Tawo [The Tower] (2012)

Here's one that's been on our list for a while. This is a 2012 South Korean disaster movie set on Christmas Eve directed by Kim Ji-hoon. The effects and overall production values are, for the most part, at the level of a Hollywood blockbuster, and the movie was a massive success in South Korea. It was so well executed, I found myself a little surprised it hadn't received a US release... until it got to the third act, when it became extremely clear why this particular market wasn't an option.

The premise is going to be familiar to anyone who's heard of the 1974 film, The Towering Inferno, whether you've seen it or not (which is fortunate, because that's another one I still need to get around to). At its core, The Tower is about people trying to escape a burning skyscraper, with the complexity coming from who the characters are, what their relationships are to each other, what they're willing to risk or sacrifice for each other, and so on.

While the premise is straightforward, the plot is a tangled web of intersecting storylines. There are a lot of characters in this, too many to try and list here, though four or five stand out as the primary protagonists.

To the extent this has a main character, it's Lee Dae-ho, the building manager of a massive residential tower occupied almost exclusively by wealthy patrons. Dae-ho is a widower looking after his daughter, Ha-na, who he brings to the tower to experience the Christmas light display, which this year includes artificial snow sprinkled in through open roofs by helicopters. When he needs to take care of some late work, he leaves Ha-na with Seo Yoon-hee, a woman Dae-ho is smitten with but has yet to find the courage to ask out.

Naturally, one of the helicopters crashes into the building, setting a massive fire and killing a bunch of people outright. Yoon-hee and Dae-ho's daughter are trapped in the middle of the tower, and Dae-ho is trying to reach them.

You may have noticed we're a few major characters shy of what I promised. Those would be two of the firefighters trying to minimize the loss of life. And, to be clear, when I say "two" I'm being selective: there's at least one other firefighter with comparable screentime, but he's not as connected to the other major characters.

Captain Young-ki is something of a legend among the other firefighters. He's supposed to have the night off, but when the alarm sounds he joins the others despite their protests. Lee Sun-woo, meanwhile, just graduated from the academy and is eager to prove himself and serve the community.

Dae-ho eventually meets up with the firefighters and bonds with Young-ki, though the two are separated almost immediately, as Young-ki is tricked by his superiors into prioritizing "high value" individuals over those in the most need. When he realizes his time has been wasted, he's furious and returns to trying to locate Dae-ho, who reunites with his daughter, Ha-na, and a number of other trapped survivors, most of whom are service workers.

After a harrowing escape from one collapsing floor using a window-cleaning gondola, they make their way to a glass bridge that connects to the other tower in the complex, where they reunite with the firefighters. The walkway starts to break, forcing them to try crossing one at a time. Dae-ho's daughter goes first and makes it across with Sun-woo's help as the walkway collapses.

Dae-ho thinks his daughter may have died, as everything's unclear in the collapse, so he's naturally in a bad state of mind. Nevertheless, Young-ki needs his help to release a massive tank of water that will get their remaining group some time to escape (they're still on the 70th floor). There's a clock ticking now, because the tower they're in is going to collapse, and the officials on the ground have already decided to demolish it first to minimize the damage to the surrounding area - it's just a question of how long they can risk waiting first.

There's still no path down, so Young-ki and Dae-ho come up with a desperate plan to cut the cables on an elevator, ride it past the fire, then hope the emergency breaks will save them. This sort of works, but the brakes don't hold long enough to get everyone off before the elevator plummets to the basement. For our simplified purposes, that means Dae-ho and Young-ki make it out, while Yoon-hee (the prospective girlfriend) and a few other characters wind up trapped below.

Outside Dae-ho is once again reunited with his daughter, albeit briefly. There's yet another desperate plan on the table to save Yoon-hee and the others before the building is demolished in 20 minutes. But this plan will require them to go in through the sewers, find the survivors, set up explosives against another massive water tank, then ride the wave of released water to the river, where rescue boats will be waiting.

