Project Silence - An Intense and Suspenseful Combination of Disaster and Action Thriller Movie

As I said in my earlier post, there were quite a lot of new movies released in Indonesian cinemas this week, with two of them from South Korea. It was amazing since according to the schedule this month, there would be 5 of them. And this was the second one we saw during our movie marathon last Saturday. All right then, let's move on with it.

Brief Story Line

Cha Jung-won (Lee Sun-kyun - Parasite, My Mister TV series etc) who worked as the aide to Secretary General/candidate for President Jung Hyun-baek (Kim Tae-woo - The Pirates, Twinkling Watermelon TV series etc) was driving to the airport with his daughter Kyung-min (Kim Su-an - Train to Busan, Reflection of You TV series etc). While passing through the bridge that connected to the airport, a catastrophic incident occurred which resulted to the bridge on the verge of collapsing. 

Things became more complicated with the existence of experimental dogs by Doctor Yang (Kim Hee-won - Unlocked, The Light in Your Eyes TV series etc). As time running out, the remaining survivors including golfer Yura (Park Ju-hyun - Seoul Vibes, The Forbidden Marriage TV series ec) and her assistant Miran (Park Hee-von - One Day, Familiar Wife TV series etc), an old couple Byeong-hak (Moon Sung-keun - Moving TV series, Forgotten etc) and Sun-ok (Ye Soo-jung - New Year Blues, The Worst of Evil TV series etc) and a tow truck driver Joe Park (Ju Ji-hoon - Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days, Kingdom TV series ) had to find ways to save themselves.

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

End of Brief Story Line

I was intrigued to see this movie as from the very brief synopsis, it seemed to promise great suspense. And I was glad that it delivered. The film which was categorized under disaster genre had the usual traits of having brief introductory scenes of the impacted people, but it did not take overly long to get to the exciting part. And the incident that started everything was greatly done as it looked convincing with the support of good enough sound effects that enhanced the intensity. Although the CGV studio screen we saw this was not of the highest quality, but at least the brightness was sufficient and we could still see everything despite most scenes happening at night.

In addition to the time sensitivity, the movie also had a bit of political angle to spice things up which provided more anxiety. The story itself was not difficult to digest and made audience not having to worry about the plot and just concentrate on the survivors' action to save themselves. Btw, the studio was quite full to our surprise. Probably because this is brand new movie (I read from the social media that it was released in Indonesia at the same day with South Korea), so I guess a lot of people were interested to give it a try. 

The cast in general did decent job in portraying their roles, particularly Lee Sun-kyun (who sadly passed away in December 2023) and Ju Ji-hoon who provided comical relief. The movie felt rather dark which was understandable considering the premise but there were few occasional lighter moments and humorous scenes all from Ji-hoon's character. Strangely though for a disaster film, the drama was not as strong as I imagined. Yes there was a bit of emotional moment but somehow it was not too touching. The ending was something that my wife and I had differing opinion. I hoped for a more powerful ending, however she thought this ending was better and more satisfying. After finishing the movie, I actually felt it was more suitable categorized under action thriller due to its intensity, with a bit of horror and sci-fi, instead of disaster drama which normally would have lots of melodramatic scenes involving the characters.

Before the film started, I saw the logo of 76th Cannes Film Festival which after further reading, I found out that it was indeed screened there on 21 May 2023. Its release schedule was put on hold due to the issues related to Lee Sun-kyun. There was no mid or post end credit scene for this 96 minutes movie, which was pretty short to my opinion. It was directed by Kim Tae-gon (Familyhood, The Sunshine Boys etc) and written by Kim Yong-hwa (director of The Moon, Ashfall etc) & Park Joo-seok (Hwayi: A Monster Boy etc).

Overall this was an enjoyable film if you are looking for suspense throughout the movie with a bit of humor and simple enough plot. As it focused was more towards the survival which involved some action rather than the drama about the people affected by the catastrophe, it might not be viewed greatly by the more critical audience. But for me and my wife, we were pleased to have seen this in the theater. So if you are just like us who are more entertained by the attributes I mentioned, I believe you would also be enjoying the movie. If you are interested in giving this a try, it would not be a big challenge as it's currently playing in all Indonesian major cinema chains.

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