Film Festival Reviews. Part 4.
Haeundae
In this classical disaster movie, Haeundae
(in South Korea) is threatened by a “mega tsunami”. We follow the lives of several people as they struggle with
personal problems and romance, and finally get to see everything get washed away by huge waves. The movie is similar
in tone to The
Host, relying on comedy, but still treating serious matters with a sense of respect and urgency, avoiding
pure slapstick (although there’s plenty of that).
The acting is good, but almost every single character in the
movie plays a comedic part at at least one point in the movie, so they all feel a bit hollow, making you care less
about them when the disaster hits.
But you DO care about the disaster. It’s very well made, and drawn out, and
rewarding. There’s much destruction without focusing too much on the loss of human lives (there’s almost no blood in
the movie), and I will remember one action sequence in particular for a long time.
Best part: The entire movie fits together really well. You’re never bored.
Worst part: Characters sometimes make
insanely stupid decisions just because it makes the movie more exciting.
Score: 4/5
Hierro
A single mother takes her child on a trip to an island, but he vanishes during boat ride. She spends the rest of the
movie looking for him and seeing things, maybe.
A lot of effort is put into establishing some kind of
“atmosphere”, with clips of waves crashing being played backwards, and children being seen playing behind rocks, but
vanishing magically.
I utterly despise tricks like that. Repeatedly forcing the audience to guess what’s real or
not is a very good sign that the movie is crap.
And Hierro is crap.
Oh, and there’s a double twist ending that
makes no sense at all.
Best part: Err.. Well.. Hmm.. Oh, the ending I THOUGHT was going to happen was pretty good.
Worst part: The plot
is absolutely nonsensical. Unconnected random events after another lead up to the most unlikely movie ending since
2001.
Score: 1/5
