Wednesday September 16, 2009
When tragedy strikes
By SETO KIT YAN
Billed as South Korea’s first big-budget disaster movie, Tsunami At Haeundae depicts the destruction caused by a super-tsunami.
SURELY, none can forget the deadly 2004 Asian tsunami which took some 300,000 lives on Boxing Day. For South Korean fimmaker JK Youn, the historic disaster even inspired him to make a movie – Tsunami At Haeundae.
“Five years ago, on December 26, 2004, when the big tsunami hit South-East Asia, I was at Haeundae, a big vacation spot for Koreans.
Hanging on: Lovers Choi Man-sik (Sol Kyung-gu, right) and Kang Yeon-hee (Ha Ji-won) are caught in a terrible tsunami in the JK Younhelmed disaster blockbuster Tsunami At Haeundae. “My mother was residing in Haeundae at the time. As I was watching the news of the tsunami that hit South-East Asia, I wondered how it would be if the same tsunami had hit Haeundae where one million people annually visit during the peak season in the summer,” said the director in an e-mail interview.
“This scary fantasy of mine was the starting point for Tsunami At Haeundae. At the time of the big tsunami, there were many heart-breaking stories in the news of the victims, which led me to really want to make Tsunami At Haeundae, focusing on the people and the stories revolving around them,” added Youn, 40, who took more than a year to write the script and develop a story anchoring on three couples.
The story revolves around these people going about their somewhat ordinary lives dealing with their own joys and sufferings, unaware of the calamity which is about to befall them.
So, on a hot summer day when the beach is packed with holidaymakers, a siren warns that a super-tsunami is headed straight for Haeundae at 250kph and they have only 10 minutes to evacuate.
Billed as South Korea’s first big-budget disaster movie, the film will see Korea’s beloved Haeundae Beach and the surrounding district completely destroyed by a super-tsunami.
The much-anticipated RM46mil summer blockbuster has a star-studded cast comprising award-winning actors like Ha Ji-won, Sol Kyung-gu, Park Joong-hoon, Uhm Jung-hwa and rising young stars Lee Min-ki, Kang Ye-won and Kim In-kwon.
Ha, who worked with writer/director Youn previously on both Sex Is Zero (2002) and Miracle On 1st Street (2007), was the first to be cast in the disaster movie.
She plays Kang Yeon-hee, a spirited young woman who lives alone and runs an unlicensed eatery by the waterfront after losing her father to the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Her love interest is single father and sashimi restaurant owner Choi Man-sik, who is played by the tall and rugged Sol. “He has a lot of energy. He’s genuine and fun and we had great chemistry on screen.”
Ha revealed that she accepted the role even before the script was developed. “This sort of disaster movie was the first of its kind. It was challenging yet it pushed us to work harder and we all had a lot of fun.”
The Seoul-born actress took great pains to develop her character down to fine-tuning native speech patterns with a personal dialect coach as the director himself was from Pusan.
“In order to perfect the Pusan dialect, I took lessons for three months, recorded myself speaking the dialect, and observed women working in the Pusan sushi restaurants,” Ha said in an e-mail interview.
While preparation was painstaking for the actress, filming was probably even tougher as she had to brave gushing metre-high waters.
“After the first tsunami hit Pusan, filming the scene in which I had to rescue Kyung-gu from a street lamp was difficult.
Ha, 30, has featured in 16 films and 10 TV series. The multiple award-winning actress began her career playing supporting roles in TV productions.
Her early recognitions include Best New Actress for Truth Game at the 2000 Grand Bell Award and Best Supporting Actress for Ditto at the 2000 Blue Dragon Awards.
More recently, her portrayal of 16th century Korean courtesan Hwang Jin-i in the Korean Broadcasting System’s (KBS) 2006 TV series of the same name won her best actress awards at the 2006 KBS Performance Awards, 34th Korean Broadcasting Awards and 32nd Golden Chest International TV Festival.
Since disaster movies of this scale had not been made in South Korea before, Youn sought the expertise of American CGI specialist, Polygon Entertainment (Star Wars series, The Day After Tomorrow and Perfect Storm).
Headed by Hans Uhlig, the company took on the challenge of producing the special effects of large scale floodwater scenes.
“It was really frustrating trying to film a scene in which a typhoon hits the Korean waters because something like this has never been filmed in Korea.
“When all the experts in special effects gathered to have a meeting regarding this problem, the only solution was to build an enormous water tank set that was also very costly.
“I couldn’t help but feel hopeless, eventually asking for help from the experts in America. Surprisingly, they were shocked that we would go so out of the way to build a set for such an easy task.
“Eventually, we decided to film the typhoon rescue scene in San Francisco. But to my surprise, a huge water tank set was nowhere to be seen. I was so shocked that I asked the American visual supervisor for explanation and he told me to just wait.
“Soon after, two elderly men brought in huge metal sheets nailed together and began covering the floors and walls with vinyl plastic, completing the so called water set.
“It was built in two days. I was so flabbergasted that I asked if this was okay. The visual supervisor’s response surprised me. He said ‘This is how it was done for Pirates Of The Caribbean.’ ”
Having had a taste of top-notch CGI while making Tsunami At Haeundae, Youn looks forward to continue making films that involve both high levels of storytelling as well as advanced technology.
“Since I do want a mix of drama as well as advanced technology, I’m sure my next film will heavily involve CG.”
Ha, who will next be seen in My Love By My Side, said she would love to add some melodramatic roles to her repertoire and even try working overseas if the opportunity arose.
Apart from Malaysia, other countries with distribution rights for the disaster movie include the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and Britain.
Tsunami At Haeundae, distributed by RAM Entertainment, opens in local cinemas tomorrow.
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