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Director: Je-gyun Yun. Review: Adam Wing.
Each and every summer millions of tourists flock to Busan City on the East Coast of Korea, and pretty much every summer, major film studios release a big budget disaster movie onto unsuspecting cinema audiences. Hollywood has made a habit of it, drowning us in volcanic lava, invading aliens and soul-destroying earthquakes. So it’s a big warm welcome from the Busan City tourist board, they hope you enjoy your stay at Haeundae Beach, a popular holiday resort for anyone seeking sun, fun and romance. The Korean Film Board on the other hand, well they just hope you enjoy the mayhem as director Je-gyun Yun delivers one of the most successful box office hits in Korean movie history.
You’ll be hard pushed to recognise any of the disaster movie warning signs in the first hour, because Je-gyun Yun introduces the large cast of characters in slapstick fashion. It’s clearly the area he feels most comfortable in, his previous movies include Sex Is Zero and My Boss My Hero, and he certainly gains points for attempting a fresh approach. There are very few glimpses of impending doom in the opening act; no sign of the millions spent on special effects, what we have here is shouty, slapstick farce and larger than life characters. It’s the usual assortment of characters of course; Je-gyun Yun isn’t that daring, so we have the scientist who saw it coming, the non-believing government types, lots of hapless civilians and a sprinkling of hopeless romantics. They are all present and correct; all that’s missing is the wave itself. The comedy actually works well up to a point, more on that in a moment, and the first hour is arguably the most entertaining part of the entire movie. Korean comedy is like marmite, it’s somewhat over the top and childlike in places but there is a warmth that grows which should have you rooting for the characters come crunch time.
Sadly, and rather fittingly I suppose, it’s when the wave hits that the movie falls apart. The effects are often convincing, but there’s very little here that we haven’t seen before, and Je-gyun Yun isn’t half as relaxed with the action as he is with the comedy. The big problem for me was that I couldn’t take any of the dramatic tension seriously, the characters had spent so much time goofing around that I half expected Leslie Nielsen to pop up in a cameo. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be laughing at a scene where a man tries desperately to evade falling bridge debris, but there I was, laughing my ass off. The melodrama, much like the wave itself, is relentless in the final act and I struggled to care about any of it. The budget was well spent for the most part, but the rest of the movie caves in to conformity, ‘is that it?’ has never felt so fitting.
Perhaps I’m being a little harsh, because Tidal wave is by no means a complete disaster, but it’s nowhere near as successful as the Korean box office would have you believe. Tidal Wave is an ill-conceived mix of broad humour, clichéd melodrama and eye popping visual tomfoolery. The first hour is enjoyable, as is the final third, but the two parts just don’t belong in the same movie together. A low budget comedy drama that centres on characters involved in a natural disaster could’ve worked well (see the first half for details), or even a big budget Hollywood style movie that wreaks havoc on the special effects supervisors (see the second half of the movie and pretty much every other natural disaster movie made before it), but combining the two in one film made for comedy where there should’ve been drama and laughter where there should’ve been tears. It’s lazy writing for sure, but upon reflection, Tidal Wave is a disaster that should’ve been avoided. I’m no scientist, but I know a good movie when I see one, and Haeundae is better left submerged under the high waves of expectation and disappointing depths of despair. There are better movies than this out there, which also includes most of Roland Emmerich’s catastrophic output of the past twelve years. You have been warned… |
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