TUNNEL

터널

Directed by Kim Seong-hun

Asia Pop! / South Korea / 2016 / Thriller / 127 mins / Korean with English subtitles / DCP

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TUNNEL

UltraStar Mission Valley
Monday, November 7, 2016 8:05 pm

TUNNEL

UltraStar Mission Valley
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 8:25 pm

Description

Official Selection, 2016 Locarno Film Festival

Things are looking up for salaryman Lee Jung-soo. Business is on the upswing and he’s on his way home from work to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. Then, in a freak turn of events, the long mountain tunnel he’s driving through caves in, stranding him in the dark, rocks piled over all sides of his Kia, his body and spirits crushed. All he has with him in the steel prison of his car are two bottles of water, a birthday cake, a cell phone (battery life: 81%), and the assurance from rescuers on the other line that in a few days, he will be saved.

TUNNEL cuts back and forth between the minutiae of Jung-soo’s incremental attempts to loosen himself free, and the mechanisms of the outside world: a rescue team searching for ways into the collapsed mountain, the media circus lined up outside to cover the operation, politicians wedging in for photo ops.

Director Kim Seong-hun (A Hard Day, SDAFF ’14) turns a cynical eye on the value of human life in a world fueled by business opportunity and the court of public opinion. TUNNEL is a thriller of social dysfunction, set to a heart-stopping race to save a man sitting at the bottom of an hourglass filled with boulders. Within the confines of the claustrophobic tunnel, actor Ha Jung-woo (The Terror Live, SDAFF ’13) performs brilliantly without the luxury of space or lighting, embodying a man struggling to maintain hope, brightening the darkness with the optimism that just beyond the rocks are the wife and daughter for whom he’s battling to survive. –Brian Hu