Haeundae

I have seen quite a few Asian films from many different countries in Asia and this one was by far the worst one I have ever seen. Seriously marred by bad acting over 75 percent of the time, the concept of a Tsunami movie was buried beneath ten feet of choppy unrelated inconsequential events. I was not sure if it really was about a Tsunami until near the end-it seemed to be mostly about nothing but a raving alcoholic imbecile with a little boy. I would not recommend this film to anyone.Compared to The Host, a recent Korean horror-Sf film, Heaundea, comes off like a terrible commercial for international travel, as in, this is one vacation you would not want to take.

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.

Wow... I've seen quite a few disaster movies, and this one was disastrous.

It began as a comedy and ended up a sorrowful one... Please set the mood right. The pacing of the movie was relatively even, and yes, the coming tsunami was... underwhelming.

The main actors are all pretty convincing, but the supporting ones are just that.... supporting ones. Their acting could only be called flaky, at best.

Let me get this out of my system. Japanese have one of the most advanced earthquake/tsunami early warning systems in the world. the Korean scientists made their Japanese counterparts sound like they were extremely I thought the ending was also too drawn out and long-winded. This movie would only be good when you are left with nothing better to watch.

I found this movie to be a good attempt at a disaster genre movie to come out of Korea.

The movie had a good story, and had enough interesting side stories to keep you compelled. It is good to have several story lines that work well to come together for a good wholesome story.

The characters in the movie were good and believable, though some of the dialogue were cheezy at times.

The effects of the movie were adequate, but of course you can see it is not a multi-million dollar Hollywood CGI fest going on. But with that in mind, they made the effects work well enough.

This movie is a good alternative to the usual comedies and horrors movie that mostly come out of Korea. It also takes up some real life issues about tsunamies.

In overall I think this movie is a good choice if you like disaster movies, and if you are tired of big Hollywood movies with superstar cast listings.

Tidal Wave (2009)

** (out of 4)

This South Korean disaster picture deals with a wide range of people who at first are trying to deal with their personal lives but this all changes when a tsunami hits and they must fight for their lives. Apparently this film had the biggest budget for anything to come from South Korean and in fact I thought the special effects of the disaster looked pretty good but more on that in a bit. What really kills TIDAL WAVE is the first eighty-minutes, which is the time spent with the characters. It's clear that this film is just like so many American films in that we spend the majority of the running time getting to know the characters so that when the disaster does hit we care for them and want to see them survive. The problem here is that the majority of this is built around a bunch of comedy bits that simply aren't funny and in fact they really take you out of the movie. I'm really not sure what the purpose of these comedy scenes were but they should have been in a Laurel and Hardy movie and not something like this. Even the personal drama was pretty predictable as we are given the same stereotypes and same clichés that every disaster movie has followed since the 1970s. The film certainly does come alive once the tsunami hits and I thought the special effects were extremely good on the whole. Yes, there are some shots that are obviously fake but I enjoyed the imagination that went into them and we do get some pretty intense scenes. Still, after these scenes we fall back into the cliché routine with way too many scenes where someone is giving their live for someone else's and it just gets a bit repetitive after a while. TIDAL WAVE, on the whole, is a disappointment but fans of the genre will still want to check out the actual disaster bit.