One thing I want to say is that we humans are great architects...we can create many wonderful and big skyscrapers...ultimately creating a huge city of wires, bricks, cement, glass, plastic and metal (also known as concrete jungle)...all the more easy to trap us in our own devices and creation when all hell breaks loose...it's quite ironic, I think...
What I like best about this film is that it shows the very nature of man...just how prideful, hateful, selfish, loving, and caring we can be when disaster strikes...what I dislike most is that when good people try to take steps to warn the masses to save lives, there's always these hateful people who get in the way, and on top of that no body listens...but when hell breaks loose, then everyone panics and kill each just to save their own skin...and afterward, of course comes the finger pointing (a.k.a putting the blame on someone)...if there's one thing we humans don't ever learn...it is from our past mistakes.
On the level of emotion, this film have its moment of great sadness, fear and comedy...it'll make you feel sad, scared, happy and laugh at different points in this movie...which I think is a good portrait of how people react in real life situation and circumstances of this magnitude.
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-Sol Kyung-gu is impressive as always. Ha Ji-won is highly impressive as well. Rest of the cast also does a near-perfect job.
-The action/disaster scenes of the film deserve a special mention as they are very neatly executed.
-Visual effects are pretty impressive and enhance the film's entertainment to a great extent.
-The emotional scenes are impactful and have been executed with excellence.
-The story is quite good and the message of the film is appealing.
Negatives:
-The only negative is that it takes too long to arrive at the main point. Although the first half does showcase some good character development and makes us understand them even more, the comedic bits are at times overdone and could've been easily done away with. In short, it's only the editing which is a major flaw.
TIDAL WAVE is adecent disaster film which does take its own sweet time to build up, but it makes sure to reward the viewer for his/her patience, in the second half with excellent visual effects and action scenes.
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This review may contain spoilers
Normally you watch a disaster movie to see the rescue work, people saving others even though it may endanger themselves and for the feeling of hope you get. Haeundae is not really like that. Most of the movie is pre-story and the story where people are trying to survive is like 10 minutes of the movie, so not really much. The pre-story holds a lot of "trying to be funny" humor that in my opinion is just too much for a natural disaster movie and a lot of the characters are just not like-able in any way and, I have to admit, I did not see myself rooting for most of these characters during the disaster.
It does have some people finding the strength to care for others and some people taking a sacrifice for others, like you would expect and hope for but it's mostly unlikeable characters having the best ending and almost no character development after.
The cast itself is pretty great and did good with their acting and I did enjoy our two main characters a lot. So compliments for that.
Overall, Haeundae is a good movie for when you have nothing else to do and want some good old Korean comedy mixed with a natural disaster. But as for a natural disaster movie, it is kinda disastrous.
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