The Tunnel Ups the Ante for Disaster Movies

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Jung-soo (HA Jung-woo), the manager of a car dealership, is in a cheerful mood on the way home from work thanks to a big order that he has just received. Then suddenly, the tunnel he is driving through collapses, and he is trapped inside. The only thing he can see around him is concrete wreckage, and all he has to sustain himself is 78% of his phone’s battery, two bottles of water, and his daughter’s birthday cake.

With the news of a major tunnel collapse, South Korea is thrown into panic and the government rushes to put together a rescue plan. Dae-kyung (OH Dal-su), leader of the rescue team, tries various means to access the tunnel, but work proceeds at a frustratingly slow pace. Meanwhile, Jung-soo’s wife Se-hyun (Doona BAE) sends him messages of support through the only radio station he can hear under the tunnel, and she keeps up hope that he will return alive.

Ultimately, the slow rescue effort causes a setback to the construction of a nearly complete tunnel nearby, and public opinion becomes divided over whether to proceed with a rescue effort that seems doomed to fail.

Sound like your kind of movie? Although it sounds bleak, ultimately The Tunnel is a story about life, according to director Kim Seong-hun. “It occurred to me that human life, the most important thing that we know, is becoming too devalued in these days, and so I took up this story.”

Kim, known in Korea as a cinematic master of twisting genres, said that with Tunnel he wanted to make a film that tears down the conventions of the disaster movie genre. Through a disaster which seems lifted from ordinary reality, the film reminds us all of the forgotten dignity of human life. Leavening the heavy theme with doses of laughter and tension, the director shifts smoothly between emotional extremes to create a distinctive and realistic disaster movie that brings something new to the genre. Not only that, the image of the collapsed tunnel and the lifelike recreation of its ravaged interior provide a stunning visual spectacle that has the Korean film industry buzzing in anticipation of its release.

The Tunnel opens in Boston on Aug. 26.