Director Kim Seong-hun (whose 2014 film A Hard Day has become part of the great pantheon of Korean crime thrillers) is back this year with a disaster film, Tunnel, and a new poster and the first teaser have been released.
One of our Korean film expert Pierce Conran's most anticipated titles of the year, Tunnel features an all-star cast of heavyweight actors, certainly known to Korean cinephiles audiences: Bae Doo-na (Cloud Atlas, A Girl At My Door), Ha Jung-woo (The Yellow Sea, The Handmaiden), and Oh Dal-su (Veteran, Assassination).
A man is on his way home to his family, when the badly-constructed tunnel he is driving through collapses, leaving him trapped. With draining battery power and a rescue effort that might end before it locates him, he might be left to his own devices to find his way out.
While there might be some disaster-film plot devices familiar to audiences, there are also some strong connections to current Korean events, such as the Sewol ferry disaster (linked to corruption and poor construction/management). Kim has thus far been successful at moving between genres, with his first feature How the Lack of Love Affects Two Men (2006) being a comedy, and A Hard Day, a thriller.
This first teaser lacks english subtitles, but it's not hard to guess at what the characters are saying. The film is slated for release in Korea this August, and hopefully will be seen internationally as well.