Typhoon (Taepung)
(2005, Korea, 124 min)
Written and Directed by: Kwak Kyung-taek
Starring Lee Jeong-jae, Lee Mi-yeon, and Jang Dong-gun
www.typhoonthemovie.com

In the latest Korean war epic Typhoon, director Kwak Kyung-Taek (of Friend fame) takes on the ambitious task of delivering a visually exciting Hollywood-style blockbuster action movie while weaving through a dramatic plotline of a family tragedy. This is captured by the the relationship between two men who might have been friends under different circumstances, but whose current destinies are diametrically opposed. However, Typhoon fails in this attempt and what is left is the shell of a engaging action film.

The movie begins with the Choi family's hard-sought, long-planned arrival from North Korea at the Austrian Embassy in Bejing, where they are seeking aslyum into South Korea. Then, due to the instable political climate, the family is led blindly back to North Korea where they are brutally gunned-down for trying to escape. In the aftermath, the only two surviving family members are Choi Myong Sin (Jang Don Gun) and his sister, Choi Myeong Ju (Lee Mi-Yeon). They are separated and later grow up leading separate lives of hardship, all the while not knowing about the existence of the other.

Fast forward twenty years, with bitterness at the role that the two Koreas played in the death of his parents compounded with time, Sin hijacks a United States cargo ship and missile guidance system with which he plans to unleash weapons of mass destruction on both countries. As a result, the South Korean government dispatches navy lieutenant, Kang Se-Jong (Lee Jung-Jae), to locate Sin and stop his plans.

And off the movie goes... kind of.

The action scenes were generally fast paced and well-choreographed but when the movie slowed down to focus on the development of the characters, the mood and story often became too depressing and worse, forced. The film was overly enthusiastic in conveying the parallels between the characters of the villian Sin and the hero Se-Jong, and was accomplished mostly by telling and not much by showing. In addition, the emotions and relationships between characters for the most part seem manufactured and heavy-handed in an attempt to pull at the strings of the audience's hearts. The only relationship that seemed genuine and proved touching was that of Sin and his sister, which was impressively played by Lee Mi-Yeon.

There were some other successes in the film. Jang Dong Gun was surprisingly decent as the angry, psychotic North Korean pirate, which may be due to the fact that he wasn't speaking his native Korean for much of the movie. The locations in Russia, Thailand and Korea provided a captivating background, and the actors portraying Americans could actually speak English (which is no small feat for Korean movies).

Typhoon falls short in delivering the level of character development, we'd come to expect from its director, and the emotional journey we've grown accustomed to from Korean dramas. But all in all, it was not a completely unenjoyable two hours, and at a minimum, you can be appreciative of Kwak Kyung-taek's ambitious effort.

—SJC