Maybe not an emergency declaration but a declaration nonetheless…
This is my first review of a Korean movie, so I just want to start off by saying there are many things that are just fundamentally different about Korean cinema compared to American films, and I think you can see this in Han Jae-Rim’s Emergency Declaration. From the plot elements to the cinematography, there’s just things that the Koreans capture that other filmmakers haven’t been able to quite get. A classic example of this is Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite, a film that opened up a lot of people to Korean cinema with its Oscar recognition and is a movie that’s now heavily studied in a lot of film classes. I’m not saying Han’s film is the next Parasite — it’s definitely not — but it has a lot of the classic Korean film elements that kinda make it worth watching. Even if you don’t end up liking it that much, at least it’ll open you up to Korean or foreign cinema.
“He’s so cute” — my friend talking about Im Siwan
This movie had a pretty good cast with Lee Byung-Hun, Im Siwan, and Song Kang-Ho, and honestly, just those three being in a movie together was enough for me to want to watch the movie. I think I went through some sort of cognitive dissonance, but even though Im Siwan was a psychopathic terrorist trying to kill a bunch of people, something about him beating up and calling someone “fucking trash” was kinda hot and if you watch the movie you’ll know what I mean. But, I digress; aside from him being 잘 생겼어, he’s also a pretty good actor that gave me the same feelings as seeing Lee Jong-Suk in V.I.P., you want him to die and know he should lose as the antagonist, but at the same time, you almost don’t want him to die.
Lee Byung-Hun also gives another great performance as the traumatized ex-pilot that just makes you go :0, and Song Kang-Ho, though initially, his character doesn’t seem like much, ends up saving everyone with his tenacity and heroism.
Overall, I thought the cinematography was a bit generic and the only shot that really stuck with me was the behind-the-shoulder/POV one-shot of Song’s character and his partner in a car chase since it really immersed the audience in the chase, making you be on the edge of your seat because you’d just be waiting for when the car was gonna crash. This scene and the one towards the end of the passengers FaceTiming their loved ones were probably the most memorable scenes for me. Even though this was the case, I don’t think this is the type of movie that needs to rely on fancy shots or memorable dialogue since it is mostly an action movie. Like many Korean movies, however, this film couldn’t just be an action movie but had to have a pretty emotional segment that makes the whole theater cry (the ajumma next to me was literally crying for half the movie), so maybe some fancy shots could have enhanced these emotional scenes a little more. I think if the story included this type of heavy emotion, though, they could have emphasized the action scenes in the plane a bit more. Even though we saw one passenger and (spoiler) Im’s character die, suddenly an hour of the movie passes and almost half the plane is dead, but I think we could’ve seen the process of more people, like some of the main characters, dying for the audience to grasp that the stakes were being raised. Reading this part over, I probably sound demented for wanting to see people die, but I hope you get my point… In particular, there was one bitch of a passenger that was trying to send the infected passengers to the other side of plane, and I would have been okay with seeing him die.
Anyways, there’s only so much action that could happen on a plane, so when we cut back to what’s happening on the ground, I think there’s enough action to make up for that. Aside from the lack of action, there were also some plot points and decisions I thought were a little questionable, such as Song’s character’s decision to inject himself with the virus to prove that it could be treated. I get it and it’s what ultimately saved the people on the plane, but at the same time, he probably didn’t have to put so much of the virus in himself to the point where he’s almost a vegetable at the end of the movie, ’cause looking at what the surviving passengers were like by the time they landed, most of them didn’t seem like they were on the edge of death. Also, at the end, when the survivors are having a party and everyone’s dressed in white, at first, I thought this scene might be some sort of dream since their survival was a little ambiguous until we see that the plane landed “safely,” but I was probably looking too deeply into the wardrobe choice. Honestly, I think the ending would have been a little more interesting and unexpected if they had actually died, but this movie was pretty predictable so it makes sense they’d all survive.
Another thing I thought was interesting, which emphasized the difference between Eastern and Western cultures, was the passengers’ decision and sacrifice to not land the plane because of the fear that they might spread the unknown virus to the rest of the country. Seeing how this decision to land the plane wasn’t black and white and actually caused a great divide in the country, everyone on the plane was willing to just keep flying until they run out of fuel and die instead of risking the lives of others. This example of storytelling shows a difference in the East’s collectivism versus the West’s individualism, and I don’t think I would even see this kind of issue come up in an American film. Not to say only Americans are selfish or anything, everyone’s selfish, but this concept of prioritizing the whole group rather than the individual (in this case, the “individual” being the plane of passengers) gives a different perspective, which is something I appreciate in watching foreign films.
This movie was probably a solid 7/10 and I’d recommend watching it, if not for the story and action then at least for the actors, but, if you don’t want to become partially deaf from the loud ass plane noises and want to wait until you can stream it on Dramacool, that’s understandable, too.
