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Typhoon (2006)
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Reviews Counted:11
Fresh:4
Rotten:7
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: A pseudo-political thriller on the fritz, Typhoon drowns in its own heavy handedness and silly acting.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong violence and brief language.
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release:Jun 2, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $114,607
Synopsis: Hailing from South Korea, director Kyung-Taek Kwak (FRIEND) brings some explosive subject matter to the silver screen with TYPHOON. Kwak follows in the tradition of directors such as John Woo (HARD... Hailing from South Korea, director Kyung-Taek Kwak (FRIEND) brings some explosive subject matter to the silver screen with TYPHOON. Kwak follows in the tradition of directors such as John Woo (HARD BOILED) and Takashi Miike (DEAD OR ALIVE), molding a fast-paced action thriller that manages to divide its time between visceral set pieces and intriguing plot developments. Sin (Jang Dong-Gun) is from North Korea and still feels the effects of his parents' slaying at the hands of brutal South Korean tormentors, who refused to allow Sin's family to move into the country when he was a kid. Sin plans to destroy both North and South Korea in the ultimate act of vengeance, and his acquisition of some potentially deadly nuclear waste helps further his maniacal dreams. Jang Se-jong (Jung-Jae Lee) is a South Korean native whose naval training is called upon when he is given the task of tackling Sin, and director Kwak draws on a strong supporting cast to act out some explosive and bloody battles as the two men go head-to-head. Kwak takes the eyebrow-raising decision to have his cast speak in English for most of the film, and some of the lines could possibly have benefited from a little more work in the preproduction stage. But TYPHOON isn't meant to be Shakespeare, and audiences will surely revel in the on-screen pyrotechnics and death-defying stunt work that barely lets up from start to finish. [More]
Starring: Junh-Jae Lee, Dong-Kun Jang, Mi-Yeon Lee, David No
Starring: Junh-Jae Lee, Dong-Kun Jang, Mi-Yeon Lee, David No, David McInnis, Chatthapong Pantanaunkul
Studio: Paramount Classics
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Reviews for Typhoon
Caught up in a triple vortex of poor scripting, unexciting action and leads you couldn't care less about, the pic boasts good production values but little else.
Typhoon aims high but misses the emotional mark in most instances, resulting in some awkward melodramatics.
Director Kyung-Taek Kwak orchestrates all this with flair, but leading man Lee doesn't have much to offer beyond a steely stoicism, and Jang's histrionic villainy borders on the parodic.
The movie delivers the same old American action-flick themes of catastrophe narrowly averted, but the Korean version alters the meaning from triumph to sorrow.
It has a fair sense of documentary reality, and the action sequences -- from shootout to car chase to a commando takedown of a tanker on the high seas to a final knife fight -- are extremely well managed.
In Typhoon, there are plenty of guns being fired in front of the camera, but behind it [director] Kwak apparently had his safety catch in place.
Studiously avoiding the sort of eccentricities that have made recent Korean films so exciting, it's simply copycat Hollywood cinema, trumpeting its budget while rushing to another explosion.
Typhoon is an assembly-line thriller from South Korea that just as well could have been made in Hollywood.
An exhausting combination of generic thriller, political tract and sentimental weepie.
Ambitious and impressive, both in its provocative themes and superb production design using striking sets and locations in Korea, Russia and Thailand, this handsome epic amply rewards audiences willing to go the distance.
A reasonably entertaining, very Korean take on the kind of stuff Jerry Bruckheimer produces by reflex -- and that's in no way an insult to either Bruckheimer or Typhoon.
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