Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Product Description
From Kwak Kyung-Taek, director of Champion and the record-breaking Korean box office smash, Friend , comes TYPHOON, an ambitious and technically impressive action-thriller that effectively takes on Hollywood at its own game. The biggest-budgeted South Korean movie ever made, boasting superlative production values and locations ranging from Korea and Russia to Thailand, TYPHOON combines themes and action sequences reminiscent of John Woo's best work with the kind of cinematic thrills and pyrotechnics usually associated with the high concept blockbusters of Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Given that this new Region 2 release is a good 16 minutes shorter than the Korean original, I approached it with some trepidation wondering if key scenes had been butchered, the plot had been relegated to the bin, the usual worries. Not so, in fact what we have her is a more slick, stylish version that, for once, benefits from the streamlining and rejigging brought to bear by the editor's scissors. The original, now, seems a little confusing, what with flashbacks in curious places - at the very end, when all the drama's been put to bed for one - and scenes that are so clearly there to pad the running time out as long as possible. Lumpy might be the best way to describe it.
Ordinarily, I'd always recommend the original version of a film but, this time, I'd say you'd be making a safe choice buying this one.
Ordinarily, I'd always recommend the original version of a film but, this time, I'd say you'd be making a safe choice buying this one.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
When you read the plot synopsis for Typhoon, you may find yourself being put of by the fact that it sounds like something from the Hollywood school of dumb action movies, but if you make this mistake you would miss one of the finest action movies that this reviewer has seen in a long, long time.
The dangerous and highly motivated Sin (Jang Dong Gun) hijacks a secret cargo of nuclear detonators at sea, with the help of his merciless band of pirates. The detonators are being secretly shipped by the American defence department so as not to raise the hackles of Russia, China, Japan or either North and South Korea, and were to be used as leverage in the current Asian Pacific brinksmanship that sees the aforementioned countries vying for domination of this sensitive area. Needless to say, the South Koreans learn of this before the Americans can cover it up, and set their own man on Sin's trail, super skilled Naval Intelligence officer Jang (Jung Jae Lee). Jang learns that Sin intends to use the detonators as part of a plot to destroy both North and South Korea, for reasons that become plain later in the movie in a series of brutal and heartbreaking flashbacks. So we have a cat and mouse game played out across the Asian Pacific rim as these two men clash in a series of spectacular set pieces before the obvious final showdown.
So far, so good, and you could be forgiven for thinking so what. But this is more than another lazy Hollywood style action thriller in the Jack Ryan/ James Bond mould. The two leads turn in good performances, giving their characters a certain sense of believability (although given the subject of the film, not totally believable), and the film moves along at a cracking pace, with some terrific (and I do mean terrific) action set pieces. Write/director Kyung Taek Kwak handles the proceedings well, and the film rarely pauses for breath as the action zooms around the Pacific Rim. The film looks great, and particular credit must go to the editor Simon K Park who manages to give even the most boring piece of exposition zing and zip. The action clearly owes a great deal to the stylised action of John Woo, and the film has all the polish of a Jerry Bruckheimer film (and I mean that in a good way). All in all, a cracking action thriller that actually manages to have good characters, a good script and great action all in the one tidy package.
The dangerous and highly motivated Sin (Jang Dong Gun) hijacks a secret cargo of nuclear detonators at sea, with the help of his merciless band of pirates. The detonators are being secretly shipped by the American defence department so as not to raise the hackles of Russia, China, Japan or either North and South Korea, and were to be used as leverage in the current Asian Pacific brinksmanship that sees the aforementioned countries vying for domination of this sensitive area. Needless to say, the South Koreans learn of this before the Americans can cover it up, and set their own man on Sin's trail, super skilled Naval Intelligence officer Jang (Jung Jae Lee). Jang learns that Sin intends to use the detonators as part of a plot to destroy both North and South Korea, for reasons that become plain later in the movie in a series of brutal and heartbreaking flashbacks. So we have a cat and mouse game played out across the Asian Pacific rim as these two men clash in a series of spectacular set pieces before the obvious final showdown.
So far, so good, and you could be forgiven for thinking so what. But this is more than another lazy Hollywood style action thriller in the Jack Ryan/ James Bond mould. The two leads turn in good performances, giving their characters a certain sense of believability (although given the subject of the film, not totally believable), and the film moves along at a cracking pace, with some terrific (and I do mean terrific) action set pieces. Write/director Kyung Taek Kwak handles the proceedings well, and the film rarely pauses for breath as the action zooms around the Pacific Rim. The film looks great, and particular credit must go to the editor Simon K Park who manages to give even the most boring piece of exposition zing and zip. The action clearly owes a great deal to the stylised action of John Woo, and the film has all the polish of a Jerry Bruckheimer film (and I mean that in a good way). All in all, a cracking action thriller that actually manages to have good characters, a good script and great action all in the one tidy package.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Starting off with a suddenly prescient hijacking of an American ship by pirates, the premise of big-budget 2005 South Korean actioner Typhoon is vaguely similar to the infinitely superior Hong Kong thriller Purple Storm, with a disillusioned North Korean whose entire family were killed in an aborted attempt to defect to the South planning to take his revenge on the entire Korean Peninsula by irradiating it courtesy of weather balloons and toxic waste from Chernobyl that will be spread by an oncoming typhoon. Which sounds rather better on paper than it plays onscreen. Though there's clearly supposed to be a growing understanding between the apparent villain and the South Korean agent out to stop him - "In the next life we could be friends" - it doesn't really convince (taking out an entire peninsula doesn't exactly encourage audience sympathy), and not enough in the rest of the film compensates. The action scenes are nothing to write home about, the pacing a bit lethargic even in the cut international version and the characterisation thin. There's an interesting undercurrent of distrust for America in the film - the US wants the whole thing quietly buried at sea if possible - and things do pick up for the finale shoot `em up in the villain's ship located in the eye of the storm, which clearly accounts for most of the film's budget, but it never really feels enough.
Unfortunately Contender's UK DVD isn't much help: aside from being the cut and slightly restructured international version (with no deleted scenes) the sound mix is particularly problematic while the lack of hard of hearing subtitles is a problem whenever characters deliver dialogue in English - one lengthy bit of exposition from a corrupt Thai general is absolutely incomprehensible, rendering the next reel or so of the film more than a little confusing.
Unfortunately Contender's UK DVD isn't much help: aside from being the cut and slightly restructured international version (with no deleted scenes) the sound mix is particularly problematic while the lack of hard of hearing subtitles is a problem whenever characters deliver dialogue in English - one lengthy bit of exposition from a corrupt Thai general is absolutely incomprehensible, rendering the next reel or so of the film more than a little confusing.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fairly good, but not what it set itself up as
I get really annoyed at the English dvd box producers for asian films. They somehow feel they must trick people into buying their dvds by lying on the cover about the genre and... Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2010 by J. Natali
Asian action...
This has all the elements of a really good, solid action movie. Unfortunately, for some reason, it doesn't quite gel. Read more
Published on 26 Oct 2008 by Mr. G. Sturdy
Classier than the Jack Ryan / Tom Clancy film series
Typhoon's plot synopsis reads like one of them bad action novels written by an ex-special forces operative, but the executive elevates it well abave this to produce a film that... Read more
Published on 27 Dec 2007 by Mr. G. Carroll
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
