A strange, if ineffective, disaster film from Korea. Early in the film one character loses his uncle to tragic death in the Indonesian Tsunami of 2004, then the film launches into a long, uneven introduction of several characters. Some of these are romantic couples, others are kooky screwballs, while the first character drinks to smother the guilt over his dead uncle. OK, so far. But, the lives of these several characters go on for nearly an hour before we have some idea that a tsunami is about to strike Busan, a Korean city with a popular beach. Some of this introduction comes off like B grade sappy comedy, and the narrative isn't good enough to make one care, it's just enough to make the viewer impatient for the tsunami. When the tsunami hits the city with a nearly 100 foot wall of water, everyone in this movie should have died. But all survive the wall of water, for a while at least, which literally flattens some of the skyscrapers in the city. In one impossible seen, a man--along with a few automobiles--avoids being washed from a bridge even though a large ocean transport is literally hurled up against the side of it by the giant wave! After the destruction by water, the film becomes a conventional disaster film. Some of the effects are good, some are not. I think the film's initial character development was intended to gain viewer sympathies, but it's just too poorly written and too long for what eventually is just a standard disaster pic.
Review of Tidal Wave
