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Making of
``The Typhoon’’ deals with the tragic situation of the divided nation, which Kwak said was inspired by his father who fled from North Korea and missed his hometown until he died.
The film portrays the face-off between two young men from different sides of the two Koreas, but the confrontation is much bigger in scale and scope than previous movies with similar themes.
Starring the nation’s top actors Jang Dong-gun and Lee Jeong-jae, the movie was made with about a 1.5 billion won budget, almost 10 times more than what Kwak spent for his biggest hit ``Friend (Chingu)’’ in 2001, which drew over 8 million moviegoers.
It took one year to finish the shooting, which took place in various regions in South Korea as well as other countries such as Russia and Thailand. As the blockbuster involves numerous action scenes over water, it needed to build various indoor and outdoor sets, recreating warships on simulated seas.
However, as the film centers on the two characters’ relationship which starts off hostile but develops into friendship, the two actors said it was hard to express the complex emotions through their characters.
Typhoon centers around a character called "Sin" (Jang) who leads a band of highly-trained outlaws who we first witness hijacking a ship. It soon becomes clear that this wild-eyed fanatic has major emotional issues with both North and South Korea, and he plans to resolve them with a catastrophic terrorist attack on the entire peninsula. Meanwhile, South Korea catches wind of the plot and sends a star navy lieutenant (Lee Jung-jae) to intercept Sin.
This is released in North America by DreamWorks, and they are reportedly planning to make a "US version" together with the director. Asian film fans often complain loudly (with good reason) when US distributors re-edit Asian films, but in this case a few judicious cuts and some re-worked voice overs could result in a better film.
Typhoon in contrast pays much more attention to the "why" than the "how", and in that sense it's more of a melodrama than an action film. The film hinges on our ability to partly empathize with the main character, but outside of the film's most effective scene -- midway through the film, when Sin is reunited with his sister (played by Lee Mi-yeon) -- we rarely see him as a living, breathing human being. This seems to be more of a problem with the screenplay than with Jang's acting, which is effective enough.
Myung-sin, who has become a pirate, lives with hatred in his heart and endures the hardships, seeks revenge on the two nations, North and South Korea, using nuclear waste that has the devastating power of plutonium. Se-jong, a South Korean naval officer departs with his team of elite forces to prevent Sin's master plan of Nuclear Typhoon. Born under the same skies of the same race, but of a completely different nation... Living a life so different, the two point their guns at each others heart... |