HAEUNDAE (Youn Je-?kyun). 120 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (October 9). For venues, times and trailers, see Movies. Rating: NN
It’s freaky to see this movie, about a mega-?tsunami triggered by a series of earthquakes, and then to turn on the evening news to see the quake carnage in Sumatra. A great big wave is sure to follow.[rssbreak]
Though there are some elements of present-?day reality here, Haeundae pursues an old-?school disaster movie formula.
Set on the mammoth Haeundae Beach, which attracts a million visitors a year, the film introduces character and conflict before bringing on the brine. Man-?sik has a secret he can’t tell Yeon-?hee, his fiancée geologist Hwi runs into his ex and her child, who doesn’t know Hwi is her dad one particular mogul is bent on turning whole hunks of the beach into a theme park.
The humour is ridiculously broad, and the dialogue in the first hour hits a one-?note screech tone. But once the waterworks get going, Haeundae is a gas. There is some cheese – the same shot of a woman’s feet is seen five times while water rises in an elevator. But the big bucks in this film that boasts Korea’s largest budget ever do show up on the screen.
