HAEUNDAE (2009)

If you're standing on top of a skyscraper looking up at a tidal wave, you're fucked.

The citizens of Haeundae are living their normal lives: working, sunbathing, eating, shopping, getting drunk at baseball games, hooking up with hot chicks. But little do they know a mega-tsunami could happen at any moment! Earthquake expert, Dr. Kim, keeps warning the government about the risk of a mega-tsunami, but nobody listens until it's too late. When will they ever learn?!!!

It's over an hour into the film before the disaster strikes. The special effects are a little cheesy and the sad scenes are so predictable that you'll end up laughing instead of crying, but I still enjoyed it. Mainly because it was so over the top. Sadly though the disaster stuff only lasts for probably 30 minutes. The rest of the time is wasted on boring, unlikable characters that I really didn't care if they lived or died. I was especially disappointed in Kyung-gu Sol's character. I just recently discovered him in PUBLIC ENEMY and was excited to see what he would do in a more mainstream film, but I got excited for nothing cause he sucked.

My favorite scene was when the giant cargo ship exploded and shot out a bunch of cargo containers into the sides of buildings like they were cannonballs in a videogame!

Good for a rent and more enjoyable than 2012, but just barely.

MOTHER (2009)

[Update 03/30/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely.]

MOTHER is about a poor mother, who has a few screws loose, but nowhere near as many as her son, Yoon Do-joon. This guy would make the guy from THE WEIRDO look smart! Anyway, all Yoon does is wander around all day. One night he's out drinking and wandering home late...yes, a drunk intellectually disabled dude out on the streets alone.  Anything could  happen! Well the next day somebody finds a dead girl. Yoon is immediately arrested and charged with the murder (I won't get into the clues), but his mother believes that he's innocent and nothing is going to stop her from proving his innocence.

I enjoyed the movie, but I would never watch it again. For a one time watch though it was alright. The acting was good, it looked nice and the story rolled along at a good pace.

PUBLIC ENEMY (2002)

"...I can't tell if you're a policeman or a gangster."

Kyung-gu Sol is an out of control homicide detective.  Late one night while casually taking a shit in the middle of a sidewalk (I told you this dude was out of control...I ain't never seen Dirty Harry drop a dirty deuce on a public sidewalk!), Sol bumps into a serial killer and falls back into his own crap.  Nobody makes Sol touch a pile of steamy poo-poo and gets away with it.  Not even a serial killer.  They get into a tussle, but the killer slashes Sol's face and runs away.  Soon some bodies are discovered near the spot of the sidewalk shitting and Sol is on the case!

I liked PUBLIC ENEMY.  The scenes of Sol acting like a maniac are entertaining, but the 138 minute runtime is just too long.  There could have easily been 20 minutes chopped off, especially towards the beginning.  Honestly, the story could have been changed around some and have the movie start with the sidewalk crapping scene.  Instead, it was 50 minutes into the movie!  I'm not going to bore you with a list of changes I would have made to the film, instead, I'll just say: if you like crazy, out of control cop movies, then you should definitely check out PUBLIC ENEMY.

Good acting, adequate violence, entertaining characters, banana versus chainsaw fight, bizarre mood swings in the story (example: horror movie level kill scene then an Ace Ventura-style montage featuring the murder suspect out jogging when suddenly Sol jogs up next to him and the suspect speeds away; the serial killer laughing at Sol getting into a fight with the owner of a convenience store who doesn't appreciate him climbing into a ice cream freezer on a hot afternoon, etc.), Sol's family shown once towards the beginning of the film and then never seen ever again, inconsistent pacing, no substantial females roles, the word "asshole" used at least 50 times, confusing ending, upbeat and out of place music, non-stop horrible police work and abuse of power.

Part 2 - Another Public Enemy (2005)
Part 3 - Public Enemy Returns (2008)