Killer wave

A resort town is devastated in the
Korean tsunami disaster flick Haeundae

TROUBLED WATERS: Haeundae

by MARK SLUTSKY

What is it about the disaster film that is just so darn… satisfying? There’s something unsettling about how much fun it is to watch our civilization’s mighty structures get annihilated by uncaring nature, our great monuments swept aside in moments, revealing us and our achievements to be nothing more than the tiniest insignificant motes in the universe’s eye.

Very few modern natural disasters can compare to the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, with its 100-foot-high waves and literally hundreds of thousands of lives lost. It was a tragedy on a truly epic scale—and of course, it’s now inspired a blockbuster film. Haeundae, directed by Yun Je-gyun, begins with the 2004 tsunami and then leaps forward five years to another, fictional undersea earthquake that causes untold devastation in the South Korean resort town of the title.

It’s a film that seems clearly inspired by the “cast of thousands”-style American disaster flicks of the 1970s (and, undeniably, Titanic). Though beginning with the fateful Indian Ocean disaster, most of the first half of the film introduces the setting and characters. There’s Yeon-heui (Ha Ji-Won), whose father died in the 2004 tsunami, and Man-Shik (Sol Kyung-gu), a friend of her late dad’s. Kim Hwi (Park Joong-Hoon) is a scientist who tries to warn the authorities of the impending disaster, and who encounters his estranged ex-wife (Eom Jeong-hwa). Meanwhile, a romance blossoms between rescue diver Hyeong-Shik (Lee Min-gi) and the college student he saves from a boat mishap (Kang Ye-Won).

There’s more, but you get the idea. This really is the kind of movie that tries to appeal to everyone—seemingly every Korean demographic and age group is represented here, as well as every conceivable genre: there’s a little romance, a little family drama, a little slapstick comedy. And, of course, a couple humongous waves that show up to turn it into an action movie.

It’s slick and fairly well-done. Pretty cheesy too, but man, something about the scenes of mass aquatic devastation are just hypnotizing. But I suspect Haeundae might have trouble over here because of the title; they should have just called it Tsunami or something. As such, it looks like an arty foreign film, where it’s really just mass entertainment from somewhere else.

HAEUNDAE OPENS THIS FRIDAY, OCT. 9