August 28, 2022
Detective In-ho (Song Kang-ho) was investigating a viral video online about a man who declared that he wanted to kill people on an airplane. In-ho knew his wife Hye-yoon (Woo Mi-hwa) was flying off that day with her friends, and became worried. The police were able to trace the man's apartment and upon entering it, they discovered a dead body and a cache of video tapes showing an experiment with dying mice.
A passenger airplane just left Seoul, South Korea for Honolulu, Hawaii. Among the passengers was a disgruntled young scientist Jin-seok (Yim Si-wan) who was plotting to kill everyone onboard. A little girl Soo-min (Kim Bo-min) and her father Jae-hyuk (Lee Byung-hun) noticed his strange behavior and reported it to the head stewardess Hee-jin (Kim So-jin). However, they were too late in thwarting Jin-Seok's nefarious plan.
This film boasts of a powerhouse cast led by superstars Song Kang-ho (from "Parasite" and "Memories of Murder") taking charge on land, and Lee Byung-hun (from "I Saw the Devil" and "Master") taking charge in the air. The story was reminiscent of classic American disaster film "Airport" (1970), where a man with a death wish boarded a plane and authorities scramble to figure out how and where to land the airplane safely.
We need to credit Korean filmmakers for being able to squeeze all they can from a stressful situation to sustain suspense throughout its running time. Jin-seok was already able to carry out his plans within the first 30 minutes, and there were 2 hours more of exciting stuff to go. The complications (medical, mechanical, personal, political, etc) kept on coming from all sides one after the other, such that the final resolution was still uncertain until the final five minutes.
This airplane really went through everything and anything during that flight. Aside from an unknown disease spreading and causing death and panic on board, the plane lost power and plummeted down into the sea, and was also shot at by security jets for unauthorized entry into foreign air space. On land, there was one particularly involving scene where the audience was placed virtual-reality-style inside a police car chasing a motorcycle in high speed.
A Korean film is not complete without a big heartfelt scene of tear-jerking melodrama, especially in this scenario where there are sick passengers trapped on a plane, while all their relatives were all waiting on the ground for a safe landing which was not forthcoming. I felt that there could have been a more memorable ending for one moment there, but then writer-director Han Jae-rim decided to take a safer route. 7/10.
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