Also, Dae-ho is going with Young-ki on this mission, because if a building manager with no training tagging along for something like this is going to be a deal-breaker, you've already been watching the wrong movie for a couple hours. Oh, and Lee Sun-woo comes along, too, so he can get a dramatic scene with Young-ki later.

They find the missing survivors and set the explosives, but by this point the remote detonator has fallen down a hole. Captain Young-ki locks himself behind a gate with the explosives, so the others can't stop him from detonating them manually. First, he gets the aforementioned scene with Sun-woo. He also leaves his wife a voicemail apologizing for all this, then sets off the explosives.

Everyone still alive gets picked up by the boats. By this time it's Christmas morning, though the movie's more focused on exploiting the drama than celebrating.

That's it for those plotlines, but I really can't stress enough how much of the movie I'm glossing over. There are quite literally at least a dozen other characters who have arcs and relationships. The movie works hard to keep you guessing as to who lives and who dies. There are a handful that are relatively obvious (I was never all that concerned about Dae-ho's daughter's odds), but there are also pretty convincing misdirects going both ways.

Tonally, the movie starts fairly comedic before pivoting to suspense (and even occasional horror) after the accident. It still occasionally incorporates comedic relief, but the dominant tone from that point on skews relatively dark.

The holiday elements of course interest me. Christmas is primarily portrayed as a romantic holiday in the movie - at least plotlines touch on the concept. Santa is referenced, as well, and of course there are quite a few decorations and songs. Religious connections appear in one subplot, interestingly in a farcical way. It's also worth noting the depiction of Christianity is heavily simplified. The movie sort of jumbles various references from the Bible - old and new Testaments - into a series of jokes and misunderstandings. It's fascinating to see Christianity in effect treated the way minority religions have long been treated by Hollywood.

Ultimately, though, I suspect the main driver for setting this during Christmas was to connect it to American films. Particularly the first half seems to be emulating the feel of Christmas-set US action flicks. I could be mistaken, but I got the impression this welcomed comparisons to Hollywood productions (it certainly seems likely, given how much the premise borrows from The Towering Inferno).

One area the holidays don't appear to be leveraged in is theme. The movie's message mainly concerns class disparity and a critique of capitalism. The accident is ultimately caused by prioritizing advertising and profit over safety. Likewise, various protection systems fail to function because retail space took precedence over things like sprinkler systems.

You could of course argue that those themes are intrinsic to the holidays and have been since at least Dickens (explorations of class are far older, with traditions such as the Lord of Misrule dating back centuries, if not longer). But if the filmmakers were aware of these connections, they didn't exploit or really even reference them. That's in no way a criticism: Christmas, while significant in South Korea, is nowhere near the cultural juggernaut it is here, and there's absolutely no reason the movie should be expected to explore it in the same depth. My guess is the holidays were included for more surface-level purposes.

The movie is well done, but its value is contingent on the viewer suspending disbelief. And, to be clear, it asks quite a bit in that regard - explanations for what's occurring rarely make sense, laws of physics are wantonly ignored, and timelines feel arbitrary. Almost every aspect feels untethered from reality.

The exception is something worth mentioning, however, as it may serve as an important trigger warning to prospective viewers: the design of the tower (more accurately two towers, though only one is destroyed), along with the damage sustained and the visual depiction of its eventual collapse, was clearly inspired by the World Trade Center. The situation is obviously different - this was an accident, rather than an attack - but the movie makes numerous visual references to the event.

Like I said, there's a good reason this didn't get an American release.

Moving into the flaws, I'll admit some of the more extreme leaps in logic strained my willingness to accept the rules of the world. I also had some issues keeping track of everyone - again, there are a lot of characters here. And while most of the effects were great, this of course utilizes CG fire at times, and it's pretty obvious.

That said, the comedy is funny, the suspense is suspenseful, and the drama succeeds in selling the weight of the situation.