korea can take some more cracks at. It's just not something you need to rush to see. Unless you're a die-hard Roland Emmerich/Korea fan. And yes, fan of Korea, not even Korean movies.

I enjoyed this. However, I can't recall seeing a disaster movie with so much drama. You have to expect some drama so that you become invested in the characters but it seemed like a bit much for me. It wasn't a bad film though. If you are looking for something suspenseful this is probably not the right movie. If you want a drama film that just happens to, eventually, have a tsunami in it this is what you are looking for.

I watched this film with such excitement. but I'm quite disappointed of what I saw after expecting so much from the trailer.

First I'm Korean myself and was surprised to see such high CGI effect movie from a Korean director.

Although D-war had quite great CGI , haeundae was the first disaster movie from Korea.

The first part is just drama style comedy plot, which is not that great. It get's boring, and I tend to forget that I was watching a disaster movie. About hour later the movie past, first real disaster occurs. When the tsunami hit Haeundae, it was quite something, the effects were well done, and outlined the problems that would occur well. But I'm disaspointted to see only one disaster occurring. After all this wait in the movie, there's only about 10 minutes of the tsunami. Rest is just back to normal drama plot.

I suppose most are now acutely aware of how increasingly devastating natural disasters have been in recent years, starting from the 2004 Asian Tsunami which swallowed thousands of unfortunate souls. Then there are the recent destruction caused by typhoons and earthquakes, the latter which we're more acquainted with given the tremors which we feel as a result of neighbouring incidents, a phenomenon not experienced until the last few years.

There are numerous accounts of heroics and tragedy following every disaster, and it's not a surprise that they have become fodder for mass entertainment. We had 252: Signal of Life as the Japanese offering to the disaster genre earlier this year, and the Koreans too have decided to match that with Haeundae: The Deadly Tsunami. With 252 it was the disaster hitting hard and fast first, followed by the shoving of human melodrama down your throat, and thankfully though Haeundae is quite the opposite, having the human drama established first without feeling forced, before the special effects extravaganza took over.

So if you belong to Camp Impatient, then you're likely to feel bored as the film sought to introduce the ensemble characters, each with their respective back-stories and selfish reasons why they go about doing what they are doing, of course with repercussions all nicely built in as well for some karmic response. There's the fisherman and the romance with the daughter of a man whom he had caused the death of, and this provided most of the emotional anchor for the film. Then there are others like the opposites attract with the coast guard and the free-spirited girl from Seoul, a seemingly scheming politician who's in some kind of en-bloc mess with the folks of the coastal village, a much maligned scientist and his estranged wife and daughter, and enough overbearing mothers.

All these provided some 60 minutes worth of dramatic run time before it's time for Nature to hit back with its tidal waves, where quick response to an actual event will save lives, which stemmed from complacency creeping in when early warning signals went uncalled for. The filmmakers here had realistically created the phenomenon of the massive tidal waves with the receding waters and such, and the effects here were nothing short of eye-popping. Fear-inducing even, though there was one quick scene which seemed lifted from Hollywood's Deep Impact upon reconciliation of 2 characters in the face of impending doom.

But of course budget dictated that the effects could only sustain the movie for a short while, and anything more than 2 wave cycles would probably either be cost-prohibitive, or just plain dragging out the misery of the characters in their preservation of lives. Some fade-to-black-at-opportune-moments also came to the rescue of the film, and cheesiness reined comical supreme needlessly as well, though no efforts were spared in others especially the one involving the little girl left in the hotel room, providing that edge-of-your-seat thrills in what would be a literal roller-coaster ride in the last half hour.

Haeundae served more as a disaster film without any preachy overtones regarding the preservation of the environment. In earnest, I thought the release of this film was more like serving up an appetizer to the bigger budgeted extravaganza come November with 2012. That, I want to see.