Everyday spaces have turned into nightmare scenes, and friendly beings have turned into threats. Disaster that begins with a series of collisions on the bridge and greater disaster strikes. The late Lee Sun-kyun, in the disaster comprehensive gift set, poured out his passion until the end.
Last year, the 76th Cannes International Film Festival's Midnight Screening section was invited to meet the audience for the first time in a year and two months after going through all sorts of twists and turns. Escape, which appeared in Korea for the first time at the press and distribution premiere held on the 8th, was given the unfortunate title of "Lee Sun-kyun's posthumous work," which no one expected, but aside from these external issues, it received a lot of attention as a tentpole blockbuster that cost the largest production cost this summer (18.5 billion won in net production cost, 4 million people in profit and loss).
First of all, the story of 'escape' is like this. It tells the story of ordinary people struggling to survive as a series of crashes on the airport bridge due to thick fog, and the bridge is on the verge of collapse, and even out-of-control military experimental dogs are in danger.
'Escape', where a very ordinary daily life becomes the worst disaster situation in an instant with a series of minor events, takes out the soul of the audience by pouring out a series of disaster situations without breathing. It is not a futile disaster situation, but a realistic subject that can be seen in the news at least once, and it controls the immersion of viewers from the beginning.
This sense of immersion is largely due to the power of space and visuals that utilize 200% of the sense of reality. As director Kim Yong-hwa, who has already raised the technology of Korean VFX to the peak through the series Along with the Gods, Escape delivers the true taste of the summer blockbuster with overwhelming background, space and powerful visuals. In order to recreate the scene of the 100-car crash on the nation's longest-distance bridge, a 1,300-pyeong set was recruited to fully implement live-action visuals, and 11 military experimental dogs that acted as the biggest threat to escape were completed as VFX through numerous processes, conveying a more realistic feeling of fear than in reality.
The visuals are not everything. Another important point to watch is to lead the narrative of 'escape' until the end with the perfect team play of trusted actors. Led by Jung Won (Lee Sun-kyun) and Kyung-min (Kim Soo-an), who are in charge of the father-daughter part, Lekka knight Jo Park (Joo-hoon), dog Jodi (Pina), sisters Miran (Park Hee-bon) and Yura (Park Joo-hyun), twilight couple Byeonghak (Moon Sung-geun) and Soon-ok (Ye Soo-jung), and Dr. Yang (Kim Hee-won), the lead researcher of Project Silence, have gathered all human groups together and formed a consensus for men and women of all ages.
In particular, the passion for acting, which was like Lee Sun-kyun's fighting spirit, leaves a heavy lingering impression until the ending credit. Earlier in October last year, Lee Sun-kyun was booked on charges of marijuana enjoyment under the Narcotics Control Act and sadly ended his life on December 27 that year while under police investigation. Lee Sun-kyun, who played the chief executive officer of the National Security Office in the posthumous work of Escape, seemed to be seen as a brilliant man with the absolute trust of the next presidential candidate, the chief of the National Security Office (Kim Tae-woo), but he played a multi-layered character who gradually became a person who did his best to save people and daughters without sacrificing himself after facing the worst disaster in history. It is 'escape' that contains the hot passion of Lee Sun-kyun, who ran, rolled, and hung.
Of course, cliché and Shinpa can be felt in some scenes of Escape due to the nature of the disaster movie genre, but it is also one of the virtues that director Kim Tae-gon was able to end beautifully thanks to the struggle of trying to reflect the audience's feedback as much as possible after the Cannes Film Festival.
Meanwhile, 'Escape' will be released on the 12th.
soulhn1220@sportschosun.com
