Sunday, December 4, 2022

Decibel - An Entertaining Sound Terror South Korean Movie

I found out about this movie in the social medias of few Indonesian cinema chains and was really interested with the premise. Though it was shown in several cinemas last weekend, my wife and I were not able to go then. So yesterday we set our mind to see it in the theater not far from our home. And now here's more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Naval Commander Kang (Kim Rae-won - Doctors TV series, Crazy Romance etc) was getting phone calls from mysterious terrorist (Lee Jong-suk - Big Mouth TV series, Romance is a Bonus Book TV series etc) who was threatening to detonate two bombs in different location and asked him to choose which one he should focus on. To dispose the bombs, sergeant Jang Yoo-jung (Lee Sang-hee - Juvenille Justice TV series etc) was asked to specifically handle the threats because of the message from the terrorist. However the bombs were not the normal type as they were sound sensitive and were set to speed up with the increase of noise. Kang had no choice but to work together with a reporter named Oh Da-oh (Jung Sang-hoon - The Lady in Dignity TV series etc) to face these threats.

Meanwhile defense security agent Cha Young-han (Park Byung-eun - Seo Bok etc) was suspicious of the bomb threats as they seemed to be related to Kang's past. As the threats were getting more dangerous, Kang had to race against time to find out why he was being targeted while trying to save the city.

So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

This movie started off with something that seem unrelated, but we were very sure that it was going to have some relation in the latter stage. As soon as the bomb threats started, the movie became intense and suspenseful and we were kept on our toes constantly as the terrors gave a truly terrifying effect, especially when we saw the aftermath of the explosion. But what made it very interesting compared to other movie with bomb threats were the sound sensitive part. The intensity was really felt when there was a situation that would rouse the noise which would speed up the timer. Hence the title Decibel was really suitable for it.

Like in many South Korean movies, this one also had the typical melodramatic scenes that would provide emotional moments. And we got plenty of them in the middle but the most touching moments were during the time before the end. It was brilliantly done and gave the desired effect that I am sure the director Hwang In-ho (Spellbound, Monster) wanted to have on this film. It certainly affected my wife a lot and even myself. I also felt that the story telling was pretty amazing as we were slowly shown why our protagonist was being the target of these terrors. Only thing that we were confused was the scene related to the final threat as it was not properly explained, while my wife noticed something else that was more crucial, with regards to the terror threats over the phone as it did not seem too logical. However, apart from those, the film was still very enjoyable for us and I believe for the audience who filled two third of the studio.

The cast were definitely the main attraction in here as majority were quite experienced and pretty well known in the South Korean entertainment industry. Kim Rae-won and Lee Jong-suk had been nominated and won numerous awards in the past years, while Jung Sang-hon was known for his comedic roles, just like in here where he provided few humorous scenes that were naturally added in the movie. There were also important characters such as naval officer Tae-ryoung (Cha Eun-woo - True Beauty TV series etc) and captain Hwang (Lee Min-ki - My Liberation Notes TV series etc). Oh the movie runtime was 110 minutes which I felt was the perfect duration. It did not have any mid or post end credit scene.

Despite the movie's high entertainment value (at least for me and my wife), it did not seem to be performing that well commercially in its country. After released for more than 2 weeks, it has not reached the top 10 in term of ticket sales. Nevertheless, we still liked this movie a lot not only because of the intensity but also of the drama and the story. So if you are looking for movie with those attributes, you would likely be entertained by this one like it did for us. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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