Fresh and Exciting

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

A secret cargo of nuclear detonators is pilfered in a daring, bloody attack by ruthless, nation-less pirate Sin. Naturally, this potentially damaging and frightening attack is covered up by the American 'Defence Intelligence Agency', but not before the South Koreans set their own man on trying to uncover the identity of the thieves and their intentions. South Korea is wary in the politically fractious 21st-century Asia-Pacific region of being caught in nuclear crossfire, especially when Japan, China, America, Russia are all vying for supremacy… Thus begins an international game of cat-and-mouse as the volatile Sin (heart-throb and superstar Dong-Kun Jang) is tracked by crack, noble Navy officer Kang Sejong (Jung-Jae Lee) over hill and dale and Kang discovers Sin's plot to unleash a nuclear Armageddon on South Korea, using a super-typhoon to transport his payload. Why is Sin set on this terrifying course? As two heart-breaking flashbacks show, he and his North Korean family attempted to flee to the South in the 1980s, but were turned away and thrown to the unforgiving Chinese and North Koreans; victims in the capricious, unsympathetic diplomacy-game. Sin pledges revenge, but not before he's grown into a wiry, hugely capable soldier with a stern group of paramilitary types around him. Kang is (at first glance) the polar opposite to the tattooed and straggly-haired Sin: clean-cut, calm and proud of his homeland.As we watch these two alpha-male Nimrods strafe and finally lay into each other, their battle might be understood as an unintentionally funny homo-erotic courtship. When they can no longer contain their raging lust and rip into each in self-consciously spectacular finale, their knife-fight will either be very moving or provoke laughter, since their knives almost become phallic in their symbolism, and the final act of seppuku is almost masturbatory.Some might find that viewpoint unnecessarily crude and mean-spirited, but the film relies too much on hardware to either engage or entertain its audience. The most expensive South Korean movie ever made ($15 million, or something), this purports to be a serious, if populist attempt to reveal the unknown victims of the North-South divide. However, it's another example of the admittedly very shrewd and successful Korean film industry engaging in commercial one-upmanship, with each new blockbuster being more expensive, more impressive, more accomplished than the first. Typhoon obviously has an eye on the international market given that a good deal of the dialogue is spoken (stiltedly) in English and that the production-values recall a Jerry Bruckheimer or Tony Scott venture. The plot, save the historical context, is also a facsimile of innumerable race-against-time action films which you've seen a hundred of times before.This would be just another dumb, lumbering spectacle, were it not for the commitment to the material that cast and crew show. This style of film-making is now utterly familiar from South Korea, and Typhoon owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Shiri and Taegukgi, with the threat of devastation and recall of the terrible violence between the North and South Korea. I'm getting a little bored of Dong-Kun Jang's acting style, which basically requires him to act bug-eyed and hysterical, but I suppose this won't change anytime soon, since he's making a mint out of it. Jung-Jae Lee is more subdued but equally disappointing; his facial expressions are quite limited. (Credit to them, however, the poor script hardly offers them much acting range.) Director Kyung-Taek Kwak has this type of male-melodrama down pat, having honed it in the terrific Friend and clichéd but moving Champion. Kwak tries to broaden his male-centric universe by introducing Sin's long suffering sister, who has only ever know suffering. Indeed, her history of sex slavery and drug addiction are likely to get one righteously angry, but not for long because Kwak's un-ending emphasis on the brother-and-sister's misery verges on self-parody. Likewise, the burgeoning 'understanding' between Sin and Kang, but their resolve to complete their separate missions, makes for a lack of real frisson, real hate.Typhoon, from an unsympathetic Western perspective is just a faceless, expensive behemoth that begs for big office (and got it). I found its greatest failing not the constant dramatic overkill and over-emphasis (which at least kept me watching) but rather it's pedestrian direction. Kwak over-relies on his sets, special effects and production team, all of whom obviously put in the hours, but his action scenes are quite unexciting, especially when compared to the Bourne films, which beg comparison given the globe-trotting and the murky past the characters must dredge up. One knife fight is much like another, as is an explosion, a car chase. Even the final, desperate assault on the hurricane-lashed ship is tinged with tedium since its such a familiar scenario. Typhoon skirts boredom on too many occasions.The film is not helped by poor editing and pacing, which contrives to leave us with a month-long gap in the story at one point, and a bathetic score which drowns out all the action. The film's only real interest is its staunch standpoint that South and North Korea should be left to resolve their problems unmolested by China, Japan or America, and it also provides a slightly compelling international backdrop. The film's use of real locations and constant hopping across Asia help ground it in a relatively realistic context: South Korea surrounded by real countries. Thankfully, the film-makers don't resort to using especially recognisable landmarks so the film doesn't feel too much like a travelogue.Basically, the budget, stars and political standpoint make this something like essential viewing for fans of Korean cinema, but they should take warning this is hardly the industry at its best. Viewers in search of both fun and gritty politics should ('scuse the stupid metaphor) avoid it like a raging hurricane.

