The Tower (2012 South Korean film)

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The Tower
The Tower (2012).jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Kim Ji-hoon
Produced by Lee Han-seung
Lee Su-man
Written by Kim Sang-don
Heo Jun-seok
Adaptation  
Kim Ji-hoon
Yoo Young-ah
Lee Min-jae
Starring <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Music by Kim Tae-seong
Cinematography Kim Young-ho
Edited by Kim Sang-bum
Kim Jae-bum
Production
company
The Tower Pictures
Distributed by CJ Entertainment
Release dates
 <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • December 25, 2012 (2012-12-25)
Running time
 121 minutes
Country South Korea
Language Korean
Budget US$9.3 million
Box office US$36.4 million[1]

The Tower (Hangul: 타워; RR: Tawo; "Tower") is a 2012 South Korean disaster thriller film about a fire that breaks out in a luxury skyscraper in central Seoul on Christmas Eve after an aviation accident involving a helicopter. The film is directed by Kim Ji-hoon,[2] and stars Sol Kyung-gu, Son Ye-jin and Kim Sang-kyung in the lead roles.[3][4] It was released in theaters on December 25, 2012.[5]

Plot

In Christmas Eve 2011, Lee Dae-ho is a single father and manager of Tower Sky, a 120-story luxurious landmark twin-tower building complex in Yeouido, Seoul. An earnest employee liked by his colleagues and secretly in love with his love interest Seo Yoon-hee, he has promised to spend the day at an amusement park with his daughter Ha-na, but had to cancel their plans as he is needed at the party to oversee the preparations of the upcoming "White Christmas" party held by a restaurant manager. Mr. Jo, the owner and president of the Tower Sky complex, which targets its tenants and VIPs who are to attend on Christmas Eve, along with South Korean politicians.

During his time, the building is discovered to be riddled with several problems, such as faulty water sprinklers due to frozen exterior water pipes which prevents water from reaching to the higher floors. In addition, the high wind forecast meant that helicopters, which were sent to sprinkle snow for the party, are not supposed to fly, but Mr. Cha, the Tower Sky's safety section head, and Jo, are more concerned about the party than any of these potential issues within the structure, despite receiving concerns from his fellow employers.

As the party is in full swing, huge updrafts cause one of the helicopters to spin out of control and the attached lights crash into the glass bridge connecting the two Tower Sky buildings and into 63rd floor on the side of one of the buildings; the Riverview Tower, killing both pilots, injuring dozens of inhabitants and partygoers, and causing the helicopter to leak fuel and building catches fire. The sprinklers were unable to supply the water to the fire on the upper floors because of the frozen pipes, and the flames began to quickly spread, unopposed. Pandemonium erupts as people attempt to flee the complex, which adds to further injury and loss of life. The team of firefighters, led by Kang Young-ki, arrives at the scene. Among them is Lee Seon-woo, a rookie fireman who was just recently assigned. Young-ki was supposed to take a break and spend Christmas Eve with his wife but changes his mind at the last minute. With the fire's point of origin too high than the fire ladders can reach, he orders his squad to directly enter the building and tackle the origin of the blaze.

Along their way, they bump into Dae-ho, who is out frantically searching for his daughter, whom she, along with Yoon-hee, Young-cheol, Ming-jung, Mr. Yoon and Mrs. Jung, have took shelter inside the Chinese restaurant. At Dae-ho's insistence, and after leading his firefighting team to a quickest path to the server room; where the helicopter was ablaze, Young-ki gives him his radio and an oxygen mask to find his daughter.

Firefighters reach the server room on the 63rd floor but are having difficulties to extinguish the blaze. Young-ki takes a decisive but risky maneuver, drawing the fire out by smashing the glass windows using his fireaxe, and using one of their oxygen apparatus tanks to cut off the flames enough for firefighters to contain the blaze at its origin. However, the blaze continues to spread further within the building, and is starting to cause damage to the structure due to its intense heat warping the building's steel frame. Against his employers' concerns that there are people trapped within the blazing floors, Jo activates the firewalls in an attempt to halt the spread of fire, leaving Dae-ho trapped at the restaurant but was able to reunite with Ha-na.

Before the firefighters were able to destroy the firewall towards the restaurant, the cracks have begun to spread rapidly and reaches the restaurant, causing it to crumble in around them. Dae-ho, under Yoon-hee's suggestion, directs the trapped survivors to jump on the gondola in order to escape and drop down below the restaurant, but both Yoon and Jung perish during their descent. Meanwhile, Young-ki and his team find a critically injured Young-cheol, whom he uses morphine to euthanize him. Dae-ho's group tries to escape to the Cityview Tower by crossing the skybridge nearby, unfortunately, the structure gives way and Cha fell to his death while Sun-woo and Ha-na only makes it across.

With the Riverview Tower starting to buckle, Fire Commissioner Jang decides to demolish the Riverview Tower to avoid it toppling over the other twin tower that would cause colossal damage and loss of life across Yeongdeungpo District and orders everyone inside the complex to evacuate. To buy time, Fire Chief Seo-jang orders Young-ki to use Dae-ho's fingerprint access to discharge the tower's water reserve tanks to reduce weight and slow down the rate of collapse. They were able to delay the collapse, but only a little. Young-ki and Dae-ho decides to ride through the blaze in a free-fall using the freight elevator to quickly descend to the surface. Dae-ho, Young-ki and Nam-ok were able to climb out before the elevator descends and slams Into the basement, fatally wounding Kim, the church elder, and leaving the rest running short of air.

