Review of Emergency Declaration

After hearing and reading some reviews, I went to the cinema with zero expectations and memories of the previous Korean movie I watched, Parasite. The other draw I had for this movie was that actor Song Kang-ho who gave a splendid performance in Parasite was part of the film. That made me pretty excited to buy the tickets. The movie started pretty slowly as they took a good 30 minutes to build up the characters who were going to board the plane. The makers did a good job of establishing a connection between the audience and the characters which makes you feel for the characters, their motives and grievances. The entire sequence in the plane was very well made and definitely gave chills down the spine when the flight was almost going to crash or be attacked by forces from a neighbouring country. The actors, cast and crew did a splendid job, especially the VFX and cinematography department. Although I was not humming much music due to the intense sequences, the music did serve the purpose of keeping the audience engaged throughout. Now, here are some of the things which I wished director Han Jae-Rim explored further. The villain/terrorist who is responsible for this entire crisis on board does not seem to have a clear motive on why he carried out such activity on board a flight apart from being a mad scientist. The weak motive and narrative of the villain are major drawbacks for me. This movie would have been way better if the director had focused on that part and established a connection with the ongoing crisis the world is facing today. The other major drawback for me was that the ending was something that most audiences expected which made this movie more of an ordinary disaster thriller. A different and more tragic ending would have elevated this film to another level. I would recommend this movie to those who love disaster thriller films.