Typhoon tells the story of a North Korean man who with his family had previously failed in an attempt to defect to the South because of the existing political position of South Korea. The failed attempt occurred, according to the insight of one character in the story, because such things weren't possible until a year after this antagonist's attempt. Embittered over this turn of events, the man decides he will kill every South Korean since his mother was killed and his sister was humiliated due to unfavorable political circumstances. A South Korean agent enlisted to interdict this would be terrorist chases leads around much of Asia in his effort to stop the North Korean's plan.The actor playing the would-be terrorist provides a completely over-the-top performance, with the terrorist character at times nearly foaming at the mouth when he is confronted by his enemies. His intense bond with his sister, whom he hasn't seen in 20 years by the way, borders on the psychotic. The South Korean agent assigned to find him is cool, analytical and competent, yet the agent somehow manages to feel a strong bond with his deranged prey, being reluctant to kill the terrorist despite his clearly murderous intent. While this plot development does not work on the screen, it plays directly to pan-Korean nationalist sentiment in its target audience, and I'm sure it is appreciated by the home crowd for exactly that reason. Ohterwise this film is a bit mediocre in spite of the production values it clearly has.

Like "The Brotherhood of War (Tae Guk Gi)" and "Silmido" this movie touches upon the most sensitive and emotional issue for Koreans while demonstrating an upgrade of the Korean film industry which has been exploding especially since "Swiri" was released in 1998.Great actors and actress, great performance and the script, but one of the few shortcomings was some background music which was not perfectly consistent with the theme of the movie. For those who are not familiar with the North-South issues, this movie may be confusing to categorize just as an action movie or one with more in-depth interpretation of the political issues.What viewers should notice though is that these days the South Korean filmmakers enjoy making controversial movies (such as those mentioned above), which reflects their cultural, artistic and political maturity; South Koreans or Americans are very often bad guys and North Koreans are often good guys or poor victims, left with no better choices. In other words, less and less stereotyping.In the scene where Sin (Jang Dong-Kun) meets his elder sister for the first time in 20 years... I'm telling you, their performance was simply amazing, especially Lee Mi-Yeon's. I even felt sorry for those who don't understand Korean perfectly, having only to depend upon the English subtitles which in no way convey the full meaning and nuance of the totally different Asian language. Obviously they speak in the movie with a very strong (but, of course, perfect) North-Korean accent (this is very impressive too), that particular scene was too outstanding to categorize the entire movie into any single genre.Depending on the DVD editions, in the last fighting scene between Sin and Kang where Sin says, "...the f***ed up thing is that we understand each other."(English subtitle) What it really means is their ironical situation that they speak the same language (Korean) even though they are enemies.With better and more consistent background music (and some other improvements not really worth mentioning), I would've given it a 9. (This does not mean that the entire background music sucked. I'm only pointing out those in the car chase and fighting/shooting scenes)

As a story built on the often-told North-South Korea strife, this movie has less depth than JSA. As a movie focusing on pitching two mutually admiring heroes against each other, this movie falls short of some of John Woo's best. As a movie with a global proportion disaster to be averted, this movie has not quite reach the James Bond calibre. There is no romantic love line at all here, but quite touching sibling love depiction.There is no ambiguity as to which of the heroes belong to which side. Lee Jung-jae (in "Il Mare", he played the trans-temporal lover of Jun Ji-hyun's character) plays the South Korean naval officer who, when recruited to do a special-agent type of task, chastened his superior for using material reward as a lure, stating in no uncertain terms that patriotism would be more than sufficient. Jang Dong-Kun (most recently "Wuji" or "The promise") plays the most wanted North Korean pirate leader who went astray when, as a young boy, his whole family was betrayed by people who promised to smuggle them into South Korean for a new life.The plot and the action would be familiar to anyone who has seen James Bond movies. The venues are exotic, from Russia to Thailand. In the action department, the movie makers make sure that the audience get what they expect, in explosion, car case, awesome firepower, horrendous storms and a finale knife duel that is absolutely unnecessary but fully expected. The entire movie bursts with macho tension, except for the scenes of the reuniting brother and sister after 20 years, and the sister with only a few months to live. This turn out to be the most memorable scene in the entire move, well acted and genuinely touching.