Dae-ho decides to voluntarily go back inside Tower Sky along with Young-ki and Sun-woo to rescue Yoon-hee, Byung-man and the other survivors. Once there, they drag them to the storm drain and set out and to detonate the rainwater tank to create a fast-moving current that will send them straight towards the Han River in order to escape before the Riverview Tower demolishes. Before reaching the rainwater tanks, however, Young-ki loses the detonator.

Young-ki asks Dae-ho and Sun-woo to leave him behind as he decides to sacrifice his own life by manually detonating the explosives to allow them to escape. After saying his tearful goodbyes to his estranged wife by a voicemail, he detonates the explosives, killing himself and sending the rushing torrent that carries the group towards the river, right as the firefighters blow up the Riverview Tower. As the survivors are pulled out from the water by the rescue team, Sun-woo and Byung-man salutes for their fallen captain.

Before the closing credits, a white chocolate cake is shown to be the only one left in display case, which was meant to be delivered to Kang Young-ki. The 63 Building, with the remains of Tower Sky now consisting of the single 120-story Cityview Tower are also shown, with thick dust from the remains of Riverview Tower enveloping Yeouido.

Cast

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  • Sol Kyung-gu – Captain Kang Young-ki
  • Son Ye-jin – Seo Yoon-hee[6][7][8][9]
  • Kim Sang-kyung – Lee Dae-ho
  • Kim In-kwon – Sergeant Oh Byung-man
  • Ahn Sung-ki – Yeouido Fire Station chief Seo-jang
  • Song Jae-ho – Mr. Yoon, the old man
  • Lee Joo-shil – Mrs. Jung, Mr. Yoon's friend
  • Lee Han-wi – Mr. Kim, church elder
  • Kwon Tae-won – Jang, the Fire Commissioner
  • Jeon Guk-hyang – Ae-ja
  • Jung In-gi – Cha, the safety section head
  • Cha In-pyo – President Jo
  • Jeon Bae-soo – Young-cheol, the cook
  • Kim Sung-oh – In-gun
  • Min Young – Nam-ok, the pregnant woman
  • Park Jun-seo – aide
  • Lee Joo-ha – Min-jung, the receptionist
  • Do Ji-han – Lee Sun-woo, the rookie fireman[10]
  • Jo Min-ah – Lee Ha-na, Dae-ho's daughter
  • Lee Sang-hong – Yeouido fireman
  • Jin Mo – Yeouido fireman
  • Chu Min-ki – Yeouido fireman
  • Kang Poong – Yeouido fireman
  • Kwon Hyun-sang – Young-hoon
  • Lee Chang-yong – command HQ specialist
  • Lee Chang-joo – Jo's private secretary
  • Park Chul-min – head cook
  • Kim Eung-soo – Jin
  • Park Jeong-hak – Jung
  • Park Yong-su – Park
  • Kim Soo-jin – Kang Young-ki's wife
  • Nam Sang-seok – reporter in front of Tower Sky
  • Kwon Young-hee – reporter in front of Tower Sky
  • Lee Min-woo – reporter in front of Tower Sky

English dubbing

Production

Director Kim Ji-hoon (who previously helmed Sector 7 and May 18) was inspired by the 1974 Hollywood film The Towering Inferno, and his personal experience seeing the 63 Building in Seoul for the first time as a middle school student and imagining how it would feel to be trapped inside.[2]

The crew built 26 different sets to create various spaces in the fictional 108-story Tower Sky such as a Chinese restaurant, elevators and a pedestrian overpass between the two blocks. For the scenes involving water on the 80th floor, actors Sol Kyung-gu and Kim Sang-kyung filmed in a water container set in Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province, without using stuntmen.[11]

Kim worked on the film's post-production for two years. 1,700 cuts out of 3,000 were based on CGI and 500 of the CG cuts were full 3-D cut scenes. For more authenticity, live action shoots were combined with CGI, such as the shooting of a miniature in the United States with a motion control camera for the ending scene.[2]

Box office

On its theater release on December 25, 2012, The Tower drew 431,759 admissions, the second highest opening day ticket sales in the history of Korean cinema (after The Thieves' 436,628).[12][13][14] It sold two million tickets in its first week,[15] 3.54 million by its second week,[16] and 4.45 million by its third week.[17] On January 22, 2013, it became the first Korean film in 2013 to reach the five million mark.[18][19][20][21]

International

The film was pre-sold by CJ Entertainment to Entertainment One in UK, Splendid in Germany, Benelux, Zylo for French-speaking territories, Horizon International in Turkey, Rainbow Entertainment in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia; and Jonon Source in Mongolia.[22]

The Tower earned HK$4,733,937 at the Hong Kong box office.[23]

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Nominated work Result
2013 49th Baeksang Arts Awards Best New Actor Do Ji-han Nominated
Mnet 20's Choice Awards 20's Booming Star, Male Nominated
22nd Buil Film Awards Best Cinematography Kim Young-ho Nominated
50th Grand Bell Awards Technical Award (visual effects) Digital Idea Won

References

  1. ↑ "The Tower (2012)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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External links

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