TYPHOON aka TAEPUNG

Year: 2005
USA: Paramount Classics
UK: Contender Entertainment Group
Cast: Jang Dong-kun, Lee Jung-jae, Lee Mi-yeon, David McInnis, David No, Chatthapong Pantanaunkul
Director: Kwak Kyung-Taek
Country: South Korea
Languages: Korean / English / Thai / Russian / Mandarin (English subtitles)
USA: 124 mins
UK: 108 mins
USA Rated: R for strong violence and brief language
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong violence
USA Release Date: 2 June 2006 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 27 April 2007 (Limited Release)


Synopsis

From Kwak Kyung-taek, director of Champion and the record-breaking Korean box office smash, Friend, comes TYPHOON, an ambitious and technically impressive political action-thriller that effectively takes on Hollywood at its own game.

The biggest-budgeted South Korean movie ever made, boasting superlative production values and locations ranging from Korea and Russia to Thailand, TYPHOON combines themes and action sequences reminiscent of John Woo's best work with the kind of cinematic thrills and pyrotechnics usually associated with the high concept blockbusters of Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Set against the backdrop of the tense and potentially volatile political standoff between North and South Korea, TYPHOON begins with the theft of a South Korean-bound cargo of US-supplied nuclear devices. Masterminding the crime is Choi Myeong-sin (Lee Mi-yeon), a psychotic, modern-day pirate who intends to use the devices to contaminate the entire Korean peninsula with deadly radioactive dust by launching them from a ship into the combined heart of a pair of approaching typhoons. For 'Sin' this is simply his revenge for what he considers was an act of betrayal by South Korea some 20 years earlier, when his parents were killed after being refused asylum from the North.

Heading up an undercover mission to foil Sin's plot to devastate the divided country is former Navy SEAL, Kang Se-jong (Lee Jung-jae), who manages to track down Sin's long lost sister in the hope of using her to lure Sin into a trap. Elsewhere, Japan and the US are considering their own options regarding how to avert the serious political repercussions of such a disaster occurring, with the latter launching a submarine to destroy all trace of the nuclear devices. Meanwhile, Sin's ship is sailing literally in the eye of one of the raging storms as the second typhoon approaches...