BUCHEON, South Korea (Hollywood Reporter) –
In "Haeundae," which makes history as South Korea's first disaster movie, the country's second-biggest city, Busan, is the stage for a fictional tsunami. Director Yoon Je-kyun treads familiar waters, providing overlong human dramas as the film's narrative backbone. The payoff arrives in the last 45 minutes, which whip up a satisfying tempest of visual and special effects.
The $9.8 million production by CJ Entertainment, one of the most expensive in Korea, opened here July 22. Deluging 869 screens nationwide, the movie rang up a reported 1.57 million admissions over three days. With Hans Uhlig ("The Perfect Storm," "The Day After Tomorrow") on board as CGI supervisor, "Haeundae" delivers Hollywood-caliber visual spectacles that are tailor-made to a richly localized setting for the Korean audience, as well as tapping into a general apocalyptic mentality in the wake of the global tsunami. The film has been pre-sold to 22 countries.
The narrative structure of "Haeundae" resembles classic disaster films like the original "Poseidon Adventure" in that it takes two-thirds of the film to establish the local setting and spread out a wide net of human relations.
The main players are seaside eatery proprietor Man-sik (Sol Kyung-gu) and his girlfriend, Ms Kang (Ha Ji-won); his coast-guard brother and a vain and ditzy babe; a divorced couple, one of whom is an ocean geologist (Park Joong-hoon) and the other a political adviser (Uhm Jung-hwa). Another half-dozen personalities revolve around them.
The drama issues mainly from love complications caused by relatives or class differences. Performances from the respectable cast are boisterously in line with the melodramatic situations. Nevertheless, most characters are likable enough to stir reactions to their later struggles.
Yoon, who directed the juvenile sex comedy "Sex Is Zero" and feel-good romantic comedy "Miracle on 1st Street," shows a penchant for similar goofy shenanigans here that at times play like the main fare rather than just comic relief.
Aside from flashbacks to a storm that caused the death of a character's father, the buildup to the tsunami is low-key. It consists only of scientists' jargon, ominous shots of underworld tremors, scampering crabs and psycho seagulls, like a scene from Hitchcock's "The Birds." So when the all-devouring tidal waves finally hit the coast, the impact is larger than life.
The merging of CGI-generated waves, collapsing buildings and other dangerous objects with shots of real streets and live actors is relatively seamless. At their best, some scenes have a certain fantasy element and gusto that render authenticity insignificant.
For example, an ocean liner does a 180-degree flip and is perched vertically, halfway above sea level. An eye-popping catastrophe doubles as comic relief when a buffoon inadvertently causes a mighty explosion with his lighter, bringing down a highway bridge, and hurling giant freight cargoes at waterfront skyscrapers like darts. These stunts may not stand up to laws of physics, but the wackiness of the setups makes them visual stunners.
Cinematography proves worthy of the film's blockbuster aspirations by providing smashing panoramic shots of Busan's gorgeous coastline, taking in high-rises and beaches teeming with sunbathing crowds and a sea of parasols. Other technical credits hit the mark, except the music, which does not have enough oomph.
