Tidal Wave

I've never seen a movie with a comedy in the first half and a tsunami disaster in the second half. I've also never watched a Korean disaster movie. Frankly, I think the movie is bad, but I was never bored. The first half of the movie is like a cheap comedy, I didn't care. The second half is a serious disaster movie.

Frankly, it was a bit of a akward, because I didn't really care about the characters. The effect wasn't good, but the year was 2009 movie and the movie is Korean movie, this one didn't bother, but there's a bomb scene where the effects was very bad bad, but the tsunami effects were okay. I like this kind of disaster movies in general, especially tsunami movies. It's only watched for the tsunami and after, but the first half of the movie was really comedy. Finally, I don't regret watching the movie and I was never bored, but it's not a good movie.

Wow... I've seen quite a few disaster movies, and this one was disastrous.

It began as a comedy and ended up a sorrowful one... Please set the mood right. The pacing of the movie was relatively even, and yes, the coming tsunami was... underwhelming.

The main actors are all pretty convincing, but the supporting ones are just that.... supporting ones. Their acting could only be called flaky, at best.

Let me get this out of my system. Japanese have one of the most advanced earthquake/tsunami early warning systems in the world. the Korean scientists made their Japanese counterparts sound like they were extremely I thought the ending was also too drawn out and long-winded. This movie would only be good when you are left with nothing better to watch.

I have seen quite a few Asian films from many different countries in Asia and this one was by far the worst one I have ever seen. Seriously marred by bad acting over 75 percent of the time, the concept of a Tsunami movie was buried beneath ten feet of choppy unrelated inconsequential events. I was not sure if it really was about a Tsunami until near the end-it seemed to be mostly about nothing but a raving alcoholic imbecile with a little boy. I would not recommend this film to anyone.Compared to The Host, a recent Korean horror-Sf film, Heaundea, comes off like a terrible commercial for international travel, as in, this is one vacation you would not want to take.

Disaster movies have been fine-tuned by Hollywood into a fairly reliable and polished formula. One of the ingredient is usually a good dose of melodrama. Now, Asian cinema as well, is known to spice movies with melodramatic bits.

It therefore doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what an Asian take on disaster movies is gonna end up looking like: A melodramatic extravaganza.

The first hour of Haeundae (also known as Tidal Wave in English) consists of setting up the table by presenting the cookie-cutter characters (played by a rather weak cast which tends to overact) and their clichés relationships. The script and story is pretty standard for the genre (you've seen all of this in Twister, Armageddon, many of Emmerich's movies and so on) but the writing is just... immature. As if the script came straight from a high school play. I must still praise some of the comedy bits, which are indeed funny and make certain characters more likable. Unfortunately, the dramatic bits are as (unintentionally) funny as the comedic ones and that is a problem.

The final part of the film is where the disaster unleashes and ends up being a poor payoff. The special effects, cinematography, editing are uninspired. This film suffers from poor direction and you immediately feel like you'd rather catch an old disaster flick on cable TV. But what absolutely kills the disaster scenes are the tear-jerking attempts. It's like the director is trying to squeeze a dehydrated fruit and fill a glass with orange juice.

It still deserves a 3 because there is some heart to it and it maintains your interest with some of the quirky characters. Plus a few comedic bits are also worth it. But if you're not a fan of the genre, expect a big waste of time.

I enjoyed this. However, I can't recall seeing a disaster movie with so much drama. You have to expect some drama so that you become invested in the characters but it seemed like a bit much for me. It wasn't a bad film though. If you are looking for something suspenseful this is probably not the right movie. If you want a drama film that just happens to, eventually, have a tsunami in it this is what you are looking for.